I started visiting Yosemite National Park as a young child with my family, and we would spend time in the park at least once a year during much of my childhood. This is a place that innoculated me with my love of the outdoors and wild spaces. I am, in fact, old enough to have seen the firefall they used to perform, and have played golf on the course that used to exist near the Ahwanee (times have changed in the park for the better — mostly).

I’ve found it harder and harder to appreciate Yosemite, though, because of the cost and crowds that now inhabit it year round; it used to be there were slow times where you could visit and explore without everything being a line to get in, but those are harder and harder to find. Because of this, I visited less frequently in recent yuears than I used to.

I still love the place, even if I worry that it, like many of our National Parks these days, are being loved to death. It is a corner stone of my love for nature, and that is the cornerstone for my love of photography, which is why the walls of my office are adorned with images from some of my favorite Yosemite photographers: Ansel Adams, Michael Frye and William Neill.