In a federal courtroom, Greg Adair looks like someone who might be more comfortable dangling from a 3,000-foot granite wall than sitting at the plaintiff's table.The long hair, the rock-climber physique and the suit and tie just don't seem to mix. He is an uneasy legal warrior for a place where people from around the globe stop to gawk -- Yosemite Valley.Adair is the blue-collar activist who has led two local groups in a legal battle for Yosemite's ecological soul. They have won impressive court decisions over the last six years, stopping vast construction projects in the glacial valley.The man behind these court victories is a 45-year-old Bay-Area resident with eclectic pursuits -- construction worker, rock climber, philosopher and ardent friend of nature."I want the National Park Service to think deeply about this natural place," Adair says. "I want them thinking about what really belongs here, not asking for big parking lots."After six years of legal wrangling, it is clear that almost every aspect of park service planning and building in the valley needs to pass muster with Adair and his fellow activists.Frustrated federal officials openly criticize Adair, the groups and their motives.Not surprisingly, the marathon face-off has become as biting as the winter wind in the high country.This kind of a fight is not unusual in beloved national parks such as Yosemite, Yellowstone and Grand Canyon. A debate over snowmobile limits in Yellowstone has raged for years, involving such environmental heavyweights as the Natural Resources Defense Council.In Yosemite, the fight centers on the Merced River and its protection plan, which the park service legally should have finished 17 years ago. At the time, the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management produced their own special plan for the river where it flows outside the park.The park service's version bogged down in chronically underfunded and controversial Yosemite Valley renovation plans. But the massive Merced River flood in 1997 gave the park service $175 million to rebuild damaged buildings, utilities and other services.The renovation suddenly lurched into gear, highlighting the agency's delicate responsibility for protecting nature and people in a place where floods and rock falls are part of the landscape.The park service's fix-it plans, which finally included a completed river protection plan, received the blessing of environmental titans, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Wilderness Society.Adair was unconvinced.So, unlike Yellowstone's snowmobile fight, the battle over the river and Yosemite Valley seems closer to a David-and-Goliath affair, even though the well-known Sierra Club and others support Adair and the two groups.The groups are classic grass-roots, nonprofit organizations with modest means and a fraction of the membership compared to broad, national groups.Adair's group is called Friends of Yosemite Valley, which he formed in 1997 to oppose Yosemite Lodge rebuilding plans. The other is Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Government, which began in 1989 among some Mariposa-area residents to fight a mining proposal.The two groups want valley fixes that are easy on the ecosystem. They say they don't want road-widening projects, more asphalt for new parking areas and upscale motel units, which they believe is the real goal of the park service.The heart of the activists' criticism: They say the federal government is trying to turn the valley into a resort and a profit center.Last year, a federal judge in Fresno sided with them on a key issue and stopped more than $50 million in Yosemite Valley projects. He ordered the park service to start over on a plan to protect the valley's main stream, the Merced River.The park service in late December filed a notice to appeal the decision. Park service officials said last year's decision appears to add years of delay for projects that have been waiting since 2003. The $35 million renovation of Yosemite Lodge has been held up in the process.On the day the park service filed the notice of appeal, activists brought another lawsuit, this time asking a judge to stop the broader Yosemite Valley Plan. The plan is a management blueprint that includes the river plan.Activists said they hope the park service avoids this lawsuit by voluntarily withdrawing and reworking the valley plan.Park service officials replied that their plan -- honed over many years and scrutinized by thousands of people in the public -- does not need revision.Irritated by the legal jockeying, Yosemite's top administrator, Superintendent Michael Tollefson, said the activists want to stop all improvements. Tollefson said activists are holding back campsites, road work and other projects that the public supports."We have a small group of people who are opposed to changing anything," he said in December.The activists are well-positioned to question the park service on details. Many live in the Yosemite area, walk the park regularly and follow issues word by word.Studying the law and watching the summer crowds in the valley, they quickly located the key legal issue. It is called visitor capacity -- the number of people who can visit without trampling the place.There is no such number for the Merced River and Yosemite Valley. Instead, park service officials have a monitoring system to make sure crowds do not overwhelm sensitive areas.But with no limit to the number of visitors, the crowds could grow well beyond a reasonable level, even with proper monitoring, Adair said.He added, "They have got to see this in terms of a defined capacity."A familiar hauntAdair is not a lifelong activist, though his college background might suggest it.He studied social theory and environmental thought at the University of California at Berkeley. He also took an interest in architecture, later starting up his work in building trades as a painter.Adair moved to the Yosemite area and worked construction jobs for several years during the lawsuit. He structured his time to devote himself to the legal issues, and he will continue, even though he moved back to the Bay Area last year.Yosemite remains a familiar haunt for Adair. His rock-climbing adventures took him to Yosemite Valley's Camp 4 -- Sunnyside Campground -- a legendary hangout for climbers worldwide, because it is so close to Swan Slab cliffs where climbers work on their skills.It was Adair who sounded the alarm when the park service announced it would rebuild some Yosemite Lodge units closer to the Sunnyside Campground after the 1997 flood.Adair organized several dozen people to become Friends of Yosemite Valley in fall 1997 to fight the plan. Donations to support the nonprofit group fall below the $25,000 annual threshold for reporting income to the federal government.Friends of Yosemite Valley combined with more than two dozen other plaintiffs, including the American Alpine Club. Lodge construction was supposed to begin in summer 1998, but it was put on hold as Yosemite officials and climbers worked out a settlement.By early 1999, a settlement had been struck, and the lawsuit was dead. Adair was not part of the negotiations, but by then he had hooked up with legendary environmentalist David Brower for guidance.When the Merced River Plan finally was finished in 2000, Friends of Yosemite Valley joined with Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Government in a lawsuit against it.Mariposans group leaders said they have been busy with issues such as Mariposa County's General Plan and have followed the lead of Adair's group.At the time that lawsuit was filed, Adair criticized the park service, saying the park's construction projects had shaped the river plan, not vice versa."We feel like they looked at developments that have been in the works since 1992, instead of protecting the river," he said then.'Fatal beauty'Adair's criticism of the park service's plans has not abated. On a frosty day last month, he strolled around Yosemite Lodge, talking about the park service's plans to move the valley's main exit route to the edge of the Merced River."Sooner or later, the water will rise onto the road," he said. "It's good that the park service wants to move motel units out of the flood plain. But why put a road here?"The park service said the road, called Northside Drive, should be moved to bypass a bottleneck intersection near the lodge and Yosemite Falls. The move will make the road safer for visitors, officials said."All the traffic in the park exits through that stretch of road," said Yosemite spokesman Scott Gediman. "We can deal with flooding and repairs -- it's something we deal with all the time. This project will alleviate a big traffic problem."The bottleneck occurs in summer, usually on holiday weekends, such as the Fourth of July. People try to walk across Northside Drive to view Yosemite Falls while motorists attempt to leave the valley.The swarm at the intersection epitomizes the love-it-to-death rush that sometimes descends on Yosemite Valley.More than 3 million people annually visit Yosemite, and most pass through the 7-square-mile valley to see the startling panoramic that includes Yosemite Falls, Half Dome and El Capitan. It stirs lasting emotions in people.One retired park service employee called it the "fatal beauty" of Yosemite Valley."People see it and love it," said Bill Tweed, longtime naturalist and historian for the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. "They fight each other forever over it."For the park service, it may only seem like forever. According to the judge's decision last year, the agency now must overhaul the plan completely -- a job the park service estimates will take 33 more months.During the litigation over the last six years, the park service has been able to build projects between rulings, including new employee dormitories at Curry Village, part of a utilities overhaul and a high-profile trail-building project at Yosemite Falls.Officials said visitors uniformly like what they've seen, adding that there has been restoration work as well. Officials said they have restored several meadows, removed many buildings and transferred some park service offices to El Portal, outside the valley.But 10 years after the big flood, the park service's patience has worn thin over the activists' litigation.Said Gediman, "I've used the word fringe to describe them, and I'll use it again. The lodge, the campgrounds and the rest of the utilities project would have been finished by now if not for literally a handful of people who don't agree with it. But the visitors love the changes."A broad-based coalitionThe moniker "fringe group" rankles Bridget Kerr, who is both a member of Adair's Friends of Yosemite Valley and vice chair of the Yosemite Committee for the Sierra Club.Kerr has lived in the Yosemite area for many years and knows many who support the activists. She pointed to a court filing that includes 62 signatures representing those who support the lawsuit.Aside from the Sierra Club, there are many conservation groups as well as Madera and Tuolumne counties in support of the lawsuit."This is a broad-based coalition of grass-roots environmentalists, citizens, businesses and local governments with diverse points of view that all agree on one thing -- Yosemite and the Merced River are too important to let differences divide us," Kerr wrote in an e-mail.She and others said there are hundreds of people who are upset about the level of development in the valley. They said many members of Friends of Yosemite Valley are afraid to speak out because they work at the park or in a tourist industry that relies on park visitors.One out-of-area supporter who can speak up without fear of retaliation is Brian Ouzounian. He is a Southern California construction contractor and co-founder of the Yosemite Valley Campers Coalition."I think the park service is trying to demonize bright, motivated people who are doing the right thing," he said. "My hat's off to the Friends of Yosemite Valley and Mariposans for Environmentally Responsible Growth."Yosemite officials responded that many environmentalists support their plans. Court records show the Wilderness Society, Natural Resources Defense Council and National Parks and Conservation Association sided with the park service in 2001.The parks and conservation association now is neutral, said representative Laura Whitehouse. She said her organization worries about the complexity of the debate and the effect on visitors as projects are delayed."You see bulldozers and construction tape all the time," she said. "It's getting to a point where [the] litigation can't continue" without harming the visitor experience.But Adair said the litigation is worth the time to bring the park plans into a more public debate: "What we want is to create an honest, public dialogue about the Merced River and the valley."
