Glacier Point , front page of New York Times..

[Stuart G]

http://www.nytimes.com/

If you haven't been there, you have missed one of the most beautiful places ..probably in the world..



Yosemite National Park in California...about 250 miles from San Francisco

[alarimer]

1. Yes, but it's being loved to death

Good for the NPS for addressing some issues.

I would never visit there because there are just too damn many people. Yellowstone as well.

[Stuart G]

2. Yes, lots of people...but, if you go late season, maybe less..

for people who have never seen this, it is worth the hassle ..at least in my opinion. I visited Yellowstone in 2010.. So magnificent ..

[OmahaBlueDog]

4. Here are some parks deserving more love

Please enjoy these pictures of the 10 least visited National Parks along with the visitor numbers from the National Park Service recently released 2012 data report. The 10 least visited National Parks accounted for just 388,502 visits (compared to 37 million for the Top 10 Most Visited National Parks). Also, take a look at the Top 10 most visited National Parks to see if you are one of 37 million that visited these well attended National Parks in 2012.

1) National Park of American Samoa - 10,440 visitors




2) Gates of the Arctic NP & PRES -10,899 visitors




3) Lake Clark NP & PRES - 11,639 visitors

More at: http://www.travelgoalgetter.com/1/post/2013/04/top-10-least-visited-national-parks.html

[alarimer]

6. Some of these places are hard to get to.

I don't think a park should necessarily be judged by its visitation numbers, or lack thereof. Some of these are set aside because they're unique in some or special.

[LWolf]

3. Yosemite is one of my very favorite places in the world.

I don't know if I'll ever make it back there.

In healthier, both physically and financially, times, I visited every year. In October.

In October, it's much quieter. The river is low. Once Yosemite Falls was dry. It was a drought year.

That's okay. I can wander around, enjoy the incredible fall color, find quiet places to meditate...

The last 5 trips I made by myself, and if I ever go again, it will probably be alone. It's easier to immerse myself in the rocks, the trees, and the water that way.

Edited to add:

My incredibly idiotic son, who means the world to me, made the hike/climb up to the top of half dome a few years ago with some of his friends. In a thunderstorm. Fortunately, I didn't know about it until the storm was over and he texted me some pics.

I'm grateful he made it down safely. I don't need to climb or do excessive hiking; my ankle and knee won't bear it these days, anyway. There's enough to satisfy within easy reach.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

5. DU Rec

[Xithras]

7. Yosemite is 90 minutes from my house, and I hold an annual pass.

I honestly have no problem with the elimination of some of the things on the list. Swimming pools? Horseback riding? Those make about as much sense as the golf course at Wawona (yes...you can GOLF in the park). I can even get behind the removal of the historic bridge, as it's seriously impeding the natural course of the river.

But I'm genuinely perplexed about the desire to eliminate bicycles and force tourists onto the CO2 spewing buses. I honestly don't understand the point of wanting to eliminate one of the only low-impact and nonpolluting methods of transportation around Yosemite Valley, if the intent is simply to replace it with another form of transportation that requires even MORE paved space and pollutes the air to an exponentially larger degree. Even worse, there have been discussions for the past decade about improving the quality of mass transit into the park to reduce the number of cars on the road. By forcing people to bring in bikes from outside of the park, you're essentially forcing them to bring in their own cars. A bus driver isn't going to pull over at the privately-run bike rental place outside of the park simply because a couple of passengers want to rent something. This change is telling Yosemite Visitors "If you want to ride a bike around the park, you'll need a car to get it here". It seems incredibly counterproductive.