Not dusty at all

Member finds the Club's 100-year-old LeConte Lodge full of life during week of volunteering

Reprinted with permission from the Foggy View, the newsletter of the Palos Verdes-South Bay Group.

It was January when an e-mail calling for volunteers to assist at the Club's LeConte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite National Park caught my eye.

When I asked friends about the lodge, I generally got the reply that they had not been in it for years, but their recollections were that it was dark and dusty and not very interesting. Nevertheless, I called Bonnie Johanna Gisel, curator of the lodge, and soon found myself volunteering for a week in June.

photo: Keith Martin Yosemite's LeConte Lodge curator Bonnie Gisel before the impressive fireplace.

The afternoon I arrived was sunny and warm. I was immediately impressed by my own misconception of the 100-year-old lodge. It was not dusty, dark, or cluttered, but a clean, sparkling gem of an architectural masterpiece, with displays, reading areas, and children's corner all tastefully and appealing arranged. A towering fireplace dominated the back wall with a memorial plaque of a contemplative Joseph LeConte above the mantel.

I received my volunteer packet and headed over to the campsites to settle in to my home for the week.

The next two days, the lodge was closed. With another volunteer I climbed up to Eagle Peak on one day, and Glacier Point the next. With body and mind thoroughly refreshed and exercised, I was ready to undertake my volunteer responsibilities.

The building was originally built with funds collected by the Sierra Club, but it now belongs to the Park Service. It is on the National Registry of Historic Buildings and celebrated its 100th anniversary last July. The Sierra Club has been providing interpretive services in the park since 1898, when it began providing this function under contract to the state, before the creation of the National Park.

When University of California geology professor Joseph LeConte, a charter member of the Sierra Club and close collaborator with John Muir, died in the park in July 1901, at the beginning of the first Sierra Club high trip, his many friends and admirers collected funds for the memorial. They wanted a fitting and permanent testament to LeConte as well as a center for the Club's interpretive services.

The building was designed by John White, who was greatly influenced by the work of his brother-in-law, Bernard Maybeck, and the First Bay tradition of architecture.

The lodge is cared for by the LeConte Memorial Lodge Committee of the Sierra Club whose members have designed and constructed many of the exhibits. Gisel, a full-time Club employee, is assisted through the season by over 120 volunteers as well as evening program speakers. In addition to the permanent displays, Gisel arranges activities, such as block painting for children and quilting, during the day.

Gisel schedules the volunteers for either a morning session or an afternoon session. In addition, volunteers help with the evening programs when scheduled. During a typical three-hour session, I saw as few as 50 and as many as 150 visitors. The evening programs brought sometimes 90 visitors.

Referring to the materials prepared by Gisel, I answered questions about the lodge, the park, LeConte, Muir, and the Club. When my session was done, I was occupied in hiking and biking around the valley, fixing meals, and participating in stimulating conversations with Gisel and the other volunteers.

In 2003 a dark cloud passed over the lodge. Republican congressman George Radanovich of the 19th District sponsored a bill requiring that the lodge be torn down and removed from the park. He argued that since the Club championed the limiting of grazing in national preserves and had supported the park's own long-term recommendations that would limit camping and traffic in the valley, that they should be sanctioned by demolishing the lodge and reassembling the pieces somewhere else.

So far his proposals have provided ample editorial grist (to his detriment) for Central Valley newspapers and have also heightened public awareness of the lodge and its significance. Fortunately his proposals have not found sufficient support in the congress and he is currently distracted by other issues.

I encourage you to visit the lodge at your next opportunity. For myself? I will be there this June.