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ix Acknowledgments % Shortly after publishing my first book, Yellowstone and the Snowmobile, I left Yellowstone National Park to go to the other “Big-Y” park, Yosemite, where I have continued to work. The change in location has brought me new career possibilities, new wild places to explore, and new friendships. Like any change, though, this one came with upheavals, from leaving the house and landscape I loved to ending my relationship with the woman I thought I would marry. Writing this book became the creative endeavor I needed to fill the holes in my life, to refocus my attention on the possibilities of the present, to enhance my budding career at Yosemite, and to help me look again to the future. It was with the support of many friends and colleagues that this new endeavor became a successful one. First, I’d like to thank Bill Lowry, my colleague in St. Louis. Bill is one of just a few academics publishing book-length examinations of current National Park Service policy making and the influences—especially the political ones—on such efforts. He is the one who recognized the strength of my methodological approach and encouraged me to publish the results in this book. Bill was also gracious enough to encourage me to expand on the findings of his own books about the parks. Paul Schullery, Lee Whittlesey, Don Bachman, Jeff Pappas, Denice Swanke, Wade Vagias, Kathleen Morse, Jim Donovan, Jim Bacon, Jim Roche, Sabrina Stadler, Brenna Lissoway, Don Neubacher, Laura Kirn, and my many other “Big-Y” park friends and colleagues have also provided ongoing support , encouragement, and interest in this work. Most of these people work for the very agency whose policy-making successes and struggles I critique in this book; the others regularly interact with those who do. They are the men and women who struggle day in and day out to preserve the national parks for now and the future, for you and me. Acknowledgments x S Without the support of my family, I could never have made the transition to my new life and workplace in Yosemite. All of them helped make this new place and job enjoyable and productive, and all of them supported me in my new after-work writing endeavor. Whether it is our regular chats on the phone, our hikes together, or the expressions of love and support that they have provided, I have nothing but thanks to offer them. Librarians and archivists are the often unsung heroes of scholarship; they are the ones who patiently dig out dusty archives to examine, who suggest related and important collections to peruse, and who critically think about a patron’s project, all with the goal of making the work as complete as possible. This book could not have been possible without the help and always cheerful assistance of the librarians and archivists in Yellowstone, Yosemite, the National Park Service Denver Service Center, the University of WisconsinMadison , and the Denver Public Library. On the same note, a special thanks to the Greater Yellowstone Coalition staff, who also opened up their files to me. While we may disagree on some issues, we have the same ultimate goal: preserving the Greater Yellowstone Area for future generations. They were gracious enough to trust me with their files, without which this book would have been incomplete. Finally,ThomasR.Vale,WilliamCronon,NancyLangston,BobOstergren, and Matt Turner, as well as the two anonymous reviewers who reviewed the manuscript and my editor at the University of New Mexico Press, all consistently pushed me to examine all perspectives, to faithfully record events as objectively and clearly as possible, and in general make this work as excellent as possible. Any mistakes or oversights in this book are my own. ...

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