Falls Redesign Greets Yosemite Visitors

National Park Service project manager Randy Fong stands at Lower Yosemite Falls' main viewing area. Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin specified the granite pavers and embedded boulders here that smooth the transition between the natural and the man-made.

Photos and story by Erik Skindrud

Visitors to Yosemite National Park are discovering new amenities surrounding one of the park's most-photographed features. Until last year, the area around Yosemite Falls was marked by crumbling walkways and a parking lot with worn, cinder-block restroom facilities.

Created by a team led by Lawrence Halprin, the new design has erased the parking lot and added close to a mile of pathways that let visitors explore natural, cultural and historic details that went unnoticed before. Among those details are a marker for Yosemite pioneer James Hutchings' hotel and sawmill (where conservation icon John Muir lived and worked) and the site of one of Yosemite's largest Native American villages.

Now 89, Halprin is one of the most influential and famous American landscape architects of recent decades. He is known for his work at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C. and, more recently, a promenade overlooking the Old City of Jerusalem.

Leslie Stone Associates of Sausalito, Calif. created the project's interpretive exhibits, including this bronze relief map. The sculpture is a popular stop on the path to the base of the falls also lets sightless visitors envision the area's dramatic topography.

Despite his age, the famous designer took a markedly hands-on approach to the Yosemite Falls project.

?EUR??,,????'??He has a sharp mind,?EUR??,,????'?? National Park Service project manager Randy Fong said. ?EUR??,,????'??He's very sensitive to design options. He took a personal interest in design details-from the positioning of signs to where the trash cans would go-and even individual stones.?EUR??,,????'??

Halprin made prominent use of granite pavers to soften the transition between Yosemite's iconic granite walls and the visitor area's man-made trails. Granite became a project theme, with builders going an extra mile to obtain and install granite blocks as curbs and retaining walls. (Collecting or quarrying granite in Yosemite is against National Parks rules, Fong said.)

Halprin and his partners also designed a new restroom, or ?EUR??,,????'??comfort station,?EUR??,,????'?? and a bus stop shelter. Both are constructed of wood and granite and blend nicely into the landscape-as do new wood benches carved from single logs.

The $13.5 million project is the largest collaborative venture between the Yosemite Fund and the National Parks Service. The fund raised close to $12 million in private donations with the parks service raising the remainder.

The redesigned visitor area was largely finished by December 2004, but will be officially dedicated on April 18.

Tourists enjoy the picnic area created at the approach to Yosemite Falls, where bike racks prompt visitors to use human-powered transportation. A parking area for cars and tour busses was removed to create this pleasant spot.