Yosemite Reality Check

[guest]

All:

In case you missed it, the Fresno Bee had a story
quoting Dave Mihalic (the new YNP Superintendent)
on a number of issues.....mostly around how he
sees the park being used. It may be found at this
address:

http://www.fresnobee.com/localnews/story/0,1724,115321,00.html

Here is the quote you might be most interested in:

There is no doubt where Mihalic comes down on the
issue of BASE jumping. He's against it.

[stuff deleted]

"The unfortunate outcome of Davis' jump was a
reaffirmation of the Park Service's wisdom"
Mihalic said.

Rand

[guest]

"The unfortunate outcome of Davis' jump was a
reaffirmation of the Park Service's wisdom"

. . . .. [Superintendent] David Mihalic

Now we deal with the possible long reign of a new Superintendent who will always remember October 22, 1999 as his introduction to BASE jumping.

I don't agree with the good Superintendent's conclusion. However, this is the opinion that will filter down the ranks and into the minds of individual Rangers who may have been teetering in our direction.

At first I thought okay, we went to the park with nothing, and we came away with nothing.

However, we didn't come away with nothing, we came away with less than nothing. We lost Jan and we will be haunted by this episode for years to come.

I believe we all need to face that.

Human events turned the would be heroes into goats and now I smell panic in some postings. Let's slow down a bit, regroup, take a bit of R&R.

The game is an old one and it will continue. The Park Service has been holding the same line in Yosemite since the permit issue first surfaced, they never say yes by issuing a permit and they never say no by trying to have a law introduced that specifically bans BASE jumping.

Jean Boenish tells the story of chasing a permit she likened to obtaining the broomstick from the Wicked Witch of the West.

The Park Superintendent at the time told Jean he would issue her a permit if the NPS in Washington said it was alright with them. The NPS in Washington told Jean it would be alright with them if it was alright with the Superintendent back in the park.

No one in authority is willing to be the first to sign off on the permit and they played Jean back and forth between them like a ping pong ball.

I do, however, see a light and maybe some progress, you just have to look deeper to see it.

The whole issue doesn't seem to have the same adversarial tone it once did. In previous times Rangers and BASE jumpers couldn't be in the same place at the same time without everyone going ballistic.

Now the tone seems to be more of an exasperated, "Okay, but if you jump, we must arrest you." What I'm hearing is they realize it will never stop. So maybe there is a minor victory there.

Carl Boenish is often called the "father" of modern BASE jumping. Maybe someday Jan Davis will come to be known as it's "Mom."

Nick

[guest]

i think more importantly we have to think "big picture". we are americans damnit that have elected officials, whose salaries WE pay for.

let's take it small scale for a moment. if you're at work and you have a problem with a fellow employee, you first make contact with them. if that doesn't work, you go to their supervisor. if that doesn't work you go to their manager, etc..

i think we are done with the park service. we need to take this over their heads to their bosses, our senators, representatives, congressman. we have a serious discrimination issue on our hands in a PUBLICLY OWNED place. the nps seems to have forgotten who they work for.

maybe it will take them banning everything in the parks before americans get off their asses and defend the lifestyle our forefathers fought so hard for. we've gotten soft in this country. this is the "entitlement" generation. we've become a bunch of lazy p#ssies that think we're owed something without any effort. we need to WAKE UP and take back OUR country. we need to read some books on the revolutionary period. we're fighting some of the same battles, just in a different disguise. or we can just sit back and hope that somebody else does it for us.

brady