Yosemite--The Fate Of
Heaven
Produced by Jon Else
Co-Produced by Sterling
Vanwagenen and John Worty
Written by Jon Else and
Michael Chandler
"Yosemite--The Fate Of Heaven" is a
stunning film portrait of Yosemite National Park. Breathtaking
cinematography graphically depicts the fragile wonder of the
place naturalist John Muir once called "a great temple
lighted from above." The film illustrates how our passion
for Yosemite's beauty jeopardizes the very wilderness we love so
much.
Read by Robert Redford, the film's narration is
taken from the diaries of Lafayette Bunnell, a doctor who
accompanied the Mariposa Battalion in 1851 on a mission to
"hunt down Indians." The campaign brought soldiers for
the first time into the sacred valley home of the Ahwahnechee
tribe in the Sierra Nevada. "My astonishment was
overwhelming,'' wrote Bunnell of the valley's grandeur.
"Here before me was the power and glory of the Supreme
Being." Bunnell understood immediately that his small band
would be the first and last white men to see the natural wonder
of the valley unspoiled.
More than 130 years later, tens of thousands
trek to the park from all over the world to enjoy the valley's
magnificent landscapes and wildlife. The film introduces us to
hikers and campers for whom Yosemite is a true shrine, including
a free-hand rock climber who "dances" up walls of sheer
granite and a woman whose family survived the depression by
camping at the park and fishing its rivers. Vintage photographs
and observations from Bunnell's eloquent diary remind us that
America's love affair with Yosemite is well over a century old.
Wrote Bunnell on leaving Yosemite. "Those
scenes of beauteous enchantment I leave to those who remain to
enjoy them.'' Today Yosemite is a protected national park, but
that may not be enough to guarantee its future. The continual
onslaught of nature lovers--over 1,000 cars a day--only
intensifies the conflict between preservation and public
enjoyment. Sanitation workers remove 25,000 pounds of trash a
day. Work crews toil to repair natural trails damaged by wear.
Park rangers protect tourists from roaming bears, and curious
deer from potato chip hand-outs. Nature rules here, but human
beings, we learn, are both the biggest threat to the park's
future and its best hope.