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

Putting Yosemite at Risk To: Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum Yosemite Superintendent Ray McPadden Congressman Tom McClintock As a child I gazed at photos in books about national parks of magnificent places like Yosemite and dreamed of visiting these special places, thinking someday, someday…. I am trying to imagine how dejected I would have felt, if, when that someday came, I had to sit in a miles-long traffic jam breathing exhaust while waiting to get into Yosemite, drive around for hours trying to find a place to park, and bear witness to cars parked in meadows, trash bins overflowing, and graffiti on trails. Yosemite is one of the most unique places on the planet and is home to a diverse array of wildlife. It is a place that is held in the public trust. Your irresponsible decisions to ignore decades of scientific research about the impacts of overcrowding and eliminate the reservation system have put this place at risk, and the park is suffering damage as a result. Just a few samples of comments on social media of people sharing their recent experience in Yosemite: “We saw cars parked in the middle of meadows, and ditches, in the middle of the road, bus stop parking areas etcetera this is how fires start, vegetation gets ruined and traffic piles up faster!” “I was there today. It was RIDICULOUS! We were stuck in rolling traffic for an hour to reach the Village... All in all, it was very disappointing to say the least. Trash bins were overflowing with garbage strewn around them and bathrooms were disgusting. It was a real S-Show.” “Cars were parked along the road easements, encroaching on the roadway. Cars were parked in the meadows. It was extremely upsetting to see the impacts on the Park.” “It is horrific. Leaving Yosemite now. Lots are full. People parking anywhere they can. The reservation system needs to be put back in place.” All of this was avoidable. Let me remind you of your charge to uphold the national park service’s core mission: "to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and the wildlife therein….by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." You have been entrusted with managing one of the most special places on the planet yet, instead of conserving for those future generations, you are managing Yosemite as if it were an amusement park. When the National Park Service was formed in 1916, just over 300,000 people visited our parks. Today, that number has risen to over 300 million. To think that landscapes like Yosemite can accommodate this increase of visitation without lasting damage and threats to the flora and fauna is magical thinking. It is not just unrealistic but also ignoring scientific evidence to the contrary to keep thinking so. Decades of rigorous scientific study was undertaken that demonstrates Yosemite has a carrying capacity, which details the impacts of overcrowding on the wildlife and the landscape. Please read it. You might start with the 2014 Merced Wild and Scenic River Plan or the 2024 Yosemite Visitor Access Management Plan and Environmental Assessment. Yosemite has also done scientific visitor surveys multiple times and how overcrowding impacts the park experience. A 2005 visitor study by the University of Idaho found that 58% of people felt crowded by the number vehicles and 55% of people felt crowded by the by the number of other people. And not only are you ignoring the park research, you are ignoring the direct harm to the park’s cherished wildlife, which you are entrusted with protecting. Research has shown, for example, that visitation levels (not speeding) are directly linked with bears being hit by vehicles. As visitation increases, the chance of a bear being hit by a vehicle also typically increases. Keep adding more cars, and you’ll be causing the death of more bears. Why are you putting the life of Yosemite’s bears at stake? I can still remember my first campfire talk decades ago, and how dedicated park rangers inspired in my young girl self a love for our country’s national parks—deemed America’s best idea. These rangers were dedicated to protecting the parks and their wildlife for the future, and they instilled in me that we needed to take seriously our responsibility to be stewards of these special places. The park rangers in Yosemite, many of who I know personally, are similarly dedicated to protecting this special place, and they inspire me. Your decisions also betray these hardworking people, who had to deal with the beyond challenging conditions you created on this holiday weekend, and will have to continue to contend with the consequences of your actions during this busy summer season. I have been visiting Yosemite for since 1992, worked in the park for nine years, and have lived outside the park for almost three decades. Like millions of other people, I cherish Yosemite, the park’s magnificent landscape, and the incredible wildlife that call it home. I want not only the future generations of our children and grandchildren the chance to experience this special place, but also the visitors of today to have an exceptional time that allows them to celebrate this natural wonder. Today’s visitors deserve better than sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours breathing exhaust just to enter the park. Reinstate the reservation system. Please stop abdicating your duty to the park and its wildlife. Start managing Yosemite with the directive you were charged that first and foremost ensures the protection of the parks and its wildlife. Sincerely, Beth Pratt Conservation leader and lifetime national park visitor

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.