"Yosemite National Park is a national treasure," said George Whitmore, Chair of the Sierra Club's Yosemite Committee. "We are pleased to see that the Park Service is putting a priority on saving Yosemite's natural beauty and is planning less development in the Valley's fragile areas."

The Sierra Club is particularly pleased to see that the Park Service has taken a more balanced approach in reducing the number of accommodations in all categories in the Park. Rather than eliminating campgrounds and increasing high-cost accommodations at Yosemite Lodge as was expected earlier, the new plans for the Lodge will have essentially no net increase on capacity.

The Park Service has also scrapped plans to build a new major parking lot at the undeveloped area of Taft Toe. Instead, they propose to redesign already impacted areas in a way that will consolidate mass transit and parking.