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SFChronicle.com | Sunday, October 18,2015 | Printed on recycled paper | $3.00 xxxxx• Airbnb measure divides neighbors

Prop. F’s backers, opponents split come in the middle of the night, CAMPAIGN 2015 source of his income in addition bumping their luggage down to work as a real estate agent over impact on tight housing market the alley. This is not an occa- and renewable-energy consul- sional use when a kid goes to ing and liability issues. tant, Li said. college or someone is away for a But Li, 38, said he urges “I depend on Airbnb to make By Carolyn Said Phil Li, who rents out three week. Along with all the house guests to be respectful, while sure I can meet each month’s suites to travelers via Airbnb. cleaners, it’s an array of com- two other neighbors said that expenses,” he said. “I screen A narrow alley separates “He’s running a hotel next mercial traffic in a residential they are not affected. Vacation guests carefully and educate Libby Noronha’sWest Portal door,” said Noronha, 67,a re- neighborhood,” she said of the rentals helped him after he lost them to come and go quietly.” house from that of her neighbor tired federal employee. “People noise, smoking, garbage, park- his job and remain a major Prop. Fcontinues on A15

1883

2015

By Tom Stienstra In 1883, Israel Russell took the Yosemite: High on the Lyell Glacier in Yo semite National Park, a vein of water top photo of the cut a narrow gouge as it streamed downslope from the melting ice. Lyell Glacier, Off to the right, you could see a thin, foot-wide current, also from when its size melting ice, which flowed a quarter inch beneath the surface. At the was 13.15 foot of the glacier, drops of water from the glacier’s receding edge hit million square Warming bare granite. Dozens of rivulets poured onto an exposed field of boul- feet. Keenan ders, talus and a moraine that had been covered for thousands of years Takahashi took by snow and ice. the bottom pho- The Lyell Glacier, once estimated as a mile wide and Yo semite’s larg- to in 2015 from the same spot. est glacier when visited by John Muir in 1872, could melt and disappear The glacier takes a toll in as soon as five years, according to park geologist Greg Stock, if warm shrank to 2.9 temperatures at high elevations continue. million square The glacier has lost about 90 percent of its volume and 80 percent of feet, losing 90 Lyell Glacier, largest in the park, its surface area from 1883 to 2015, according to Stock and Peter Devine, percent of vol- a naturalist with the Yo semite Conservancy who has studied the Lyell ume and about is melting, may be gone in 5 years Glacier for 30 years. Stock and a crew of geologists measured the pe 80 percent of Yosemite continues on A16 surface area.

Marin poet considers Museums chief Wilsey the nuances of loss under fire for payment Weather C12 By Ryan Kost may learn some things about It’s been all sparkling dress- MATIER & ROSS her, about the thoughts that Dede es, black ties and smiles at the “When you read a poem and it occupy her mind, her wry sense Wilsey has de Yo ung Museum lately dur- communicates to you, you feel that of humor, her sly way with the been ing celebrations of the 10th Museums’ longtime chief fi- you half wrote it. You feel part of words she chooses. Yo u would faulted anniversary of the new build- nancial officer, Michele Gutier- the making in a way. It’s a won- not, however, learn about her for a ing’s opening. Behind the rez, has landed both at City derful thing. You’re in cahoots. dusty youth, the long bike rides $450,000 scenes, however, a bombshell Hall and state Attorney General You’re in cahoots with the writer.” she used to take that had her payment has dropped: a whistle-blower Kamala Harris’ office. It centers that a — Kay Ryan waking up dew-covered on the complaint accusing the queen on $450,000 Wilsey ordered beach or the home she has museums of the ball, museum board paid to an ailing staffer, and Kay Ryan’s poetry stands on made, tucked away in Marin. executive president and socialite philan- both the city and museum its own, separate, as she might Perhaps most notably, you says thropist Dede Wilsey,of fi- Board of Trustees have been lacked the put it, from any “autobiograph- would not learn about Carol nancial misconduct. looking into it, the sources say. board’s Multiple sources tell us the Gutierrez says Wilsey got ical gloss.” If you read enough Adair,her partner of 30 years approval. of her poems, say a dozen, you Ryan continues on A6 complaint by the Fine Arts Matier & Ross continues on A12 A16 | Sunday, October 18, 2015 | SFChronicle.com XXXXX• FROM THE COVER Yosemite’s Lyell Glacier victim of climate change

Yosemite from page A1 rimeter of the glacier with a GPS in the last week of Sep- tember. “I’m getting the feeling I may be the last geologist to study these glaciers,” Stock said. “Pretty soon, there won’t be any ice here at all, just a rub- ble-strewn basin. I’m starting to think like a biologist, some- body who is studying an en- dangered species, something that can disappear.” “It is disappearing right in front of our eyes,” Devine said on a recent trek to the glacier. Seeing difference in a week Josh Helling, a mountain- eering guide and photographer who made trips to the Lyell Glacier in back-to-back weeks at the turn of the month with Stock and Devine, said he was stunned at how fast the glacier is melting. “In just a week, you can see the difference,” he said. The Lyell Glacier is in the Yo semite Wilderness out of Tuolumne Meadows near Donohue Pass, nestled on the high flank of 13,120-foot Mount Lyell. To see it and the neigh- boring Maclure Glacier, The Chronicle joined an expedition at the end of September that Photos by Braden Mayfield / Special to The Chronicle involved a 30-mile trek with total climbs of 5,000 feet, and A moment Above: The more than 10 miles hiked off dusk sky trail across boulder fields, in time, 1935 appears to talus, scree and bedrock, and “Why is it important that we be on fire six hours of ice travel. should measure our glaciers? over the Sierra Crest Miles above tree line, a What need is there of going to in the high harsh wind blew. A dark, all of this trouble, and what country of cloud-lined ceiling painted the purpose will be served by the the Yosemite sky the color of blue steel. To results? The answer is that gla- ciers are extremely sensitive to Wilderness, trek up the glacier and mea- viewed from sure its edges, hikers dug their climatic fluctuations and register them more vividly than do the Lyell spike-tipped boots, laced with Cirque above crampons, into the ice, and streams, springs, lakes, or vege- tation; and since we have so Tuolumne steadied themselves with ice Meadows axes. It was the last of what delicately, so daringly adjusted some of our great agricultural and near remained of an open ice field. and engineering enterprises and Donohue “If we were standing here their dependent industries to Pass. the day John Muir crossed the existing climatic conditions, it Lyell, we’d be under 150 feet of behooves us for the good of our snow and ice,” Devine said. complex American civilization to “I think about John Muir a keep a close watch on climatic lot up there on the glacier,” changes or fluctuations, howev- Left: Stock said. “I try to envision er slight and transient, that may Naturalist what it was like when Muir be taking place.” Peter Devine was here. It would have been (left) of — Francois Matthes, Yosemite so different. I think about what U.S. Geological Survey, 1935 (Francois) Matthes (of the U.S. Conservancy Geological Survey) said in 1935, and about why we need to measure Chronicle our glaciers, that glaciers are voir capacity and, in some outdoors sensitive indicators of climate areas, much higher than that. writer Tom Stienstra change.” On a global scale, glaciers hold climb the more than 50 percent of the On the John Muir Trail disappearing world’s freshwater, according Lyell Glacier The expedition launched to the National Geographic at 12,500 feet from Tuolumne Meadows in Society. In some areas, such as in the Yo semite National Park, with the Andes and Himalayas, the Yosemite the first steps taken on the recession of glaciers is a long- Wilderness. John Muir Trail, elevation term threat to water supply. 8,700 feet. It was the same The recession of the Lyell route John Muir chose in the Glacier and other glaciers isn’t 1870s when he started measur- from drought, according to state geologistJosiah Whitney ing Yo semite’s glaciers. many climatologists. Over the and others, such as LeConte of The chosen path followed past 100 years, precipitation the University of California, alongside the Lyell Fork of the has remained steady, with that glaciers existed in Califor- Tuolumne River, the stream occasional blips from droughts nia and were a primary force that is created from the first and floods, they say. What has in carving out the deep can- drops of the Lyell Glacier. The changed, according to meteo- yons of Yo semite and the Sier- river then flows through Tuol- rologist Michael Pechner of ra. A river of ice, as Muir called umne Meadows, down the Golden West Meteorology, is them, carved, pushed and Sierra foothills and to the San warmer temperatures and high ground up the rocks in their Joaquin delta. It is the same snow levels. paths. water that millions drink when they turn on their faucets in ‘Symbol of a changing world’ Climbers notice change San Francisco, the Peninsula A weather station at Blue In recent years, high snow and much of the Bay Area. Canyon in the central Sierra, lines and receding glaciers As the group hiked 8.5 miles located at 5,280 feet near have been apparent to many to the head of Lyell Canyon, Nyack along Interstate 80, is a climbers without measured Devine talked about watching testament. Over the past 50 verification in the Yo semite what he called “an aged com- years, Blue Canyon has re- came in view. loomed above, and its peak high country, as well as at panion,” the Lyell Glacier, ceived an average of 252 inches “Look,” Devine said. One poked a hole in the dimming Mount Whitney, Mount Shasta recede in recent years at an of snow per year, according to could see for miles across the sky. and the Palisades in the central alarming pace. the stateDepartment of Water barren country of the High “I’ve been coming up here Sierra. In addition, at eleva- “Without the big snowpack Resources. Last winter, it in- Sierra, devoid of snow. The for 30 years,” Devine said as he tions above 10,000 feet, many in the High Sierra Nevada, stead received 57 inches of effects, with few glaciers and lit his tiny stove to boil water have said that it just seemed what little snow we get melts rain. Many weather stations in low winter snowpack, Devine for a cup of tea. “Some years, I warmer. In the past nine years, off quickly in the spring,” De- the mountain country record- explained, impact the state’s come up two, three times. I Stock, Devine and a team of vine said. “Without a snow ed similar numbers, according residents, agriculture, industry think a lot about John Muir, geologists have worked togeth- cover, the glaciers get exposed to DWR. and fish and wildlife. Joseph LeConte, Galen Clark. er to monitor the Lyell Glacier to sun and start melting. When “The Lyell Glacier is a sym- What they saw. What we’re in scientific terms. The Yo sem- an area melts off, the exposed bol of a changing world,” De- The ghosts of legends seeing now. I think about how ite Conservancy funded the rocks absorb the heat of the vine said. The world we know From that first camp, the we are camping and walking in research for the National Park sun and then radiate it into the is changing, he said, and at the climbers rose 2,000 feet, in- the same places, looking at the Service. In recent weeks, both adjoining ice, and the glacier same time, a new worldwhere cluding 2.5 miles off trail same things that the legends made trips to observe the gla- then melts even faster.” “we cannot fully measure or across boulders and bedrock. did.” cier. The recession of glaciers has imagine what is to come” is At dusk, they arrived at a Stock made his first trip, “In September, I went to the occurred worldwide as tem- arriving. sandy meadow in the greater guided by Devine, in 2006 to toe of the Maclure Glacier and peratures have warmed, De- As the group neared its first Lyell Cirque, elevation 10,850 the Lyell Glacier, and on the was looking for a survey point vine said. According to the night’s trail camp, the expedi- feet, to set up a base camp shoulder of Lyell, the neigh- we established six years ago California Department of Wa- tion reached a location near the below the Lyell and Maclure boring Maclure Glacier. This is close to the edge of the glacier,” ter Resources, snow provides head of Tuolumne Meadows glaciers. As dusk took hold, where Muir conducted a veloc- Stock said. “Looking for it,I 30 percent of the state’s reser- where the Lyell Glacier first Mount Lyell and its glacier ity study to prove to California walked far past that point XXXXX• SFChronicle.com | Sunday, October 18, 2015 | A17

Tom Stienstra / The Chronicle Bevan Bell starts a 4,000-foot descent from the ridge below Lyell Glacier to base camp (next to small lake on canyon terrace) and beyond to Tuolumne Meadows.

Trek itinerary

DAY 1 DAY 2 DAY 3 DAY 4 DAY 5 Trek totals: 30 miles, 4,970 feet total Launch day: In Yosem- Trek into cirque: Maclure Ice Field: Lyell Glacier: From Snowbound exit: Bliz- climb, 10.4 miles off trail across boulder ite National Park, drive From head of Lyell From base camp base camp (10,850 zard blankets Mount fields, talus, scree and bedrock, six to Wilderness Center Canyon, hike John (10,850 feet), feet), climb boulder Lyell and adjoining high hours ice travel. at Tuolumne Mead- Muir Trail toward climb challenging field to sub ridge, country with 6-inch Difficulty: The upper sections of the ows, get Wilderness Donohue Pass, boulder field to then trek up ridge snowfall in three hours. hike are off trail and involve steep, slip- Permit, continue to break off from sub ridge, then trek across bedrock to From base camp, can- pery rock scrambling, exposure above trailhead at Dog Lake trail, following a across steep gla- small lake and yoneer off-trail descent cliff bands, very unstable loose rock parking lot near Tuol- small watershed, cier-polished bed- across extremely down drainage, over through the moraine, and slippery ice/ umne Meadows and scramble and rock and talus to hazardous loose boulders and talus in glacier travel with crevasse and glacier Lodge, elevation climb over mostly Mount Maclure boulder field and snow, low visibility, ford tunnel navigation. 8,700 feet. Hike 8.5 bedrock slabs into cirque and lake. talus across mo- stream, 2.5 miles to raine to Lyell Gla- miles on John Muir Lyell Cirque for With ice-climbing John Muir Trail. De- Disclaimer: “Everyone on the trip needs cier (12,050 feet). Trail, 300-foot eleva- base camp at equipment, climb scend to Lyell Fork/ to assume personal responsibility of With crampons and tion gain, up Lyell Fork 10,850 feet, above up Maclure Glacier Tuolumne Meadows, their own health and safety.” — Moun- ice ax, climb up Tuolumne River; set tree line near and Ice Field into hike out to trailhead in taineer Braden Mayfield. up camp near where small unnamed glacier tunnel, Lyell Glacier to rain/snow. Drive to Kuna Creek descends lake, Mount Lyell 11,554 feet. Syn- shoulder of Lyell restaurant, The Mobil, If you want to go: A Wilderness Permit into Lyell Fork, eleva- towering above. opsis: 2.4 miles, no Peak (13,120 feet), better known as the and park-approved bear-resistant food tion 8,980 feet, accli- Synopsis: 3.6 trails, 700-foot open exposure. Whoa Nellie Deli, in Lee canister are required for overnight travel mate to high altitude. miles, 1,970-foot elevation gain, ice Synopsis: 3 miles, Vining for feast. Syn- in the Yosemite Wilderness. Yosemite Synopsis: 8.5 miles, climb, mostly off climb and return, no trails, 2,000- opsis: 12 miles, 2,300- Conservancy leads Lyell Glacier treks for 300-foot gain, easy. trail, challenging. hazardous. foot climb, ex- foot descent. Extreme- very fit backpackers each August. Info: tremely hazardous. ly hazardous. www.YosemiteConservancy.org. — Tom Stienstra

before it hit me, that it was way “This is extremely hazard- downhill in along cascade, the ne Glacier, whose traces are The next morning, a harsh back there. The glacier had ous,” mountaineering guide group reached the toe of the still distinct 50 miles away, and wind blew down from the Lyell receded so much from just the Josh Helling said. “One step at glacier at 12,000 feet. The hik- whose influence on the land- Glacier. A few snowflakes year before. I had to recalibrate a time. If the rock moves, it’s ers strapped on crampons, scape was so profound.” fluttered down. In minutes, a in my mind what I was looking likely the one next to it is un- jammed ice axes into the sur- The expedition members cloud dropped down and at.” stable, too.” face, and took their first steps explored the glacier, its newly smothered the cirque, and in On The Chronicle’s recent At one point, a reporter on the Lyell Glacier revealed edges and sublevel turn, a 20-knot wind blasted trek, the group awoke early at reached out to grab a 15-foot The first thing one notices is water flows. At one point, they snow across the terrain. A our base camp above tree line table rock for stability, and it the melting ice, with water dipped down and drank a blizzard coated the landscape and, as dawn took hold with felt like his right foot hit a trap streaming through a series of scoopful of water, as sweet as in minutes. temperature in the 20s, door. Rocks gave way and the tiny gullies. The surface of the any water in the world, yet The group broke camp fast, warmed up with hot cider and hiker’s foot plunged through a glacier was so soft that the much the same as the water, then walked down slowly. oatmeal. The team packed its 4-foot hole. In a flash point, crampon spikes punched via the Tuolumne River down- Steep descents across boul- crampons, ice axes and an rocks caved in around the leg, through to the hilt. With an ice stream, that comes out of fau- ders, talus and scree were outer layer, a combination of trapping it in place. ax as a walking stick, it was a cets in San Francisco. dangerous enough. If coated by windbreaker and snow shells, Devine, who has seen this seamless effort to walk up the Across the glacier surface, ice, or worse, buried by snow along with water and trail before, pounced. He grabbed glacier, about a 30-degree one could see a series of hori- to create a moonscape, some food, and ventured out to and tossed rocks the size of slope. zontal lines. “They are lines mountaineers can slip between climb 2,000 feet to the Lyell softballs and bowling balls, left behind with each snow boulders, wedge an ankle or Glacier. and finally reached an oblong A walk in time year, like tree rings,” Devine leg, and in the fall downhill, boulder, maybe 150 pounds, After 50 yards, with an open said. “These are possibly from snap an ankle or shin. Hazardous trek to glacier that had wedged over the top exposure and free fall below, it the time of Muir, about 140 The trek started on a chal- of my boot. There was no way was a bit eerie to look down years ago.” ‘Goodbye to an old friend’ lenging boulder field, a mas- to move anything, either the the slope. Yo u could see across In 1883, Israel Russell of the Small, iced flakes danced in sive jumble of rocks that boulder, foot or leg. a landscape of ice, rocks and U.S. Geological Survey took a the air as the groupdescended ranged from the size of Volks- Devine pulled out his pock- water for miles, all the way photo of the Lyell Glacier, and in a ravine, one boulder at a wagens to bowling balls. On etknife. “We’ll have to cut it down to the headwaters of the over the years, Stock and De- time. In less than two hours, top, at a sub ridge, the group off,” he said with a laugh. Lyell Fork Tuolumne, some vine have identified the sites the hikers reached flat ground, finally hit bedrockand, in Before the situation wors- 4,000 feet below. where Russell and other geol- and soon after, the John Muir another hour, topped another ened, a boot was untied and Devine pointed at a mark ogists have captured images of Trail. At 10,000 feet, just like in small ridge. The Lyell Glacier the foot extracted. high on the eastern wall of the the glacier. “We go to the same past years, the snow turned to emerged into view. Gazing up “With the ice gone, and all upper cirque. “In the time of photo points Russell estab- rain. From there, it was 10 at the expanse of ancient ice these air pockets under the Muir, the glacier reached all lished and repeat those same miles back to the trailhead. from a half mile away, one boulders, you can see how easy the way up there,” he said. The photographs and compare At one point, Devine turned could see how a center strip of you can get into trouble out point on the high wall was so them,” Stock said. to get one last glimpse of the it was melting below the sum- here,” Devine said. “At any high and far away that it As the day became late and a Lyell Glacier. mit ridge. moment, it all can give way.” seemed impossible. hazardous descent awaited us, “It’s like saying goodbye to Nearby was a small lake in a Helling also escaped injury Then Devine recalled what Devine took a seat at the foot of an old friend,” Devine said. pocket, filled with glacial melt, when a loose scree-topped Muir wrote about the site: the glacier, and then scanned “It’s hard to believe that the edged by a loose boulder field slope he was crossing col- “The Lyell Glacier is about a across what was left of the ice. glacier that John Muir found and talus slope. Snow and ice lapsed. Helling looked as if he mile wide and less than amile “In five years, this could be and that I’ve loved for most of can serve as a mortar that were dancing his way out of long.” It is now the size of a gone,” he said. “Even if we get my life looks like it will be holds the glacial deposits, such quicksand to reach a rock that several football fields, he said. a lot of snow with El Niño this gone.” as boulder fields, intact. With held. Up on that ice slope, the winter, the long-term trend is it melted, air pockets develop Crossing one last jumble of words of Muir from 1875 ech- unmistakable. The planet is Tom Stienstra is The San Franc- under the boulders that can fallen boulders, including a oed in my thoughts. “It is the warming up. It means higher isco Chronicle’s outdoor writer. lead to shifts, slides and col- 30-foot slot where truck-size highest and most enduring snow levels. Glaciers are melt- E-mail: tstienstra@sfchronicle. lapses. rocks recently had given way remnant of the great Tuolum- ing.” com Twitter: @StienstraTom