YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — An extensive, park-wide yearly clean-up event — known as a “Facelift” — will take place here beginning later this week.
Yosemite National Park and the Yosemite Climbing Association, which sponsor the event, invite the public to participate in the 16th Annual Yosemite Facelift, held each fall to remove litter from around the park after the busy summer season.
Volunteers are needed to help pick up trash and debris at various locations in the park, including roadways, in the river corridors, on trails, near climbing routes, and in parking, camping, and lodging areas.
The event starts on Tuesday night with an evening program. Trash pick-up volunteer days will start on Wednesday, Sept. 25 and continue through Monday, Sept. 30.
In 2018, 3,334 Yosemite Facelift volunteers collected and removed 14,126 pounds of trash and debris from Yosemite National Park, of which 8,745 pounds was small. so-called “micro trash.”
Volunteers worked over 11,700 hours throughout the event and throughout the park to clear trash from heavily visited areas and along park roadways.
Interested volunteers can sign up at the booth in front of the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday,
On Sunday, Sept. 29 registration will be open from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m.
A second check-in station will be located at the Tuolumne Meadows Store on Friday and Saturday Sept. 27-28.
The Tuolumne Meadows booth will be open from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Crew leaders will be at the booths to organize work groups and hand out trash bags, gloves, and litter sticks. Trash must be returned to the booths each day by the registration area’s closing time to be weighed and sorted.
All volunteers must register prior to participating in the event.
After volunteering, participants are invited to nightly gear raffles and evening programs.
On Saturday, Sept. 28, Yosemite National Park will celebrate National Public Lands Day.
“In order to celebrate this special day and the Facelift events, the park will waive entrance fees,” said a release issued by park officials this week. “The fee waiver includes entrance fees on Saturday only and is not associated with camping fees.”
Additionally, there will be a Yosemite Volunteer Awards Ceremony at 4 p.m. in front of the Valley Visitor Center on Saturday.
The Yosemite Facelift is a park-wide volunteer event that was started by the Yosemite Climbing Association in 2004 to encourage climbers and other visitors to clean up the park at the end of the busy summer season.
“This is the single-largest organized volunteer clean up in any national park,” said the release.
For more information and a complete schedule of events, visit the Yosemite Climbing Association’s website at http://www.yosemiteclimbing.org/facelift-2019.
