Climbing Castles Written designed and photographed by Julia Day
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Dedication This book is dedicated to anybody who has visited any of California’s state parks, to anybody who loves walking in the woods, and to anybody who loves being in high places.
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A c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s
I’d like to acknowledge three people that helped make this book possible. First is my film partner and good friend Dean Rossi, who not only supported my idea but was also my equipment lackie during all those trips to the park. Second is my father who drove us to the park so many times and gave up so many weekends to help us. Finally I’d like to acknowledge my idol and inspiration for this book, Ansel Adams. May his photography never be forgotten.
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Ferns on top of one of the many climbing rocks
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A healthy Madrone tree, also known as the Refridgerator tree
T a b l e of C on t e nt s Dedication.......................................................................................2-3 Acknowledgements.........................................................................4-5 Foreword.........................................................................................8-9 Introduction................................................................................10-11 Chapter One: A Parking Tradition............................................12-17 Chapter Two: Damaging Statistics............................................16-19 Wildowers of Castle Rock.......................................................18-21 Chapter Three: Branching Out for Help..................................24-27 Epilogue......................................................................................28-29 Bibliography.....................................................................................30 7
Forward While in my early years I was joyed by hiking, nature and the outdoors, I was not aware of it’s fragility. As a child, the world is new and beautiful. We are intrepid explorers and curious thinkers, desperate for input and information. However, we are not consious of the concept of endings, everything we saw we thought would stretch to live in inďŹ nity. For a child, mortality is not something to be familiar with, as it should be. I was no exception. It was not until middle school when my theological explorations ended and I decided to become a Wiccan that I noticed how little time or strength these parks and forests have. As a novice Wiccan, I immersed myself into being as environmentally aware as possible, as Wicca is a religion that holds nature as the most sacred aspect of the earth. I read stacks of books in the public library, kept an eye on the news for the latest reveals on environmental government actions, and was as cautious as i could not to litter or throw away recyclables in the trash. Sometimes I even went to local parks and picked up trash. So you can imagine my reaction when I heard the parks were closing, horror and disappointment in our government. Naturally, when the the documentary unit began I seized the opportunity to communicate this important issue to my peers. Originally I had planned to make this book as more of an aesthetically bound exploration into the beauty of the park, but judging from the pictures I took adding text to explain it would seem superuous. So I decided to delve into more of the political aspects of this issue as well as the damage the budget reduction would do to not only Castle Rock but all of the state parks. I also want to point out that although the park has been temporarily saved for a year, we are unsure of the parks future after that, so I thank you for taking the time to read this book, but I also encourage you to help the parks out in any form. Donate money to Sempriverins, volunteer to keep trails clean, even just visiting the park in your free time. If you do any of these things, we can be closer to saving not only these parks but all of them, and therefore preserve the land that makes up the heart of California
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A lavender variety of mountian lupine 9
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Introduction A little me around six years old was pouting and complaining all throughout the hour drive. She had cartoons to watch, toys to play with, pictures to paint, and books to read. Why should she have to be trapped in a car for an hour? The road through the hills was full of twists, turns and nausea, being in a booster seat certainly didn’t help, and I didn’t even have a portable DVD player (yes, I was a spoiled child. Benefit of not having any siblings). Well despite my horrible behavior, we finally arrived at our destination. I immediately released my seat belt and belted out the car door without applying sunscreen. My parents thought I was really excited to be there, I was just happy to get out of the car. I ran along the trail, happy, no ecstatic to be able to move, skip, and smell dirt and trees, not pungent yogurt and old leather. However, I wasn’t too impressed. My parents took me hiking everywhere; this seemed like any other forest in the Bay Area of California. However, a half hour of hiking passed and my patience wore thin, as well as the skin around my ankles now forming blisters. But then, I was greeted with an aweinspiring sight. I was on the threshold of one of the most beautiful valleys I have ever seen. We walked all around the ridge just looking into the valley until I got so tired I slept on top of my father’s shoulders. Eleven years later I returned to the park to create a documentary for film class, and a big sign lay in front of the pay station. In black, white and red bold font were the words “Save our State Parks!” That park was Castle Rock, and the sign refers to 70 parks being closed this July due to our governor, Jerry Brown, cutting 22 million dollars General Fund from the State Department of Parks and Recreation. As a part of his 2012-13 Fiscal year budget plan, 70 of our 279 state parks will be closed, all of the seasonal lifeguards (which would effectively eliminate all lifeguards on state beaches), and eliminate 20 percent of all the rangers in California State Parks, which, out of the 2,649 permanent and seasonal positions offered at the parks, would eliminate at least 527 jobs. (parks.ca.gov) Not only will this new plan eliminate an appalling amount of jobs from the program, it would open up some of California’s most beautiful land to vandalizing, overgrowth, and disrepair.
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It is difficult to grasp the sheer severity of this bill’s actions without knowing what kind of legacy it would destroy, and this legacy began a mere two-hundred miles away in what is now Yosemite National Park. The first state park was the Yosemite Grant, which is now Yosemite National Park. With major help from activists such as Galen Clark, and John Muir, the land of Yosemite Valley and Mariposa grove was set aside as a park in 1864. However, this act alone didn’t save the park. Sheep overgrazing meadows, logging of Giant Sequoias, and increased but unchecked tourism still damaged the park, so Muir set out to put the park under federal protection. He and President Theodore Roosevelt camped out in Glacier Point for three days, and during that trip he made his case and convinced Roosevelt to put the park in federal care. He did just that. He signed a bill transforming Yosemite into a national park, forever preserving the awe-inspiring wonder of the valleys and groves for generations to come. From that bill sparked a fire of 279 parks being set aside for preservational and conservational purposes, starting with the towering Big Basin Redwoods and most recently ending with the Ford Ord Dunes of Monterey.
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"How can I say this: people need wild places. Whether or not we think we do, we do. We need to be able to taste grace and know once again that we desire it. We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers. To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours,... and none of which could possibly care less about our economic status or our running day calendar. Wildness puts us in our place. It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd. It reminds us why, in those cases in which our plans might inuence many future generations, we ought to choose carefully. Looking out on a clean plank of planet earth, we can get shaken right down to the bone by the bronze-eyed possibility of lives that are not our own.� ~Barbara Kingslover
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Chapter Two Damaging statistics 18
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However, reasons of preserving beauty don’t add to any connotations of logic, so let’s break down the scale of how important the parks are. 1.3 million acres, or nearly 1.5% of California’s land, are owned or managed by the state park system. California State Parks, or CSP, provides the public with 14,531 camp sites, 7,245 individual picnic sites, and 5,095 miles of non-motorized trails. If all of our trails were attached to each other, they would span all the way to France or Spain (www.Parks.Ca.Gov). If any of that land is removed from governmental regulation, the risk of damage is certain and dangerous. Government-run forest fire departments would shrink, increasing the potential damage from a human-caused fire. Over 3% of park visitors operate off-highway vehicles in state park units each year. If those roads aren’t maintained, there is an increasing risk of deadly car accidents, especially so far from civilization in certain locations. A significant portion of California’s resources are protected by the CSP as well; most notably that 93% of the park land is managed for natural resource values. (www.parks. ca.gov) Furthermore, the new bill will eliminate crucial jobs that maintain the precious land of the state parks. In the year 2010, the State Park Rangers and Lifeguards rescued 6,062 people from the water. If the bill eliminates all the lifeguards and a percentage of the rangers, who knows how many of those people would have been saved? In 2008, a fire started in Castle Rock State Park, damaging acres of forest. As it turned out, burning in that fire were over 11,000 marijuana plants. With cut costs on security, people can come in to parks and vandalize them for purposes such as this. 20
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Wildflowers
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1. A W i l d s t r a w b e r r y Blossom 2. A y o u n g S n o w d r o p plant 3. R a r e l a v e n d e r variety of lupine 4. a b u t t e r c u p 5. V i b r a n t r e d I n d i a n Paintbrushes 6. A P a i r o f b a b y B l u e Eyes
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So with that said, how do we stop this from happening? Well all the parks need now is help. With cut
budgets, cut employees, and cut land, they just need support. One way is to volunteer. Nearly every park has a volunteer system created to give people the opportunity to clean, maintain and take care of the parks for the public. The official CSP website says that 34,510 volunteers contributed 1,118,261 hours to the department in 2009/10 (www.Parks.Ca.Gov). Volunteers help staff visitor centers, maintain trails, serve as camp hosts, give interpretive programs, present special events and do much, much more to share their love of the parks with the visiting public. You could also give money. With 22 million dollars cut from the budget, they need all the funds they can get. Saveourstateparks.org, the organization designated to help save the parks from closure, says that Years of chronic underfunding have left California’s state parks system with a deferred maintenance backlog of over $1.3 billion. This backlog leaves priceless historic structures, culturally significant landmarks and artifacts are at risk of being lost forever. Important infrastructure such as sewage lines will fall into disrepair. Without a permanent funding source in place, the list of necessary repairs will continue to grow and small problems will grow exponentially. Finally, the simplest thing that can help the parks is visit. With 279 spread throughout the state there’s bound to be one by you. Many of the parks designated to be closed in July were chosen for not being used enough, so now it’s time to show we do. Go with a friend! Daniel Lautzenheiser, a UOP graduate and rock climber, states that a study showed that people who share an outdoor experience together like hiking or camping at the high school/college together statistically 100% more likely to work together professionally as adults. As I’ve stated before, these parks are absolutely beautiful and full of life and discovery. These parks are an integral part of our heritage and our culture, as well as part of the only places of wilderness where certain species exist. Without saving these parks and recognizing how important they are to our community, we will lose so much more than our forests, or our streams, or even our beaches. We will lose a part of our soul, the part that connects with the kind of beauty of Mother Nature that only California can offer.
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Epilogue When I returned to Castle Rock three weeks from writing this paper, I was worried that the assumptions of the bill were true, that nobody was using the park and the parking lot in front would be empty. To my surprise and my relief, the parking lot was packed and we had to drive a good half a mile to ďŹ nd a space, but it was totally worth it. When I returned to that gorgeous view of the valley, I was reminded of how much I love nature and parks, as well as my passion for activism and saving the parks. If you take a little time and drive an hour to whatever park is by your home, you will, too. 29
Bibliography S p e c i a l F a c t s w w w. p a r k s. c a .g o v Gretchen Roth from personal interview B a r b r a K i n g s l o v e r w w w. k i n g s l o v e r. c o m History of theConservation movement Various article authors Daniel Lautzenheiser Personal Interview
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