Alfred Runte, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness. Foreword by Jarrell C. Jackman. Revised and Updated Edition. Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2020; 272 pages; notes, illustrations, index; paperbound, $24.95.
What do you think of when you hear the word “Yosemite”? What images come to mind?
At the top of my list are waterfalls, granite monoliths, wildflowers, glacier-carved canyons and the jagged metamorphic Sierran crest. There’s also the bears, the birds and the bugs; luxuriant meadows; and three giant Sequoia groves.
I also think about the 200 miles of paved roads, 800 miles of trails, a thousand-plus buildings, three dams, a power plant, and the crowds that keep me away from Yosemite National Park during the busy summer season.
In his new book, Yosemite: The Embattled Wilderness, author Alfred Runte takes all of these — and more — into account in his landmark treatise that is a history, an analysis and an appraisal of this magnificent segment of the Sierra Nevada that is among the greatest tourist destinations in the world.
How it has been managed, treated, damaged and restored is the subject of this important book, now in its second edition and revised to bring it up to the present.
Fellow UC Santa Barbara alumnus (and California State Park Rangers Association honorary ranger) Jerry Jackman has provided an introduction to both author and subject, and in turn honors some of the outstanding professors who helped shape both Jackman and Runte in their professional careers. (I know, because I, too, was the beneficiary of those teachers’ intellectual rigor and personal support.)
Jackman’s introduction is insightful and illuminating, giving the work to follow a greater depth, and a platform from which any Yosemite aficionado might similarly view the park and its complex past.
Runte pays particular attention to some of the important persons whose work and insights had an impact on the park. His examination of the roles that biologists Joseph Grinnell, George Wright, Tracy Storer and others played is critical reading for any park manager — or employee or visitor, for that matter.
The author details the exploration, establishment, exploitation and management of the park, including its boundary revisions, problems with concessionaires (including the venerable Ansel Adams), and legislative challenges.
In an update to the 1990 edition, Runte includes information on the 1997 flood and the Mariposa Grove restoration. The fine photos and illustrations that appeared in the first (1990) edition are carried forward in this current volume.
In the interest of full disclosure, I have had the good fortune to know both Runte and Jackman for many years. I also want to be clear that I am serious and sincere when I say that this book is must reading for any park professional, in whatever capacity, active or retired, new hire or veteran. It provides insights into issues of wildlife and human management, recreation and preservation, accommodations and wilderness, development and maintenance, access and carrying capacity that can be learned from and utilized in any number of geographic settings and park classifications.
We all can still learn from the past, and what better way then to study — and enjoy — one of the greatest places on earth, right here in the still Great State of California.
— Robert Pavlik is a state historian with the California Department of Parks and Recreation. He earned his M.A. degree in history from UC Santa Barbara and is the author of Norman Clyde: Legendary Mountaineer of California’s Sierra Nevada. The opinions expressed are his own. This article originally appeared in The CSPRA Wave, the newsletter of the California State Park Rangers Association, and is republished with permission. Click here for more information about the CSPRA.