On 10 Feb 2023, at 11:50 am, outhiking_55 <animalfarm99@...> wrote:

?If anyone wants to watch Mile... Mile and a Half its available for free on Pluto TV.??

Kim

On 3 Feb 2023, at 7:46 am, outhiking_55 <animalfarm99@...> wrote:

?This might help you, but not all the sites have info. You can click on a location to bring up some data.?


Kim

On 3 Feb 2023, at 5:37 am, Granola <kljensen64@...> wrote:

?I really appreciate the info about the snowpack, esp the charts showing different years/months. I'd love to see 2021 in there - must have been fairly low snowpack, because we walked through no snow anywhere. In 2019 I bailed after experiencing AMS but also because all the PCTers coming northbound were telling terrible tales of 7 miles of continuous snow... not for me! I live in the stuff every winter, and don't care for it in summer also.

Although it's not JMT, is the info about snowpack available for points further north along the PCT? I'm thinking of a couple of sections, I and J in CA. But thinking that the snow might be just as challenging in those areas, since Tahoe got hit hard. It's only early Feb though! I'm working on Plans B and C as well.?

On Feb 1, 2023, at 8:43 AM, Byron Nevins <byron.nevins@...> wrote:

Lange Jorstad was nice enough to post some excellent information and charts about snow levels this year versus historical amounts.??
I have put these files in a root-level folder instead of in the main files folder to make them easy to find (and hard to get "lost").? Here they are:

/g/JMT/files/Snow

--
Byron Nevins
Lead Moderator of JMT at

On Jan 30, 2023, at 06:31, steve herr via groups.io <groundhogsteve@...> wrote:

?

Karina-

Yes, it would be difficult to make a shuttle service viable because the hiking season is short, but there are federal programs to subsidize public transportation to federal lands.? I have a few ideas of what to do with the buses in the off season too.

Steve Herr

Arg…. Accidentally deleted Granola’s and Celeste’s messages !

Peter , I have never seen Shuttle bus for years I’ve been in the park ( probably never paid attention!)

Thank you for the pics!

So is my best bet per Celeste Guerrero to book a bus for HI from TM? Just YARTS, not the shuttle since we don’t know the future of it ?

I arrive a day prior to my hike to make sure I’m on time for everything like permit picking up, transportation logistics etc?
Steve, shuttle company sounds phenomenal, only how can one sustain such enterprise with hiking season being is so short ?

Karina Bezkrovnaia

On Jan 28, 2023, at 21:15, Karina Bezkrovnaia <kbezkrovnaia@...> wrote:

?Lange and Peter,

I wish we could do something.

It is wrong to monetize NPS service as those are public lands and “ national park” sjouke serve nation’s interest.

Otherwise is an oxymoron and also really ironic ? ?

Karina Bezkrovnaia

On Jan 28, 2023, at 20:58, Lange Jorstad via <langejorstad@...> wrote:

?

Yes the "lack of staff" argument really is?beyond belief. I bet you could recruit someone from this group in about two seconds for the opportunity to live in Yosemite all summer and either drive the hiker shuttle or work at the TM lodge - unless of course the compensation essentially made it volunteer work.

Would be nice if NPS spent a little money on a strong commercial contract lawyer to create a clear and binding contract for the concessionaires, and then had the backbone to enforce it. Better yet, could they just figure out how to run it themselves and self-fund using the profit? Obviously, the low bid concessionaire that wins the contract will only ever be interested in squeaking out the highest profit margin possible, which is directly opposed to the objective of good service. Aramark is a multi-billion dollar listed corporation whose primary duty is to its shareholders, which means they will only ever be aiming for the lowest standard of service they can get away with under the contract, and forever trying to lower that bar further.

On Sunday, 29 January 2023 at 01:45:01 pm AEDT, Karina Bezkrovnaia via <kbezkrovnaia@...> wrote:

This is a great info, Peter!

The Master of Yosemite trail signs!

So here is an idea ( however silly). With main JMT group alone 47K we can petition. On behalf NPS. I would fight for our wilderness and I’m sure thousands would to get what we deserve.

Karina Bezkrovnaia

On Jan 28, 2023, at 18:06, Peter Hirst <peter.p.hirst@...> wrote:

?

[Edited Message Follows]

Karina:

A very good question.?? And a very telling? way of putting? it: "who to operate the Park?"? Who indeed?? Very telling, and sad that this is a legitimate way to ask the question.? The answer should be that US Congress made that decision back in 1916.? Legally, historically and unquestionably, the National Park service is charged with running? the Park through,? the Superintendent and her staff.? Period, full stop.? Aramark, the principal concessionaire would love to have you believe they run the Park, and frame every bit of their advertising ? as if not only do they run it but it is theirs to run.? It is not and they should not.? The Park Service is to run it and everything that happens in it is their responsibility.?

As concessionaire, Aramark is a commercial company under contract to run the inherently commercial facilities: restaurants and hotels, primarily, but has time goes on, that franchise creeps into more and more Park operations, most notably park transportation i.e. the "Shuttles".? And herein lies the problem.? Since the shuttles are provided free to the public, they are not a profit center for Aramark,? They are part of the cost of its getting the more lucrative operations, such as the $500 per night Awhahnee, the $50 entrees. the $5.00 cokes and completely bizarre mystery meals served to long lines running past empty serving stations at the Curry Village commissary.? They are providing services not to us but to the Park Service.? The Park Service runs it supposedly in the public interestand Aramark is supposed to provide services better and more reasonably than the Park service could.

But Aramark, like its recent predecessors, is not interested in providing service, it is interested in profits.? Stephen Mather's original idea was that this would work on the regulated monopoly model of public utilities, where in return for a reasonable profit, the company would provide? the highest practicable service for the lowest reasonable price.? And when the Curry and Tressider families, who go back in Yosemite history to about 1897, were running the Curry Camping Company and then the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, they had a vested family interest in stewardship of the trust they held to provide these services.? The beginning of the end came in 1072, with the death of Mary Curry Tressider, last of the family line and the salw of Yosemite Park and Curry Company to a long succession of essentially real estate investors none of whom had any ties or interest with the park other than the purely commercial, i.e. to ptovode the leas amount of service at the highest possible price.

Eventually even the Park and Curry Company ceased to exist, and the concession contract itself was passed to the notorious Delaware North Corporation, which most observers thought could not be outdone in incompetence, greed and exploitation of the Park resources.? We have been shocked, I tell you, shocked to discover that yes, it could get worse.?

In the first week after Aramark took over, its senior executive in charge its Park operations proudly posted a video of himself driving golf balls from his new front lawn out into? Ahwahnee Meadow, joking that heard them bouncing off Half Dome. He was bounced a few days later, but the tone and ethic he set in those first few days was not.? It has been all downhill since.

On Jan 28, 2023, at 21:15, Karina Bezkrovnaia <kbezkrovnaia@...> wrote:

?Lange and Peter,

I wish we could do something.

It is wrong to monetize NPS service as those are public lands and “ national park” sjouke serve nation’s interest.

Otherwise is an oxymoron and also really ironic ? ?

Karina Bezkrovnaia

On Jan 28, 2023, at 20:58, Lange Jorstad via groups.io <langejorstad@...> wrote:

?

Yes the "lack of staff" argument really is?beyond belief. I bet you could recruit someone from this group in about two seconds for the opportunity to live in Yosemite all summer and either drive the hiker shuttle or work at the TM lodge - unless of course the compensation essentially made it volunteer work.

Would be nice if NPS spent a little money on a strong commercial contract lawyer to create a clear and binding contract for the concessionaires, and then had the backbone to enforce it. Better yet, could they just figure out how to run it themselves and self-fund using the profit? Obviously, the low bid concessionaire that wins the contract will only ever be interested in squeaking out the highest profit margin possible, which is directly opposed to the objective of good service. Aramark is a multi-billion dollar listed corporation whose primary duty is to its shareholders, which means they will only ever be aiming for the lowest standard of service they can get away with under the contract, and forever trying to lower that bar further.

On Sunday, 29 January 2023 at 01:45:01 pm AEDT, Karina Bezkrovnaia via groups.io <kbezkrovnaia@...> wrote:

This is a great info, Peter!

The Master of Yosemite trail signs!

So here is an idea ( however silly). With main JMT group alone 47K we can petition. On behalf NPS. I would fight for our wilderness and I’m sure thousands would to get what we deserve.

Karina Bezkrovnaia

On Jan 28, 2023, at 18:06, Peter Hirst <peter.p.hirst@...> wrote:

?

[Edited Message Follows]

Karina:

A very good question.?? And a very telling? way of putting? it: "who to operate the Park?"? Who indeed?? Very telling, and sad that this is a legitimate way to ask the question.? The answer should be that US Congress made that decision back in 1916.? Legally, historically and unquestionably, the National Park service is charged with running? the Park through,? the Superintendent and her staff.? Period, full stop.? Aramark, the principal concessionaire would love to have you believe they run the Park, and frame every bit of their advertising ? as if not only do they run it but it is theirs to run.? It is not and they should not.? The Park Service is to run it and everything that happens in it is their responsibility.?

As concessionaire, Aramark is a commercial company under contract to run the inherently commercial facilities: restaurants and hotels, primarily, but has time goes on, that franchise creeps into more and more Park operations, most notably park transportation i.e. the "Shuttles".? And herein lies the problem.? Since the shuttles are provided free to the public, they are not a profit center for Aramark,? They are part of the cost of its getting the more lucrative operations, such as the $500 per night Awhahnee, the $50 entrees. the $5.00 cokes and completely bizarre mystery meals served to long lines running past empty serving stations at the Curry Village commissary.? They are providing services not to us but to the Park Service.? The Park Service runs it supposedly in the public interestand Aramark is supposed to provide services better and more reasonably than the Park service could.

But Aramark, like its recent predecessors, is not interested in providing service, it is interested in profits.? Stephen Mather's original idea was that this would work on the regulated monopoly model of public utilities, where in return for a reasonable profit, the company would provide? the highest practicable service for the lowest reasonable price.? And when the Curry and Tressider families, who go back in Yosemite history to about 1897, were running the Curry Camping Company and then the Yosemite Park and Curry Company, they had a vested family interest in stewardship of the trust they held to provide these services.? The beginning of the end came in 1072, with the death of Mary Curry Tressider, last of the family line and the salw of Yosemite Park and Curry Company to a long succession of essentially real estate investors none of whom had any ties or interest with the park other than the purely commercial, i.e. to ptovode the leas amount of service at the highest possible price.

Eventually even the Park and Curry Company ceased to exist, and the concession contract itself was passed to the notorious Delaware North Corporation, which most observers thought could not be outdone in incompetence, greed and exploitation of the Park resources.? We have been shocked, I tell you, shocked to discover that yes, it could get worse.?

In the first week after Aramark took over, its senior executive in charge its Park operations proudly posted a video of himself driving golf balls from his new front lawn out into? Ahwahnee Meadow, joking that heard them bouncing off Half Dome. He was bounced a few days later, but the tone and ethic he set in those first few days was not.? It has been all downhill since.