This one’s just getting warmed up (despite all the snow): Yosemiteexplorer.com. Has lots of promise if the guy can stick with it. I say that only because lots o’ blogs get off to a great start but peter off after the blogger realizes what a big job he’s taken on in keeping the thing current.
It’s another one of those blogs that neither identifies the blogger, nor gives any contact information for them. My guess would be that it’s authored by someone who works in or owns one of the concession businesses there.
It’s not like Yosemite needs a lot more publicity, either. (Other than the news that it’s painfully underfunded like all of the U.S.’s public infrastructure is right now.)
Still, I’ll grant that it’s a clean and attractive site.
Somehow I suspect the 14 hits I send his way, added to the 27 hits a day he’s getting already, will not have much impact on Yosemite’s publicity issues.
Someday when I’m a hiker blogger of InstaPundit-esque proportions, I suppose I’ll have to be more judicious about the blogs I point to.
Till then, though, I’ll just point out potentially interesting stuff and hope a) most of my readers are thankful for the link; and b) the blogger I link to will decide to start reading my site, post a link to this blog and widen my audience.
I love consipracy theories. As it turns out, I have a full-time job and am just starting to put content up on YosemiteExplorer.com. I don’t really intend it to be a blog, but started the Photo of the Week and News because, it’s a lot of work to put together my content pages and I don’t want folks to think it’s dead. The goal is to have “itineraries” meaning that someone could go there and see a nice collection of pictures on a given trail or rock climb or ski tour and help them decide whether or not it appealed to them.
FYI
– I live in the park but work out of my home for an employer who has absolutely no relation to or money to gain from Yosemite.
– I do work 1 day per week teaching skiing for the concessionaire in order to get me out of the house, but trust me, the $57.55/day they pay me for that isn’t even enough by itself to motivate me to go to work, let alone to then blog about Yosemite in my spare time.
– I have a contact form on my todo list but, like I say, I have a full-time job plus my day per week of teaching skiing and this is a total fledgling site. Can’t do everything at once.
– I hadn’t thought about an “About me” page because until I read the comment above, it hadn’t occurred to me that anyone would care who I was, let alone think that it was some nefarious plot ot capitalize on those 20-30 hits I get daily, most from this blog lately.
Anyway, I’m glad to hear someone thinks YosemiteExplorer looks “promising” which is about this most anyone could say about it at this point. I don’t think it will be truly useful and interesting for another year, but you have to start somewhere. My goal is to add one “itinerary” per week until I’ve worked through some of my backlog of about 2,000 Yosemite photos.
“It’s not like Yosemite needs a lot more publicity, either.”
BTW, that’s something I wrestled with – some of the hikes that I want to showcase are quite lonely and deserted by Yosemite standards and I wonder whether or not to publicize them. I figure that since they typically involve a lot of walking and they don’t have Half Dome or Yosemite Falls on them, they will remain for the few and the handful of people who see my pictures will not significantly change the feel. I am, however, torn between wanting to tell everyone about my favorite places and not wanting to tell anyone but a few close friends.
Tom: that’s just Steve’s way of showing how much he likes you.
I’m adding your site to my list of places I go fishing for links. With any luck by next year we’ll have 47 readers between us.
Speak for yourself Tom. I fully expect that I will have 47 readers all by myself a year from now, even if you do factor out my own visits, which probably account for about half my traffic right now 😉
Anyway, I don’t want Steve unhappy, so…
http://yosemiteexplorer.com/about
😉