Experience His Yosemite: Retiring Superintendent Tollefson
Park Superintendent Mike Tollefson began “Experience Your Yosemite” when he first arrived at the national park in 2003, and today, Halloween, is his last program before retiring at the end of January 2009.
“This is our largest group in the six years,” he tells the sixty participants who hail from the park’s neighboring gateway communities. “We thought some of you would be discouraged by the rain, but it looks like everyone is here.”
Tollefson counts “Experience Your Yosemite” as one of his many accomplishments during his 36 years with the National Park Service. His longest tenure was his last assignment, here where it all began in 1864. President Abraham Lincoln signed the Yosemite Grant, creating the park, 52 years before Congress established the park service itself.
“Over 1,200 people have participated in the program,” which Tollefson uses to “help dispel the myths” about the park service’s plans for Yosemite. “It can be frustrating, the misinformation out there. Too often people are debating important topics without being fully informed.”
This group of Yosemite’s neighbors, mostly retirees who have settled in the surrounding communities, have squeezed into the Winter Room at the historic Ahwahnee Lodge in Yosemite Valley. Each person stands to offer a brief introduction. Almost half the group lives in Groveland, the gateway community on Yosemite’s northern border. “Is anyone left in Groveland?” a Mariposa resident inquires.
After the introductions, the superintendent opens the floor to questions.
Tollefson stands over six foot tall. He has worked in nine national parks from Denali in Alaska to the Virgin Islands. He clearly loves this part of the job, though he paces around the front of the room with the nervous energy of somebody who would prefer to be leading his guests on a walking tour of the valley. The first rain of the season has forced them inside this small meeting room tucked behind the Ahwahnee’s great hall.
Tollefson describes the “Experience Your Yosemite” and the Gateway Partnership as part of his legacy—engaging the park’s neighbors in a discussion about its future. “The Gateway Partnership meets quarterly. Over 100 local business people and residents meet to work on ways to move our communities forward.”
This partnership between the park and the gateway communities is more than a goodwill gesture. Transportation is always a topic of interest to members of the partnership. Area businesses want Yosemite’s 3.5 million visitors spend time and money in the gateway communities, rather than in traffic.
He describes plans to expand the visitor centers in the four gateway communities of Groveland, Mariposa to the west, Oakhurst to the south, and Lee Vining to the East. “We already have park rangers at the Mono Lake Visitor Center, answering questions and selling park passes.”
There are fewer traffic jams at the park gates because visitors have already purchased an entrance pass and received a park map. More importantly to Tollefson, local residents develop a personal connection to the park, as rangers work side-by-side with community volunteers at the center.
The special connection to the Great Smokies
He admits that Yosemite was his most enjoyable assignment, and part of the reason is the public’s love of the park. His time in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will always hold a special place in his heart because people feel a personal connection to the park.
“The land was all privately owned. During depths of the Great Depression, neighbors donated nickels and dimes to create the Great Smokies. People are still passionate about their park.”
Tollefson praises the work of the Yosemite Institute, which offers a week-long educational program in the park for junior high and high school students, because so many young people leave Yosemite with the same kind of passion he saw while serving in the Great Smokies.
Not all of his “rotations” were at his request. “I was living on a sailboat in the Virgin Islands when I got a call informing I was being transferred to Alaska.” The park service snatched him out of his island idyll to lead the effort to create a new national park out of the Alaskan wilderness.
Surprisingly, Tollefson did not request the Yosemite assignment. As he tells it, the park service transferred him because of his success at Sequoia National Park, just south of Yosemite.
The park operated a number of cabins inside a sequoia grove. “Sequoias have a very shallow root system. Everyone agreed the cabins had to be removed to protect the grove’s fragile ecosystem, but the project had been stalled for years. One of my biggest accomplishments was building a new lodge outside the grove and removing these cabins.”
The great flood of ‘97
In January 1997, the Merced River flooded, destroying 250 cabins at the Yosemite Lodge and 365 campsites that had lined the river as it meanders through the valley. Later that year, after the requisite public hearings, the park service adopted the Yosemite Valley Implementation Plan, which proposed to permanently reduce the number of rooms in the valley for both visitors and employees; expand the park’s shuttle bus system and create a new regional transportation system to get visitors out of their cars; and restore the valley’s meadows.
That was ten years ago. While some of the projects have moved forward–YARTS, the Yosemite Area Regional Transportation System, links the gateway communities to the park and hybrid buses have replaced the valley’s 18 diesels–the blueprint remains tied up in litigation.
Tollefson can’t hide his frustration, although he must choose his words carefully, at least until his retirement in February. He just summarizes the situation, “One group wants to limit the ‘carrying capacity’ of the valley and the other wants more people.”
Even seemingly uncontroversial projects, like improving the parking area at Olmsted Point in the High Sierras, create a stir. A portion of the parking lot is cordoned off due to the hazard it poses to visitors. The project has been delayed so long, “I’m afraid the construction tape [that ropes off the hazard] will become historic.”
His time in Yosemite? “It’s been great, except for lawsuits.”
Despite challenges, the superintendent believes in public participation, and he urges the park’s neighbors to get involved. Too often people who are satisfied with plans for the park don’t speak up. As a result, the park service only hears from a small number of vocal opponents to proposed changes.
Get involved! Planning underway
Flyers in the visitors center, stores and park lodgings urge visitors to “Get Involved: Park planning underway now! Separate plans are currently being developed for the Tuolumne and Merced Wild and Scenic Rivers.” The flyers reflect Tollefson’s efforts to dispel myths about park planning:
“The planning process will consider a range of alternatives, including a reduction in overnight accommodations . . . campgrounds and other park activities. You may obtain comprehensive workbooks and materials for evaluation, participate in the upcoming planning workshops, and provide your informed comments for each of the plans”
When asked about the future of the High Sierra camps, Tollefson says, “There is some pressure to get rid of them,” including Glen Aulin, which sits on the eastern edge of the “Grand Canyon of the Tuolumne River.”
He notes other issues that need to be addressed in the high country. “We have parking problems in Tuolumne Meadows. We need to consider whether it is appropriate to have a gas station and lodging at the visitors center there.”
All this and more will be considered during the public planning process.
Tollefson says one of the toughest jobs is balancing nature and recreation in the national parks. He points out that 95 percent of Yosemite is wilderness area, accessible only on foot or horseback, but 80% of park visitors are day trippers who only see the valley.
Danger: falling rocks ahead
There are always inherent dangers when you are in a natural environment. The parks have instituted an aggressive program to educate visitors, and park employees, about bears. Signs along the roads warn, “Speeding kills bears,” and visitors are reminded repeatedly not to leave any food or garbage in their cars.
When asked about the incident on October 7, 2008, when 600,000 tons of granite below Glacier Point came crashing down on Curry Village, Tollefson replies, “Rocks fall, people get hurt.”
In this case, only three visitors were injured, but granite boulders and trees snapped in two by the falling rocks destroyed about a half dozen cabins. Most of Curry Village has since reopened.
“Curry Village has been around a hundred years. In recent years we’ve seen a dramatic increase in rock falls.” The superintendent doesn’t indicate what, if anything, the park service plans to do, saying only, “It will take a few more weeks to analyze the risk.”
After serving 36 years in some of this country’s most pristine environments, Tollefson will retire to the city. He found a modest place situated a few floors above the Embarcadero in San Francisco, with stunning views of the Ferry Building and the bay.
Tollefson will serve as the president of the Yosemite Fund, which is headquartered in the city. “The Yosemite Fund provides that ‘margin of excellence’” for many of the park’s capital projects. “They helped fund the remodel of the visitors center. Over the next two years, they are helping with the Tenaya Lake and Mariposa Grove projects.”
The fund has 30,000 donors, and as Tollefson surveys his guests at the Ahwahnee, he hopes to identify a few more.
For more information about Yosemite and its planning process:
Yosemite National Park
New Merced River Plan
Tuolumne River Plan
To support the park and its programs: