TahoeLand

We’ve explored Yosemite Valley a lot — for good reason. It’s an outdoor wonderland where people raft, hike and climb cliffs. In this episode, Ezra tours Yosemite Valley on a "green dragon" — an open-air tour bus — and also learns about rock falls and why historic places in the park have been renamed. He also visits what people call Yosemite Valley’s "twin sister." It’s a place that John Muir fought to preserve — but he lost that battle.

Hey everyone, Episode 6 will be out Tuesday. In the meantime, here's a taste.

For more than four decades, the Ahwahneechee people — the Native Americans with ties to Yosemite Valley — had no place to call home. Now, one of their villages is being resurrected. In this episode, Ezra meets with elders who say park service workers burned down their homes. They also discuss how they hope to preserve their heritage for future generations. During his reporting, Ezra realizes Yosemite is more than a cool hiking destination: It’s a very spiritual place.  

Hey listeners, we’re still hustling away on Episode 5. In the meantime, check out this teaser.

It's peak tourist season, but the most popular spot in Yosemite is eerily quiet. There are no hikers on trails or climbers on cliffs in the Valley. For the first time in nearly 30 years, a wildfire has closed major portions of the park due to heavy smoke. Yosemite Valley will remain shut indefinitely. In this episode, Ezra looks at the future of fire in Yosemite. He hikes with a scientist studying how climate change could drastically transform its landscape, talks with the park's first female fire chief, and learns about life growing up in a fire zone.

A new culture of rock climbers is overtaking Yosemite, including rock stars like Alex Honnold and Tommy Caldwell, who are pushing the sport to the edge by climbing with no ropes. In this episode, Ezra chats with rock climbing legends, explores how gyms are diversifying who climbs, and gets out on the rock near Glacier Point. He also talks with women climbers who are leading the way.

Traffic in Yosemite during peak tourist months is often compared to rush hour in Los Angeles. Some visitors will often drive around for hours and never find a parking spot. The bottleneck is so bad, it’s now part of Yosemite’s identity. That’s why we’re dedicating our second episode of YosemiteLand to the seemingly intractable problem of gridlock. Join Ezra as he sits in a snarl-up of tourists and learns how all these cars put wildlife at risk. He’ll also explore solutions that could make your future visits less miserable — and help sustain the park. In a previous version of this episode Ezra mislabeled Ryan Leahy and Caitlin Lee-Roney’s titles. They have been corrected. Ryan Leahy is a wildlife biologist in the park, and Caitlin Lee-Roney is the lead wildlife biologist for Yosemite National Park.

As tourism increases in Yosemite, how is the park’s identity — its sense of place — changing? In YosemiteLand’s debut episode, Ezra orders Starbucks while taking in majestic waterfalls, meets researchers studying how people experience the park, and looks at how Yosemite’s planners are rethinking popular destinations to make them more sustainable. You’ll encounter a bear up close, and Ezra will visit some of Yosemite’s oldest inhabitants: giant sequoias. In a previous version of this episode Ezra mispronounced Kara Stella’s name and title. It’s been corrected. She is a ranger.

YosemiteLand is about how decisions made today in Yosemite National Park will impact millions of visitors in the years to come. It's a region learning how to deal with a changing environment and increased tourism. Listen for a preview of this new podcast from Capital Public Radio. We'll release our first episodes July 16.