To help commemorate the 150th anniversary of Yosemite National Park, a $36 million project that will help return the park to a more natural state began on Monday. An area of the park, 550-acre Mariposa Grove, has suffered from a number of commercial updates that are starting to have negative effects on the environment.

During the planning and building of the 113-space parking lot as well as surrounding hiking trails, not enough emphasis was placed on the details. Now, tree roots have nowhere left to grow, some of which are more than 2,000 years old. The new project will remove the parking lot and build a new lot two miles away near the park’s south entrance, giving the tree roots room to expand. The new lot will fit 260 cars.

In addition, the gift shop will be removed and restrooms will be updated. Rather than allow people to drive directly to Mariposa Grove, a bus will shuttle visitors from the new parking lot every 10 minutes. Disabled visitors will still be able to drive directly to the location, however. The tourist tram, which is currently ridden by about 100,000 people each year, will be canceled. Lastly, new trails and signage will be added.

“The first thing you see now is the gift shop, and the first thing you hear is a generator,” Sue Beatty, a Yosemite biologist working on the sequoia project, told the San Jose Mercury News. “We want it to be a more reverential experience, and less commercial. More like it was in 1864.”

Image courtesy of GuyFrancis on Wikimedia Commons