The Hidden Landscape of Yosemite National Park

Abstract

National parks share many obvious landscape char acteristics. One of them goes largely unnoticed-infrastructure to provide water, sewerage, and garbage services. This paper traces the gradual adoption of romantic-era concepts about shielding human intrusions in parks from public view by Park Service landscape designers during the early twentieth century. It focuses on sewerage, water, and garbage facilities which were essential to serve growing numbers of visitors, but highly antithetical to the idea of wilderness parks. After several years of ad hoc practice, the Park Service ultimately crafted specific guidelines on how best to sequester sanitation and other in trusive facilities from view. These largely unnoticed utilities safeguard the public health of visitors and contribute to the consistent landscape of the park system.

The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research

“…The parks achieved this 'idyllic' quality by employing landscape architects who designed the spaces to preserve the scenery by deploying various forms of concealment and screening of undesirable views, yet maintaining an infrastructure that was necessary for the comfort and convenience of the visitor. Thus, for instance, sanitary facilities and other utilities were hidden from public view by sequestering them through planting native species of tree or using large boulders to conceal them, thus offering the illusion that human intrusion on these landscapes was negligible (Colten and Dilsaver, 2005). A vision of wilderness, therefore, could be preserved for visitors to the national parks, and the visceral responses to these seemingly natural landscapes could be protected for the American public.…”

Benevolent and Benign? Using Environmental Justice to Investigate Waste‐related Impacts of Ecotourism in Destination Communities

“…Waste management presents a “landscape challenge” for ecotourism destinations, as communities must protect the “natural” image associated with their isolation. Thus, although ecotourism generates waste in Tortuguero, it must appear not to (Colten and Dilsaver 2005; Thrupp 1990); ecotourists do not expect to look upon waste or related infrastructure (Carrier and Macleod 2005; Hughes and Morrison‐Saunders 2003; Ryan, Hughes and Chirgwin 2000; Urry 1995, 2002). Hiding waste and its management in Tortuguero is challenging, however, because: the area includes a “real” village where people live, work, and generate waste; while most tourists stay in lodges outside the village, tourists come through the village proper (eg on village tours) and can potentially wander around most parts of the village; and Tortuguero is located on a narrow land strip between two bodies of water, with limited capacity to “hide” waste and waste‐related infrastructure “backstage”.…”

Heritage Tourism, Heritage Landscapes and Wilderness Preservation: The Case of National Park Thy

“…olmsted's contributions lie in his design innovations, particularly the innovation of hiding reminders of human interference below the plane of vision (Colten & Dilsaver, 2005). olmsted's contributions lie in his design innovations, particularly the innovation of hiding reminders of human interference below the plane of vision (Colten & Dilsaver, 2005).…”

“…olmsted's contributions lie in his design innovations, particularly the innovation of hiding reminders of human interference below the plane of vision (Colten & Dilsaver, 2005). indeed it has been argued that muir's writings created a virtual cult of the wilderness in the unites states (Colten & Dilsaver, 2005;nash, 1982;Powici, 2004). muir's concept of the wilderness cathedral and his use of religious imagery in writing about wilderness blended pastoral feelings of 'intimacy, security and home' with sublimity wherein nature 'transcends the human', creating a new and uniquely american concept of wilderness (Powici, 2004: 78).…”

“…William Wordsworth's early 19th century notion of a 'sort of national property' (Wordsworth, 2004: 93) became reality when the Yosemite Valley in California became the first wild area to be placed in the public trust. Yellowstone, today situated on the Wyoming-montana border, preceded Yosemite as the first 'national park', largely because there was no state to administer it at the time of its creation in 1872 (Colten & Dilsaver, 2005). Yellowstone, today situated on the Wyoming-montana border, preceded Yosemite as the first 'national park', largely because there was no state to administer it at the time of its creation in 1872 (Colten & Dilsaver, 2005).…”