Since the spring of 2025, the Trump administration has been looking into ways it could cede a roughly quarter-mile strip of land inside Yosemite to a company that, through a web of limited-liability companies, is operated by real-estate developer and investment firm Kingsbarn Realty Capital. Officials are proposing the Park Service give up the land or “interest” in the land in the form of an easement, and in return receive land of equal value somewhere in California that has yet to be decided.

It seems like land in Yosemite is worth infinitely more than land anywhere else in California, except perhaps other National Parks. That’s why they were set aside, yes? To preserve their pristine nature from development.

2A