Yosemite National Park is expanding:
Yosemite National Park in California is to gain a 400-acre addition, its largest expansion in nearly 70 years. Ackerson Meadow features wetlands and rolling hills that are home to endangered wildlife, park officials quoted by AP news agency said. The land, on Yosemite's western boundary, was bought for the park by conservation group the Trust for Public Land for $2.3m (£1.7m).
Yosemite National Park covers about 1,200 sq miles of mountainous scenery. It attracts millions of visitors every year and celebrated its 125th anniversary in 2015. The new addition, which was traditionally used for logging and grazing cattle, will be preserved as habitat for wildlife including the endangered great grey owl, the largest owl in North America, the officials said.
(Score: 2, Funny) by deimios on Friday September 09 2016, @11:42AM
How dare you steal land from the honest and enterprising corporations?!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @01:16PM
FTFS, emphasis by me:
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @01:33PM
Your sarcasm detector is broken.
(Score: 2, Touché) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @02:44PM
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @03:13PM
I've never seen a sarcasm detector this far out of whack. Not sure what to tell ya, buddy. I think you're going to have to buy a new one entirely.
(Score: 2, Funny) by khallow on Friday September 09 2016, @07:22PM
"Dude, I was, like, 'detecting sarcasm'."
"Dude, really? A whole bowl?"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @02:49AM
Damn, that's bad. You might have to replace the whole humor system.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday September 10 2016, @09:41AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @01:42PM
The sellers are communists!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @01:44PM
This is actually a demonstration of altruistic capitalism working at its best. A nonprofit was funded by citizens to purchase land for its own protection. The land was purchased, from individuals and companies, fair and square. For another example of this type of altruistic capitalism, check out the Southeastern Cave Conservancy.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday September 09 2016, @05:33PM
But if I can't get my cows to graze for free on this formerly-private-now-governmental land, I'm sure as hell gonna start SW2 (Secession War, the revenge).
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @12:06PM
Who the hell cares?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 09 2016, @12:48PM
We went there this summer and for anyone who hasn't been, I'd recommend skipping the famous valley with El Capitan and Half Dome. The drive is bumper to bumper traffic and there's no place to park and enjoy the trails. You're much better off taking Route 120 that crosses the northern third of the park. The scenery is more spectacular than the valley, the mountains more dramatic, and there are far fewer people. As a bonus, Mono Lake is right outside the Eastern entrance, and that's worth a visit too. It's like the Dead Sea, many times saltier than the ocean so you can float quite easily. The fossilized hydrothermal vents along the shore form a fairy landscape that's fun to walk through.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @07:42PM
Those are caused by chemical reactions kicked off by microorganisms. They would be underwater, generally touching the water surface, except that Los Angeles diverted incoming streams and thus reduced the level of the lake.
If you take the canoe tour, they'll show you one of those things that is currently forming. It's at water level of course, with little gas bubbles coming up.
(Score: 2) by Hawkwind on Friday September 09 2016, @10:09PM
In the last 30 years the one time I've visited during the summer I hiked in, but I have heard traffic can be weird. It's a great place for all hiking/climbing skill levels, though. And beautiful!
Good point about visiting the east side. If you have a chance to hike in to the high country go for it, absolutely amazing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @01:16PM
I am shocked. I thought it was a big park - 1200 sq miles is tiny isn't it? The lake district in UK is a similar size, but UK is a much, much smaller country...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @03:22PM
Here's what Wikipedia gives:
Lake District: 2,362 km² or 912 mi²
Yosemite: 3,027 km² or 1,169 mi²
I'm surprised as well after looking at the park on Google Maps. Maybe we were thinking Yellowstone at 8,983 km²/3,468 mi².
In comparison, California is 423,970 km²/163,696 mi² while Great Britain (the big island) is 209,331 km²/80,823 mi².
(Score: 2, Interesting) by gumby on Friday September 09 2016, @03:53PM
Indeed, but Yosemite is a park. As in: it has signs, roads, drinking fountains, rangers, picnic tables, etc. Since it's a big park it also has hotels, a fire brigade, and some shops. Really you can think of it as a very very large municipal park (my town, Palo Alto, has a couple of "wild" parks with mountain lions as well as hyper-manicured downtown parks).
But the national parks are a very small part of the public lands. Most of it is true wilderness lands: limited or even no trails, largely unpatrolled, with wild animals who aren't used to seeing humans (in Yosemite the bears are quite accustomed to humans and are a problem). I backpack and sleep out about 45-60 nights a year in California and rarely see another human when I'm out. I have hardly set foot in a national or state park because they (for good reasons) don't allow dogs except on roads and paved areas, which I avoid. Despite avoiding parks there are tons of places for me to have fun.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday September 09 2016, @08:12PM
That's a good point, and i would add we found the national forests and national monuments to be a much better experience than the shrink-wrapped experience of the national parks like Yosemite. Of course, a couple of the national parks like Death Valley and Capitol Reef aren't so built up and far more impressive than the marquee parks like Yellowstone. Canyonlands National Park is three times more impressive than the Grand Canyon.
But it's liberating to visit places like the Bighorn National Forest in Wyoming, or Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah, and not have to fight for camping spots or put up with a thousand rules. You can just go commune with the land. Want to ride your ATV all over the Oregon Dunes? No problem. Want to walk up to and sit inside an ancient Anasazi house in Canyon of the Ancients? Go ahead, it's awesome.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by gumby on Saturday September 10 2016, @12:05AM
> Washington DC delenda est.
BTW I disagree with your comment -- in fact they protect your right to hang out in those wildernesses instead of having them mined or whatever. Yes, the parks are curated, but some people like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 09 2016, @06:32PM
It doesn't even make the top ten in size for American national parks.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:24AM
The Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument (which is underwater) is 7.2 times the area of Great Britain.
(Score: 4, Funny) by kanweg on Friday September 09 2016, @04:56PM
OK, so the park is 1200 mi^2 and 400 acres are added. Why two different units?
Google: 1 mi^2 is 640 acres. So, wait, 0.625 mi^2 is added. That is 0.052% increase in size.
Bert
Who now has some perspective.
(Score: 2) by aclarke on Friday September 09 2016, @05:27PM
It would be really good if people submitting stories used international measurement standards, but if it's an American submitting they often just don't know any better. It would require a bit of extra effort by the submitter or editor for stories with measurements based in the US.
For your edification though: "Square miles" is generally typed as "sq.mi", "sq. miles", or something along those lines, not mi^2, at least by those who use miles. Land in the US is usually bought and sold in acres, so the measurement of 400 acres in the purchase is consistent with how land purchases are written. Large acreages, at some point generally start to be denominated in square miles vs. acres. There's no rule for this, but I rarely see areas denominated in acres over around 30k.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday September 09 2016, @10:16PM
But what is that in football pitches? Just to help us British readers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 10 2016, @01:53AM
By comparison, the Baskerville estate with the hound roaming over the heath was probably 400 acres.
(Score: 3, Funny) by deimtee on Saturday September 10 2016, @02:57AM
400 acres is very close to a rectangular area of one mile by one kilometre. Hope that helps.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Saturday September 10 2016, @03:02AM
For the creation of the National Park Service - something so important to re-connecting the modern man with the world which created him, if only for a moment.