I've Loved Yosemite for Years. What Trump Wants to Trade Away Makes Me Sick.

*This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy for more info.

I have hiked to the top of Yosemite Falls. I have walked the John Muir Trail end to end, more than 200 miles along the spine of the Sierra Nevada. I have dozed beside mountain streams in that park, cried at the top of Clouds Rest from the sheer beauty of the valley, and stared at Half Dome from North Dome until the light gave out.

We love Yosemite so much that we named our sailboat John Muir, the man who fought to make this spectacular place a national park.

Yosemite is one of the reasons I’ve built my entire life around being outside. That’s why I’m so angry at what the Trump administration is trying to do.

The Trump administration is weighing a deal that would hand a strip of Yosemite National Park to a Las Vegas real estate firm so the company can build a private access road to land it hopes to develop, according to an investigation by NOTUS that was picked up within a day by CNBC, The Philadelphia Inquirer and outlets across the country.

The parcel at stake is small, roughly a quarter-mile strip just inside the park’s western boundary. What it would buy the developer is not small at all: a direct connection between its property and Highway 120, the main road into Yosemite, in place of a winding drive of more than ten miles through national forest.

The Interior Department told reporters that “no final decisions have been made.” But according to NOTUS, which reviewed internal documents and spoke with park staff, the machinery is already turning, and it has been since spring 2025.

The Yosemite Land Swap Deal: A Private Road Through Public Land

Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a real estate private equity firm led by CEO Jeff Pori, bought an 83-acre property historically known as Hazel Green Ranch in 2024, paying $4 million through a limited liability company named “Sanctuary at Yosemite,” NOTUS reported. The land sits just outside Yosemite’s western edge, about five miles from the park’s ancient sequoia groves.

Under the proposal, the National Park Service would give Kingsbarn the strip of parkland (or an easement across it) for a road. In exchange, the company would buy land of equal value somewhere in California and hand it to the Park Service. NOTUS reported the property could eventually become a hotel, a resort, or a private residence.

Kingsbarn’s attorney, Lanny Davis, has framed the road as a good thing for the park. “We made the argument that this is a pro-environmental decision,” he said, per NOTUS, arguing a shorter route would cut emissions and improve safety. KVPR, the Central Valley’s NPR station, notes the argument has alarmed conservation groups rather than reassured them.

Courts Rejected a Road Through Yosemite Twice, in 2007 and 2012

This is not the first time an owner of Hazel Green Ranch has asked for a road through the park. Previous owner Lewis Geyser sued in 2007 to force one. A federal district court ruled against him, and in 2012 an appeals court agreed: the property already has legal access through surrounding Forest Service land, and the government is not obligated to open the park so the drive can be shorter, according to NOTUS’s review of the case history.

The Bush, Obama and Biden administrations all declined to revive the idea. NOTUS reports that when Kingsbarn took over the land in 2024, the company approached the Interior Department almost immediately, and this time the answer has been different.

How the Trump Administration Is Pushing the Yosemite Land Deal

According to NOTUS, citing park staff and internal documents, Interior officials have directed Yosemite staff to meet with Kingsbarn every few weeks, park superintendent Ray McPadden has been pressed to advance the exchange, and employees have been required to send progress updates to political appointees in Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s office. An appraisal of the parkland is underway.

The Interior Department notified Congress of a potential related payment from the Land and Water Conservation Fund in early 2026, but the notification was vague and did not name the developer, NOTUS reported. The Senate Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the fund left the Yosemite project off its approved list. “Projects should be chosen on merit, not on an applicant’s connections to high-ranking Trump Administration officials,” Sen. Alex Padilla of California said in the NOTUS report. Sen. Adam Schiff put it more bluntly: “The courts struck this project down once, but this administration appears hellbent on moving forward.”

Interior spokeswoman Aubrie Spady said any exchange “would be subject to all applicable federal laws, regulations and Departmental policies,” The Inquirer reported.

What Former Yosemite Superintendents Say About the Land Swap

The people who ran Yosemite are not mincing words. “This is so ridiculous, it makes you sick,” said Don Neubacher, a former Yosemite superintendent, in remarks carried by multiple outlets. Cicely Muldoon, another former superintendent with 40 years in the Park Service, told NOTUS the parks’ basic purpose is preserving these places “unimpaired for future generations, not letting go of that for the purpose of private profit.”

Mark Rose of the National Parks Conservation Association called the proposal “an attack on the American people that own this national park” and said it would be unlawful, pointing to the earlier court rulings.

Our Take: Why the Yosemite Land Swap Sets a Dangerous Precedent

I have loved Yosemite for most of my life, and I have spent years living small so I could be close to places like it. So I will say this plainly: this is a terrible precedent dressed up as a traffic fix.

The property has legal access already. Two courts said so. Three administrations from both parties said so. The only thing that has changed is who is asking and who is answering. If a quarter mile of Yosemite can be traded away because a developer finds the existing road inconvenient, then no boundary line in any park is really a line. It is an opening bid.

And the “pro-environmental” framing deserves to be called what it is. A shorter road to a future hotel does not protect the park. The thing that protects the park is the boundary, the one thing this deal asks us to soften.

Yosemite does not belong to any administration, and it certainly does not belong to a Nevada LLC with a lovely name. It belongs to the kid in the back seat seeing El Capitan for the first time, on the same public roads the rest of us drive. That is the whole deal with national parks. It should stay the whole deal.

What Happens Next With the Yosemite Land Swap

The appraisal is ongoing, no replacement land has been identified, and any exchange would require environmental review and public notice. Conservation groups are already preparing legal challenges, according to NOTUS. We will keep following this one.

Yosemite Land Swap: Common Questions

Is Yosemite National Park being sold?

No. The proposal is a land exchange, not a sale. Kingsbarn Realty Capital would receive a roughly quarter-mile strip inside Yosemite’s western boundary (or an easement across it) and would buy land of equal value elsewhere in California to give to the National Park Service. No money would go to the government for the parkland itself.

What is the Yosemite land swap proposal?

The Trump administration is considering giving a small strip of Yosemite National Park to Las Vegas-based Kingsbarn Realty Capital so the company can build a private access road connecting its 83-acre property, historically called Hazel Green Ranch, to Highway 120. In exchange, the company would purchase replacement land for the park service.

Who is Kingsbarn Realty Capital?

Kingsbarn Realty Capital is a Las Vegas-based real estate private equity firm led by CEO Jeff Pori. Through a limited liability company called Sanctuary at Yosemite, it bought the 83-acre Hazel Green Ranch property just outside Yosemite’s western boundary for $4 million in 2024.

Didn’t courts already reject a road through Yosemite there?

Yes. Previous owner Lewis Geyser sued in 2007 to force a road through the park, and a federal district court ruled against him. In 2012 an appeals court agreed, finding the property already has legal access through surrounding Forest Service land.

Can the public weigh in on the Yosemite land exchange?

Yes. The Interior Department says any land exchange would be subject to federal laws, environmental review, and public notification processes. No final decision has been made, and conservation groups are already preparing legal challenges.