Page:Tioga Road (HAER No. CA-149) written historical and descriptive data.pdf/21

 Two days later, Wirth ordered the Bureau of Public Roads to halt construction on a 1.2-mile section of the road. He then came to Yosemite to inspect the project and to meet with park staff and the Sierra Club opponents of the road. Following the meeting, Wirth announced that a compromise had been reached over the road location, but the Sierra Club had only been able to win a route 100' or so lower on the granite dome, and the construction would result in great scarring of the landscape. The Park Service rejected the club's proposed lower alignment for the road, claiming it would have too steep a grade for safe motoring; one official stated 'We might as well build a hospital at the foot of the hill.' Project opponents failed to impress their arguments on Congress, and work resumed. The new route was blasted across the exposed granite around Tenaya Lake. The controversy added to the cost of the project; the work stoppage cost about $7192, and the minor realignment itself added some $40,000 to the bill.120

While the final construction of the Tioga Road was in progress, the California Department of Highways announced plans to upgrade the connecting section of Highway 120 between Tioga Pass and Lee Vining. Although National Park Service landscape architect Volney Westley attempted to persuade the state to construct its new road down Lundy Canyon, the state determined to rebuild the existing route down Lee Vining Creek Canyon; cost of the new road, which would drop about 4000' into the Mono Lake Basin, was estimated in September 1958 at $2.5 million. At the same time, the Park Service was completing arrangements for the reconstruction of the Big Oak Flat Road between the western terminus of the Tioga Road at Crane Flat and the east boundary.121

After the Tioga Road work had progressed through the contested Tenaya Lake region, Ansel Adams penned a scathing article on the project for the Sierra Club Bulletin. He decried the work, stating "Good engineering is appropriate engineering, not construction show-off!" He blasted the Park Service for allowing a borrow pit to be opened in view of the road at the base of little Pywiack Dome. Adams wailed about the "750,000 cubic yards of national park sacrificed on a Procrustean roadbed!"122

Faced for the first time with serious opposition to its Yosemite road policy, Interior Department officials and supporters became defensive. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall stated, "personally, I am a strong believer in wilderness preservation, and you can depend on me to scrutinize all problems and activities of the National Park Service with this viewpoint clearly in my mind. On the other hand, I feel very strongly that the people do have a right to enjoy their parks."123 In William E. Colby again spoke up for the choice of the Lake Tenaya-Olmsted Point route, claiming that the alternative route around Mount Hoffman would invade a wilderness area and cost far more to construct.124

The controversy over the road improvements greatly angered Yosemite Park Superintendent John C. Preston, who reacted by making personal attacks on the project's opponents. In preliminary remarks before a presentation on the road delivered at the Park Service's Region Four conference at Death Valley National Monument in January 1959, he called Ansel Adams a 'champion of low standard roads' and a self-appointed savior of the wilderness. He derided Sierra Club president David Brower as "an egoist," with an "excessive love for himself."l25 In his presentation, Preston defended the Park Service's undertaking, alleging that the Bureau of Public Roads had sought to build a route to even higher standards. The NPS had challenged the more drastic BPR plans, and referred the matter to Dr. Walter Huber, chairman of the National Park Service advisory board and a former Sierra Club president. Huber supported the Park Service proposal, and the project was undertaken.l26