Yosemite

Yosemite is in trouble as CNN reported on Friday.

“A fast-moving California wildfire that is threatening thousands of structures has roughly doubled in size in a day -- to about 165 square miles -- and is now burning in part of Yosemite National Park.”

I hope not, but first a little history about Yosemite.

It would probably be a good question for the popular trivia games, for it is a good guess that very few people ever heard of Dr. Lafayette Bunnell. He was one of the first groups of white men to ever enter a valley of majestic beauty in the High Sierras of California.

He was there actually hunting Indians accused of raiding outposts catering to the miners of the 1849 gold rush, but what he saw assuaged his anger and nourished his appreciation of natures beauty.

Around a campfire in this valley on a cold and snowy night, Dr. Brunnell suggested the place be named as a memorial to the Indians they were trying to kill. The Uzumatis, it meant Grizzly bears.

 In time the name changed a little, but it is the origin of the name of the place today. Uzumatis became Yosemite.

The real name of the Indians, who had inhabited the valley floor for thousands of years, was Ahwahneechee. Today there is a stately old log hotel on the valley floor of Yosemite national park call the Ahwahnee.

Hundreds of thousand of touring Americans visit the magnificence, called Yosemite every year. It has been called one of the most glorious places on earth and it's not an exaggeration.

It was designed so mankind could visit and attune with the grandeur of nature and feel the oneness of all that is within the human spirit.

The parks layout beneath granite cliffs was conceived by Frederick Law Olmsted. The same man who designed New York City's central park.