After the largely unnecessary closure of Yosemite National Park due to the nonsensical mediademic imposed by Gavin Newsom, Yosemite is now reopening.
It was FAR more worthwhile to visit it while it was closed. With the newly imposed limits to visitors, though, it could still be considered a great destination because of the much smaller and distanced crowds. It should seem more like a National Park with wide open spaces instead of Galaxy’s Edge at Star Wars during Labor Day Weekend.
One great thing about California is the federal management of public lands. While our state government continues to wheeze and struggle under mismanagement, crazy half-baked “rules” made up by Gavin Newsom who claims to be using science (but his random decisions seem to indicate he’s not even using a dart board and a blindfold, much less an so-called actual “science”), the federal government continues to roll back lockdowns and re-open our lands as soon as it is feasible to do so.
On April 15, 2020 the California Fish and Game Commission determined that a “temporary, adaptive approach was needed to give the California Department of Fish and Wildlife the ability to suspend sport fishing in any waters of the state or restrict the taking of any fish species to protect public health and safety from the immediate threat posed by COVID-19” so they created an emergency action to add Section 8.02, Title 14 to the California Code of Regulations. This allowed the Department of Fish and Wildlife with “the ability to delay, suspend, or restrict sport or recreational fishing for particular species or areas to ensure that anglers, local communities, and government employees are protected from increased risk of transmission of COVID-19.”
The Forest Service has announced that they’re starting to open up access to developed recreational opportunities.
In California we’re part of Region 5 – the Pacific Southwest Region, which manages 18 national Forests from Klamath and Modoc in the northern part of the state all the way through the Angeles, San Bernardino, and Cleveland National Forests in the southern part of the state. These national forests cover more than 20 million acres of our lands and supply 50% of the water in the state.
