Yosemite's Dirty Little Secret

For years I have likened the size of Yosemite to that of Rhode Island. I am not alone in that comparison. Listed below are similar references made by the New York Times, the Los Angles Times, National Geographic, USA Today and even the official NPS site.

But I was corrected by two astute rangers, Kelsey Lahr and Joan McCandless, that Yosemite is actually about 25%-30% smaller,  a little too small to be called, "nearly the size of Rhode Island." 

The data:
Land Mass of Yosemite: 747,956 acres (or 1,169 square miles)http://www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/statistics.htm

Rhode Island covers 1,545 square miles
http://www.netstate.com/states/geography/ri_geography.htm

HOWEVER! However, if you exclude the area of Narragansett Bay, the land mass of Rhode Island is 1,045 square miles. So maybe I was right!

Yosemite is not alone when it comes to hazy (or lazy) comparisons. Here is a link to Slate Online that explains why Rhode Island is often the object of fuzzy math.
http://www.slate.com/id/2090806/

 I was lazy and didn't bother doing the math myself, I only sourced the NY Times ( http://travel.nytimes.com/frommers/travel/guides/north-america/united-states/california/yosemite-national-park/frm_yosemite-n_1088010001.html ) and the LA Times (http://www.latimes.com/travel/destinations/yosemite/ ) and the Washington Post ( http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/14/AR2006071400442.html ) and the National Geographic (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0501/feature5/online_extra.html ) and of course, our employer, the NPS ( http://www.nps.gov/yose/parkmgmt/statistics.htm )

Maybe this issue seems trivial or trifling... a tempest in a teapot. But I'll bet the teapot is at least the size of Rhode Island!

Half Dome Hike

This is a photo of me and my hiking buddy, Kelsey atop Half Dome.