Beth Pratt

A magical time of year is coming in February- a chance to see a natural #firefall at #horsetailfall in @YosemiteNPS Last year was the most amazing one I have ever witnessed-this video captured the wind moving the water in a spectacular show. #yosemite #yosemitefirefall

Angry about how Yosemite is being put at risk by failed leadership? Here are some actions you can take: 1. Contact park leadership and elected officials (listed below). Post on social media and tag their accounts. Hold them accountable for their decision. Be sure to give specific examples of what is happening in the park as well as calling for them to follow decades of research and reinstate the reservation system. Secretary of the @Interior @SecretaryBurgum Contact at #no-back" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">doi.gov/contact-us#no-… Yosemite Superintendent Ray McPadden nps.gov/yose/learn/man… Congressman Tom McClintock @RepMcClintock (the most vocal elected about eliminating reservations) as well as your elected officials--the park belongs to all Americans no matter where you live. mcclintock.house.gov/contact 2. Support organizations doing great advocacy work like National Parks Conservation Association @NPCA , The Coalition to Protect Americas National Parks, Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center 3. And please, thank a park ranger. I known many of them personally, they are dedicated people who truly love the park, and they are having to manage this nightmare.

In high school, I had an amazing history teacher sophomore year, Mr. Whiting. His command of European history and his ability to encourage teenagers to share his enthusiasm for history inspires me to this day. His also instilled in us his absolute value that no intellect was complete without a thorough study of history-without this knowledge the past controlled the future. In his class, I did a research paper on Gallipoli, that terrible military disaster in the First World War that cost 500,000 lives. Born in 1969, I had not come of age during any immediate war, too young for Vietnam. Flipping through the pages of dusty books (this was before the internet and we still had to go to the library and use actual books to do a research paper), I remember for the first time feeling the weight of war, and the incredible horrific sacrifice required of human beings. I gazed at these photos of young men sleeping in trenches, running to their deaths, or writing letters to loved ones at home they would never see again, and my teenage mind at that moment shifted from thinking war a historical abstract to one with devastating human consequences. Those deaths on the pages reverberated through time and hit me very hard. It impacted my greatly. I could not shake this grief that came with this new knowledge of the true human costs of war. After my paper was done, I wrote an essay for a contest, "What Memorial Day Means to Me," telling the story of Gallipoli through the eyes of a soldier about to die-this essay was inspired by a photo in a book of a doomed young man on the battle front at Gallipoli. (And if you have not seen Peter Weir's excellent 1981 film Gallipoli, today would be a good day to watch it.) Today I will again remember that doomed young man, so far away from home, about to die in the terrible theater of war, and all of those who lost their lives in conflict. Some wars may be just and necessary, yet we should never forget the human cost, the loss of fathers, mothers, husbands, and wives, brothers and sisters.

The semantics of flowers on Memorial Day By Bob Hicok Historians will tell you my uncle wouldn't have called it World War II or the Great War plus One or Tombstone over My Head. All of this language came later. He and his buddies knew it as get my ass outta here or fucking trench foot and of course sex please now. Petunias are an apology for ignorance, my confidence that saying high-density bombing or chunks of brain in cold coffee even suggests the athleticism of his flinch or how casually he picked the pieces out. Geraniums symbolize the secrets life kept from him, the wonder of variable-speed drill and how the sky would have changed had he lived to shout it’s a girl. My hands enter dirt easily, a premonition. I sit back on my uncle’s stomach exactly like I never did, he was a picture to me, was my father looking across a field at wheat laying down to wind. For a while, Tyrants’ War and War of World Freedom and Anti-Nazi War skirmished for linguistic domination. If my uncle called it anything but too many holes in too many bodies no flower can say. I plant marigolds because they came cheap and who knows what the earth’s in the mood to eat.

The guard frogs have reported for duty. :)

Tonight’s sunset in the Sierra foothills.

After a day of yard work, enjoying a sublime evening on Sunshine Hill with the lovely music of birds and a fine glass of prosecco. I wish you all, friends, an equally joyful evening.

This handsome little western fence lizard or “blue belly” got into the house and I had to rescue from the cat. But he is safely relocated now! Did you know these lizards are super smart? As Kate Marianchild, author of the delightful book, Secrets of the Oak Woodlands, writes, their social behaviors “exceed those of some mammals and birds in complexity.”

Cedar Waxwing pair bathing in Central Park

It’s been declared “Steinbeck Summer” and I am all in-he is one of my most revered authors. Reading The Red Pony and The Grapes of Wrath as a young girl showed me the power of writing. A genius author with his exquisite prose, empathy toward humanity, connection to nature, and profound observations on life and living, his works are very much relevant to our troubled times. My summer reading list is going to be to reread his complete works. The @brainpickings offered this splendid essay on one of my favorite Steinbeck books, The Log From the Sea of Cortez. “The ocean, with reference to waves of water, might be considered as a closed system. But anyone who has lived in Pacific Grove or Carmel during the winter storms will have felt the house tremble at the impact of waves half a mile or more away impinging on a totally different “closed” system.” But as she states…. “No excerpt or annotation can do justice to the indivisible wonder that is The Log from the Sea of Cortez.” themarginalian.org/2026/05/23/ste…

“Peace — that was the other name for home.” Kathleen Norris So grateful for my sanctuary on Sunshine Hill, my small cabin with wildlife neighbors and golden sunsets. Even with the weight of the world, my home always brings me some measure of peace.

I’ve been advocating against the budget cuts to national parks for sometime-been been on CNN standing up for Yosemite and park rangers. Budget cuts are absolutely a problem. With this post, I am not referring to the dedicated park rangers on the ground. I’m referring to park leadership who absolutely championed eliminating the reservation system, as well as who gave misinformation out about the science surrounding it to defend the decision. See below: “Yosemite National Park Superintendent Ray McPadden saw the reservation system as too broad a solution to a very specific problem: Parking availability on Saturdays in the summer. “Broad restrictions with barriers to public access to public lands were not useful for what is a fairly small problem,” McPadden said in an interview on Wednesday. McPadden said there is a lot of “hot air” that being in a busy park is a downside for visitors.” “There is zero evidence it's [overcrowding] hurting the ecosystem or landscape in any consequential way."

@bethpratt Park leadership? Have you been paying attention to what is happening?

Traffic to the Yosemite entrance gate backed up to El Portal Market--that is over three miles. Read reports that parking in Yosemite Valley was full this morning, so when these folks arrive in the Valley, there is nowhere to park. Park leadership is being careless with such a precious place they were entrusted to preserve by allowing this.

I’ve been advocating against the budget cuts to national parks for sometime-been been on CNN standing up for Yosemite and park rangers. Budget cuts are absolutely a problem. With this post, I am not referring to the dedicated park rangers on the ground. I’m referring to park leadership who absolutely championed eliminating the reservation system, as well as who gave misinformation out about the science surrounding it to defend the decision. See below: “Yosemite National Park Superintendent Ray McPadden saw the reservation system as too broad a solution to a very specific problem: Parking availability on Saturdays in the summer. “Broad restrictions with barriers to public access to public lands were not useful for what is a fairly small problem,” McPadden said in an interview on Wednesday. McPadden said there is a lot of “hot air” that being in a busy park is a downside for visitors.” “There is zero evidence it's [overcrowding] hurting the ecosystem or landscape in any consequential way."

@bethpratt You get that this is a direct result of Trump cutting park services, yes? That park rangers didn't just suddenly decide to destroy the place they love? FFS

@gfaller6 No, I am saying removing the reservation system which helped with overcrowding, was a huge mistake.

@bethpratt I'm not sure, are you suggesting they pave over more paradise and put up more parking lots?

@ProudArmymom66 No, that’s the problem. The reservation system was recently eliminated.

@bethpratt People are suppose to have reservations to get in.

On the Sunshine Hill wildlife cameras this week.

@realjayg Yes, Jay I really wrote it. I worked in the park for a decade and I’ve lived outside the park for 27 years. Park budgets have been slashed and a reservation was recently cut, which would’ve helped with crowds and resource damage.

@bethpratt Do d you really write this? lol. I’ve worked parks during high season and there’s not nearly enough staff including police and fire in any local area to handle California crowds

@doggintrump It’s both

Superintendent Ray McPadden saw the reservation system as too broad a solution to a very specific problem: Parking availability on Saturdays in the summer. “Broad restrictions with barriers to public access to public lands were not useful for what is a fairly small problem,” McPadden said in an interview on Wednesday.   McPadden said there is a lot of “hot air” that being in a busy park is a downside for visitors. “Stop looking at full parking lots and visitors as a crisis; it’s not. People are coming from Los Angeles and San Francisco, major urban areas, that’s not meaningfully impacting their experience,” he said.

@mgmidget When you visited in the 1950’s, 900,000 people a year visited the park. Today over 4 million do. The scale of the problem has increased by magnitudes. Be fun so see the videos, though.

@bethpratt I used to have a family video of Yosemite trip in the 1950s when this happened. Hehe. Could see from the film that it was a nightmare. Gotta ask my brother if he has these old films thanks for reminding me!