I drove across the country this summer. I'm supposed to still be out west except some people thought my 8X10 tripod would do better in their hands rather than mine.

The parks, especially Yosemite, are in really bad shape. Yosemite is ruined. The NPS has turned that park into a Disney dump land.

The parks should be made far less accessible. They should exist as pockets of pristine nature...not for photographers or anyone else..but for themselves. As is stands they are being destroyed by the people who go to see the very thing they are destroying.

It seems that the single most important prerequisite for employment in any of the national parks is the ability to be an asshole. This is especially true if one wishes to be a ranger.

The way I see it, all access to all the parks ought to be cut off for at least three years. All infrastructures, services, paved roads, etc. should be removed from all the parks except for a single visitor's center in each one.

I'm not saying this so that the photographer's can have nice places to go to. If the photographers had to be banned from the parks forever to get them back to pristine condition I'd be all for it. 25,000 people in Yosemite Valley every day is just too much.

Jason Kefover