150 years of Yosemite: the history of the national park in 15 photos and one timelapse
On June 30, 1864, at the height of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln signed an act to protect Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Giant Sequoia Grove. Thus, the valley became the first protected landscape in the United States, and in 1890 - a national park with an area of 304 thousand hectares. The great president, even during the bloody conflict, remembered that the war would end, and new generations would come to replace him, and he helped save for them one of the most amazing places on the North American continent.
(Total 15 photos)
1. The same document that came out from under the hand of Lincoln, thanks to which the nature of Yosemite National Park was saved. Now Yosemite is visited annually by about 4 million tourists.
2. The "father" of Yosemite National Park, meanwhile, is considered not the 16th President of the United States, but naturalist, writer and conservationist John Muir, a native of Scotland. He first visited Yosemite in 1868 and returned a year later to work as a ranch shepherd and spend all his free time studying the flora and fauna of the unique area. It was John Muir who convinced Congress to create a magnificent national park on the territory of the reserve and save nature from the “hoofed locust” - the very sheep grazed by Muir himself. By 1907, when this photo was taken, Mr. Muir had already managed to drive the hated sheep from his beloved area.
3. This photo was taken in April 1935. A visitor to the park enthusiastically fishes, and behind him, Mount El Capitan, one of the largest monoliths in North America, rises to its full height. The granite block is located at an altitude of 2307 m above sea level, and it was conquered for the first time in 1958 during the ascent, which lasted 47 days.
4. Sailors and soldiers rest in front of the Naval Rehabilitation Hospital on August 16, 1943. In fact, there are no military hospitals in the park, but during the Second World War, the Ahwahnee Hotel, a chic hotel for upper-class visitors, was adapted for these needs. The military contract saved the hotel from complete ruin, because on the eve of the war the country was crippled by the Great Depression, and the number of representatives of the upper social classes was not so large as to support the tourism business even in a satisfactory condition.
5. A party of sailors on the mend merrily passes through a tunnel in the Wavona tree on August 13, 1943. A giant sequoia with a height of 69 meters and a girth of 27 meters acquired its own tunnel back in 1881, after lightning struck a tree and a crack appeared in the trunk. The tunnel cut out to replace the crack allowed visitors to the park to pass through it even on horseback, and in the next era - in a car. Not surprisingly, the tunnel immediately became a favorite place for photographs, and views of the tunnel - a classic subject for postcards.
6. Young people who were thrown by the war to one of the most beautiful places on the planet for treatment, in the course of their recovery, took a great interest in photography. It is understandable - the area disposed. In this photograph, dated August 13, 1943, aspiring photographers listen to a lecture from landscape photography guru Ansel Adams. Mr. Adams himself first visited Yosemite at the age of 14 and from then on came there annually until his death.
7. This June 4, 1944 image shows two different civilizations colliding against the backdrop of Yosemite's spectacular scenery: the old world with horseback riding and the new world with cycling tourists. However, even today - after 70 years - you can still move around the park on a single horsepower. For example, for horseback riding there are special roads to waterfalls, which simply cannot be reached by other vehicles.
8. Glacier Point - The most famous view of the valley. You can get from the main road to the Gletcher observation deck in half an hour by car along a serpentine. This photo was taken on June 9, 1950, and, fortunately, the views that open from this observation deck have not changed to this day: the entire Yosemite Valley, the symbol of the park is the Half Dome granite rock, several waterfalls and Mirror Lake.
9. Another attraction of the Glacier observation deck is the Hanging Stone. Until it was fenced off for the safety of tourists, the stone was used with might and main for filming interesting stories for postcards and advertising. For example, in 1916, a publicity photo of the Studebaker Roadster was taken on the Hanging Stone.
10. Long before the automobile initiative - in the 1890s - two dancing waitresses advertised on the Hanging Stone their current place of work - a nearby hotel. And they were photographed by George Fiske, an American landscape photographer who settled in Yosemite in 1879 and lived there until the very end. His end, by the way, was very tragic - in 1918, Mr. Fiske shot himself because he was "tired of life."
11. Climber Dean Caldwell approaches the top of the El Capitan monolith on November 19, 1970. Dean and his partner Warren Harding spent almost a month on the El Capa wall - their ascent lasted 27 days. Warren Harding himself conquered the top of the cliff not for the first time, because it was he who became its discoverer in 1958. Five days before the end of the ascent, the climbers were caught by bad weather, and on the fourth day of the storm, the rescuers decided to go to their aid. The dialogue between Harding and Caldwell with the rescue service entered the history of the big wall: the climbers offered the rescuers who came to the rescue to gain a foothold on the wall and drink wine with them, they did not want to be rescued at all.
12. Eight years after the famous dialogue between climbers and rescuers, the first woman, Beverly Johnson, conquered the top of El Capa. On October 28, 1978, Beverly was photographed on top of the cliff after a 10-day climb. She was only 24 years old.
13. In this picture from 1975, photographer Ansel Adams is again, only thirty years later he teaches his art not to guys wounded in the war, but to a pretty girl. This girl is Susan Ford, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the 38th President of the United States, Gerald Ford. The lessons of Ansel Adams were useful to the young Miss Ford - she became a photojournalist.
14. On March 5, 1983, the British Queen Elizabeth II visited Yosemite National Park for the first time. In the picture, the park manager shows her the sights at Inspiration Point. By the way, the Queen and her husband Prince Philip spent several days in the same Ahwahnee hotel, which was rented for a military hospital during the war years.
15. Today, Yosemite is no longer photographed in black and white film. Fortunately, the face of California's main national park can be seen in all the colors that nature has painted it with. The slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, countless waterfalls, rivers and sequoias - in 1984, all this gained the status of a World Heritage Site under the auspices of UNESCO and is preserved in its original form.
In January 2012, photographers Colin Delehanti and Sheldon Neal set out to capture the rich scenery of Yosemite in time-lapse. The result of their work is magnificent videos that reflect the beauty and diversity of the wildlife of the national park. From black-and-white shots to high-tech time-lapses, this is the story of Yosemite, which, unlike technology, remains unchanged.
Keywords: Yosemite National Park