5 ms·

Yosemite embodies the long war over US national park privatization

115 points by rntn 1y ago

primitivesuave 1y ago
I'm a regular in the Yosemite rock climbing scene, and Aramark is a universally despised entity for many reasons (gross negligence, outright lies, rampant neglect). One of their executives recently lost his job for hitting golf balls into Ahwahnee Meadows. However, until people would rather camp than stay at the $600/night hotel, and cook over a campfire rather than eat overpriced food, there will always be a lucrative opportunity in Yosemite Valley that is only available to the most politically-connected companies.
- SoftTalker 1y ago
  Why would Aramark try any harder, they have no competition.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - jonah 1y ago
    They do. Xanterra. I have family who worked for them at Yellowstone, Crater Lake, and Glacier NP. (They also have the concession at the Grand Canyon and Death Valley among others.) Seemed like a fairly good company from what little I gathered.
  - stenius 1y ago
    There is competition, they took over the contract from Deleware North in 2014 IIRC.
  - intended 1y ago
    Competition improves consumer welfare if the competition is on features that improve consumer welfare. Without referees, competition can simply be on lowering costs and providing cheaper service. If demand is in-elastic (there’s only one Yosemite) then simply invoking competition isn’t going to be a solution. Without referees with teeth, the market can easily optimize for profit without giving a damn about anything else.
- thrance 1y ago
  > However, until people would rather camp than stay at the $600/night hotel, and cook over a campfire rather than eat overpriced food, there will always be a lucrative opportunity in Yosemite Valley that is only available to the most politically-connected companies. Blaming "people" accomplishes nothing.
  - ghaff 1y ago
    Well, and no idea what it's like these days given ownership changes and time generally, but it used to be a very nice--albeit expensive--lodge, at least in the public areas including dining room.
- harmmonica 1y ago
  When the north rim lodge recently burned down at the Grand Canyon my reaction was "how could they not deploy resources fast enough to save it?," followed by "who stands to gain from it burning down?" So I learn Aramark is/was the manager of the lodge. Fast forward a year and you'll hear about a joint venture between Aramark, someone high up in the current administration, and (as an example) Aman announcing Aman North Rim. That's obviously conspiracy-level thinking and totally untrue, but given the attempt to sell public lands in the BBB, and the material staffing cuts at the park service (and more broadly), it's really easy to believe that these types of efforts will lead to cordoning off these spaces for private profit ("Yosemite's hundreds of thousands of acres, we're only taking away 20 for the hotel, no biggie!"). Gotta remain vigilant or I think that's where all of this ends up. Note that the prices for the lodge at the north rim were pretty expensive already so not saying that hasn't already somewhat been the case, but it's not (or was not) physically off limits to the public or only reserved for the richest of the rich and that's where I fear this is headed.
- whyenot 1y ago
  > However, until people would rather camp than stay at the $600/night hotel, and cook over a campfire rather than eat overpriced food I think this borders on "gatekeeping." There are other lodging options in Yosemite Valley which are much less expensive than the Ahwahnee. Yosemite belongs to the American people, and everyone should have a chance to enjoy it, not only those who want to sleep in a tent and cook on a fire. There has been paid lodging in the valley since before Yosemite was a park. Food and lodging in the valley are expensive. The shuttle bus system is currently a joke. Aramark, Delaware North, and YP&CC (especially in the malaise years 1970-1993) have not always been good stewards, but in spite of that, the park is a national treasure that all should have a chance to enjoy, not just those in the "rock climbing scene" who want to stay at Camp 4 and rough it. Aramark's contract should be cancelled. It happened at Crater Lake, and the NPS would have justification to do it in Yosemite, but the last two transitions between concessioners was pretty bad; there is good reason for the NPS to be cautious. If there was the capacity for better NPS oversight, the best move would probably be to break up the contract into smaller pieces and have more than one main concessioner. The Ansel Adams Gallery and Yosemite Mountaineering School are already under different contracts and there is precedent from other national parks (for example Glacier).
  - stickfigure 1y ago
    I think you're right that there needs to be actual competition between park services, but I am doubtful it will make that much of a difference. The public appetite for attendance absolutely dwarfs the capacity of the park. To meet demand you'd have to build a whole city. I've given up on Yosemite. There are lots of other places to go in California (and beyond). Although they are starting to get crowded too...
    - whyenot 1y ago
      You may be right, but even if the concessioners aren’t great, the valley can still be a wonderful, quiet, peaceful place to be. Especially in late spring when the dogwoods are in full bloom, the waterfalls are full, and the summer crowds haven’t arrived yet. After Labor Day is also nice. Summer crowds aren’t fun, but I do feel like there is another way of looking at it: so many people going outside and enjoying nature instead of looking at the world through their phones. There was a time pre-Covid when attendance and interest in national parks and state parks was kind of on the wane, and it’s nice that so many people want to come and enjoy these places.
thrance 1y ago
Sometimes I wonder about the far future. Just looking at how hard it is to fight the urge by some to fell those trees for a quick buck, and seeing how preventing that requires a constant fight that comes back every 10 years and needs to be restarted all over again... It seems inevitable that at some point the stars will align and they will get their way. I wonder, after 500 years, after 1000 years of industrialization, what will be left of Earth?
- hdgvhicv 1y ago
  They’ll pave paradise and put up a parking lot?
  - hoten 1y ago
    A sad eventuality, but perhaps at least an interesting game. Just saw an trailer for an unreleased game: rollercoaster tycoon, but for parking lots. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/Car_Park_Capital/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/Car_Park_Capital/
    - JKCalhoun 1y ago
      I assumed it was being ironic?
- throwup238 1y ago
  > I wonder, after 500 years, after 1000 years of industrialization, what will be left of Earth? In the last 150 years we went from almost zero protected areas to 26 million sq km of nature preserve, or a fifth of the Earth’s total landmass (excluding Antarctica, which is also protected). Out of the ~106 million sq km of habitable land, half of it is unprotected forest (37%) and shrubland. Only about a third of that forest is used for lumber so there’s room to protect about thrice as much as is already protected. We have to remain vigilant but the global zeitgeist is very much on the side of preserving more nature rather than less. There will be more hickups but I wouldn’t be surprised if we double the amount of protected land in the next 100 years.
WaitWaitWha 1y ago
I do not understand. Is Yosemite under the National Park Service, which is within US Dept of the Interior, which is subject to FAR? There is no justification for Sole Source Contract here. There are many companies that can run hotels, concession stands, and such. Full and open competition.
- bix6 1y ago
  It’s not under FAR because concessionaires are under a separate 1998 law. The concessionaire pays fees instead of the government paying for goods. There is still supposed to be competition but it can be limited eg incumbents may get preference.
bix6 1y ago
It seems like concessionaires and operators are increasingly abdicating their responsibility. I was at another site in CA that was so poorly managed the employee was trash talking management (for verbally and even physically assaulting the employees among other failures). The company got a fixed amount of money from the government for things like upkeep so they seemed to think it was in their best interest to spend as little as possible on upkeep to maximize profit. Unfortunately this was to the detriment of everyone staying at the site as the host burdens were so onerous for so little pay that the hosts kept bailing. And maintenance and janitorial was severely understaffed.
- hungmung 1y ago
  There's a similar situation in Crater Lake National Park, possibly managed by the same people (they manage hospitality at quite a few NP's): https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/18/crater-lake-hospitality-contract-termination-aramark/ https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/18/crater-lake-hospitali... https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/23/national-parks-service-to-end-contract-with-company-managing-crater-lake-facilities/ https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/23/national-parks-servic... They got terminated due to numerous fuel leaks, consistent food safety issues and a significant number of visitor complaints. Employee living conditions were described as filthy and disgusting. And they manage a bunch of parks, including Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Olympic NP's.
Johnny555 1y ago
I thought the article would have mentioned that putting for-profit companies in charge of maintaining historic buildings doesn't mean those buildings will be maintained: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2025/06/25/yosemite-national-park-hotels-health-safety-hazards/84324475007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2025/06/25/yosemi...
lawlessone 1y ago
In a lot of Europe 'the great outdoors' is parks and agricultural land (not all of of course but a lot). You have lots of great parks with forests and actual wildlife I hope you don't repeat our mistake.
- 12ian34 1y ago
  yosemite has absolutely incredible nature but come on, some parts of the valley feel like a highway, and you need to get there at like 6am to avoid queuing for everything including parking spots and behind other hikers on trails.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    Yosemite is also a tiny, tiny percentage of national park land.
  - lawlessone 1y ago
    Maybe but you have so much actual wild land that you can support actual populations animals like bears, mountain lions, wolves.
terminalshort 1y ago
The idea of running commercial services inside a national park seems to me to be ridiculous as a concept. The idea that a strip mall with grocery stores, hotels, and gas stations (and yes they have that in Yellowstone) is "national park" land makes the concept of a national park ridiculous. Why not just take the areas inside national parks that are currently commercially developed, remove them from the park, and sell them off to private owners. Now there can just be a law that you can't build a damn thing on national park land, and then private companies can run commercial services on non-park land and there won't be this conflict of interest.
- ip26 1y ago
  It shouldn't be built up like an amusement park, but some level of services seems reasonable. Water, bathrooms, gas for large/remote parks. If you're advocating even all of that should be removed as well, then we're really talking about converting national parks to wilderness areas.
  - terminalshort 1y ago
    Bathrooms and water fountains aren't commercial facilities, so that's not what I was talking about removing. As for gas stations, I see no reason why visitors can't fill up before they enter the park. While the point I am addressing here is only about the issue of commercial development I wouldn't have any problem converting them to pure wilderness areas. The entire concept of having a national park be a wilderness area that has little islands of crowded commercial areas with heavy traffic in the middle just seems strange to me and defeats the purpose.
    - throwaway173738 1y ago
      If you drive the ring road in Yellowstone in its entirety you could find yourself running out of gas without taking at least one long detour into a town. That park is huge. I don’t think having some amenities is a bad thing. Honestly the biggest problem is not their presence in places like Yellowstone or Grand Teton or Olympic or Mount Rainier it’s how poorly some of them are maintained and the sheer quantity of tourists especially in places like Yellowstone which is a UN World Heritage site. At almost every lodge I’ve stayed in in those parks they’ve been dirty and very expensive.
sershe 1y ago
I think part of it is also the purism of the outdoor community in the US. In the Dolomites you can climb an "alpine" route with anchors made out of giant rings held by a bunch of cement, then have a beer and steak at the hut and take a lift halfway down. In Chamonix you can take a cable car to 3.5km elevation and the crux of your day might be walking down to the climb dizzy from sudden change of elevation. I've no idea who owns all that stuff but if there was a 100% government run attempt to do it in the US the outdoor community would have an apoplectic fit. In US the best exemplification of the attitude is when in WA rangers chopped rappel anchors in the middle of nowhere so someone could die on a sketchy natural descent because hey it is totally possible without bolts. Keep wild wild or whatever. I personally think the only reason not to put a Starbucks on top of Rainier is that the water boils too slowly up there.

115 points by rntn 1y ago

I'm a regular in the Yosemite rock climbing scene, and Aramark is a universally despised entity for many reasons (gross negligence, outright lies, rampant neglect). One of their executives recently lost his job for hitting golf balls into Ahwahnee Meadows. However, until people would rather camp than stay at the $600/night hotel, and cook over a campfire rather than eat overpriced food, there will always be a lucrative opportunity in Yosemite Valley that is only available to the most politically-connected companies.

SoftTalker 1y ago
Why would Aramark try any harder, they have no competition.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- jonah 1y ago
  They do. Xanterra. I have family who worked for them at Yellowstone, Crater Lake, and Glacier NP. (They also have the concession at the Grand Canyon and Death Valley among others.) Seemed like a fairly good company from what little I gathered.
- stenius 1y ago
  There is competition, they took over the contract from Deleware North in 2014 IIRC.
- intended 1y ago
  Competition improves consumer welfare if the competition is on features that improve consumer welfare. Without referees, competition can simply be on lowering costs and providing cheaper service. If demand is in-elastic (there’s only one Yosemite) then simply invoking competition isn’t going to be a solution. Without referees with teeth, the market can easily optimize for profit without giving a damn about anything else.
thrance 1y ago
> However, until people would rather camp than stay at the $600/night hotel, and cook over a campfire rather than eat overpriced food, there will always be a lucrative opportunity in Yosemite Valley that is only available to the most politically-connected companies. Blaming "people" accomplishes nothing.
- ghaff 1y ago
  Well, and no idea what it's like these days given ownership changes and time generally, but it used to be a very nice--albeit expensive--lodge, at least in the public areas including dining room.
harmmonica 1y ago
When the north rim lodge recently burned down at the Grand Canyon my reaction was "how could they not deploy resources fast enough to save it?," followed by "who stands to gain from it burning down?" So I learn Aramark is/was the manager of the lodge. Fast forward a year and you'll hear about a joint venture between Aramark, someone high up in the current administration, and (as an example) Aman announcing Aman North Rim. That's obviously conspiracy-level thinking and totally untrue, but given the attempt to sell public lands in the BBB, and the material staffing cuts at the park service (and more broadly), it's really easy to believe that these types of efforts will lead to cordoning off these spaces for private profit ("Yosemite's hundreds of thousands of acres, we're only taking away 20 for the hotel, no biggie!"). Gotta remain vigilant or I think that's where all of this ends up. Note that the prices for the lodge at the north rim were pretty expensive already so not saying that hasn't already somewhat been the case, but it's not (or was not) physically off limits to the public or only reserved for the richest of the rich and that's where I fear this is headed.
whyenot 1y ago
> However, until people would rather camp than stay at the $600/night hotel, and cook over a campfire rather than eat overpriced food I think this borders on "gatekeeping." There are other lodging options in Yosemite Valley which are much less expensive than the Ahwahnee. Yosemite belongs to the American people, and everyone should have a chance to enjoy it, not only those who want to sleep in a tent and cook on a fire. There has been paid lodging in the valley since before Yosemite was a park. Food and lodging in the valley are expensive. The shuttle bus system is currently a joke. Aramark, Delaware North, and YP&CC (especially in the malaise years 1970-1993) have not always been good stewards, but in spite of that, the park is a national treasure that all should have a chance to enjoy, not just those in the "rock climbing scene" who want to stay at Camp 4 and rough it. Aramark's contract should be cancelled. It happened at Crater Lake, and the NPS would have justification to do it in Yosemite, but the last two transitions between concessioners was pretty bad; there is good reason for the NPS to be cautious. If there was the capacity for better NPS oversight, the best move would probably be to break up the contract into smaller pieces and have more than one main concessioner. The Ansel Adams Gallery and Yosemite Mountaineering School are already under different contracts and there is precedent from other national parks (for example Glacier).
- stickfigure 1y ago
  I think you're right that there needs to be actual competition between park services, but I am doubtful it will make that much of a difference. The public appetite for attendance absolutely dwarfs the capacity of the park. To meet demand you'd have to build a whole city. I've given up on Yosemite. There are lots of other places to go in California (and beyond). Although they are starting to get crowded too...
  - whyenot 1y ago
    You may be right, but even if the concessioners aren’t great, the valley can still be a wonderful, quiet, peaceful place to be. Especially in late spring when the dogwoods are in full bloom, the waterfalls are full, and the summer crowds haven’t arrived yet. After Labor Day is also nice. Summer crowds aren’t fun, but I do feel like there is another way of looking at it: so many people going outside and enjoying nature instead of looking at the world through their phones. There was a time pre-Covid when attendance and interest in national parks and state parks was kind of on the wane, and it’s nice that so many people want to come and enjoy these places.

thrance 1y ago

Sometimes I wonder about the far future. Just looking at how hard it is to fight the urge by some to fell those trees for a quick buck, and seeing how preventing that requires a constant fight that comes back every 10 years and needs to be restarted all over again... It seems inevitable that at some point the stars will align and they will get their way. I wonder, after 500 years, after 1000 years of industrialization, what will be left of Earth?

hdgvhicv 1y ago
They’ll pave paradise and put up a parking lot?
- hoten 1y ago
  A sad eventuality, but perhaps at least an interesting game. Just saw an trailer for an unreleased game: rollercoaster tycoon, but for parking lots. https://store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/Car_Park_Capital/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/3031880/Car_Park_Capital/
  - JKCalhoun 1y ago
    I assumed it was being ironic?
throwup238 1y ago
> I wonder, after 500 years, after 1000 years of industrialization, what will be left of Earth? In the last 150 years we went from almost zero protected areas to 26 million sq km of nature preserve, or a fifth of the Earth’s total landmass (excluding Antarctica, which is also protected). Out of the ~106 million sq km of habitable land, half of it is unprotected forest (37%) and shrubland. Only about a third of that forest is used for lumber so there’s room to protect about thrice as much as is already protected. We have to remain vigilant but the global zeitgeist is very much on the side of preserving more nature rather than less. There will be more hickups but I wouldn’t be surprised if we double the amount of protected land in the next 100 years.

WaitWaitWha 1y ago

I do not understand. Is Yosemite under the National Park Service, which is within US Dept of the Interior, which is subject to FAR? There is no justification for Sole Source Contract here. There are many companies that can run hotels, concession stands, and such. Full and open competition.

bix6 1y ago
It’s not under FAR because concessionaires are under a separate 1998 law. The concessionaire pays fees instead of the government paying for goods. There is still supposed to be competition but it can be limited eg incumbents may get preference.

bix6 1y ago

It seems like concessionaires and operators are increasingly abdicating their responsibility. I was at another site in CA that was so poorly managed the employee was trash talking management (for verbally and even physically assaulting the employees among other failures). The company got a fixed amount of money from the government for things like upkeep so they seemed to think it was in their best interest to spend as little as possible on upkeep to maximize profit. Unfortunately this was to the detriment of everyone staying at the site as the host burdens were so onerous for so little pay that the hosts kept bailing. And maintenance and janitorial was severely understaffed.

hungmung 1y ago
There's a similar situation in Crater Lake National Park, possibly managed by the same people (they manage hospitality at quite a few NP's): https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/18/crater-lake-hospitality-contract-termination-aramark/ https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/18/crater-lake-hospitali... https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/23/national-parks-service-to-end-contract-with-company-managing-crater-lake-facilities/ https://www.opb.org/article/2024/02/23/national-parks-servic... They got terminated due to numerous fuel leaks, consistent food safety issues and a significant number of visitor complaints. Employee living conditions were described as filthy and disgusting. And they manage a bunch of parks, including Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Olympic NP's.

Johnny555 1y ago

I thought the article would have mentioned that putting for-profit companies in charge of maintaining historic buildings doesn't mean those buildings will be maintained: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2025/06/25/yosemite-national-park-hotels-health-safety-hazards/84324475007/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2025/06/25/yosemi...

lawlessone 1y ago

In a lot of Europe 'the great outdoors' is parks and agricultural land (not all of of course but a lot). You have lots of great parks with forests and actual wildlife I hope you don't repeat our mistake.

12ian34 1y ago
yosemite has absolutely incredible nature but come on, some parts of the valley feel like a highway, and you need to get there at like 6am to avoid queuing for everything including parking spots and behind other hikers on trails.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  Yosemite is also a tiny, tiny percentage of national park land.
- lawlessone 1y ago
  Maybe but you have so much actual wild land that you can support actual populations animals like bears, mountain lions, wolves.

terminalshort 1y ago

The idea of running commercial services inside a national park seems to me to be ridiculous as a concept. The idea that a strip mall with grocery stores, hotels, and gas stations (and yes they have that in Yellowstone) is "national park" land makes the concept of a national park ridiculous. Why not just take the areas inside national parks that are currently commercially developed, remove them from the park, and sell them off to private owners. Now there can just be a law that you can't build a damn thing on national park land, and then private companies can run commercial services on non-park land and there won't be this conflict of interest.

ip26 1y ago
It shouldn't be built up like an amusement park, but some level of services seems reasonable. Water, bathrooms, gas for large/remote parks. If you're advocating even all of that should be removed as well, then we're really talking about converting national parks to wilderness areas.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Bathrooms and water fountains aren't commercial facilities, so that's not what I was talking about removing. As for gas stations, I see no reason why visitors can't fill up before they enter the park. While the point I am addressing here is only about the issue of commercial development I wouldn't have any problem converting them to pure wilderness areas. The entire concept of having a national park be a wilderness area that has little islands of crowded commercial areas with heavy traffic in the middle just seems strange to me and defeats the purpose.
  - throwaway173738 1y ago
    If you drive the ring road in Yellowstone in its entirety you could find yourself running out of gas without taking at least one long detour into a town. That park is huge. I don’t think having some amenities is a bad thing. Honestly the biggest problem is not their presence in places like Yellowstone or Grand Teton or Olympic or Mount Rainier it’s how poorly some of them are maintained and the sheer quantity of tourists especially in places like Yellowstone which is a UN World Heritage site. At almost every lodge I’ve stayed in in those parks they’ve been dirty and very expensive.

sershe 1y ago

I think part of it is also the purism of the outdoor community in the US. In the Dolomites you can climb an "alpine" route with anchors made out of giant rings held by a bunch of cement, then have a beer and steak at the hut and take a lift halfway down. In Chamonix you can take a cable car to 3.5km elevation and the crux of your day might be walking down to the climb dizzy from sudden change of elevation. I've no idea who owns all that stuff but if there was a 100% government run attempt to do it in the US the outdoor community would have an apoplectic fit. In US the best exemplification of the attitude is when in WA rangers chopped rappel anchors in the middle of nowhere so someone could die on a sketchy natural descent because hey it is totally possible without bolts. Keep wild wild or whatever. I personally think the only reason not to put a Starbucks on top of Rainier is that the water boils too slowly up there.