While research­ing what to do with my father’s ashes I came across some­thing I hadn’t known about: It’s per­fectly legal to spread your loved one’s ashes within Yosemite National Park. Many (most?) munic­i­pal­i­ties pro­hibit doing that except for within the con­fines of a des­ig­nated cemetery–for instance my town, San Diego, pro­hibits it except for bur­ial at sea three miles out. So it was an almost aston­ish­ing sur­prise that one of the crown jew­els of the National Park sys­tem was lots more accom­mo­dat­ing. I haven’t researched other national parks in detail, but they appear to be equally welcoming.

You’ll need to do a cou­ple things before mak­ing your last trip to the park with mom or pop. The over­head is pretty rea­son­able, though, and is detailed [ here ]. First you’ll need to obtain per­mis­sion from the park. This takes place at a snail-mail timescale, so it might take a cou­ple weeks. Next you’ll need the bur­ial per­mit obtain­able from your local county records office. This will cost you about eleven bucks.

The actual dis­tri­b­u­tion of ashes has a few restrictions–you have to keep a cer­tain dis­tance from trails and water­ways, for instance, and your can’t leave any per­ma­nent mark­ers. Once the deed is done you file the per­mit with the local county records office.

While in Yosemite last month, think­ing about last days and final rest­ing places, I stopped by the lit­tle pio­neer ceme­tery in Yosemite Valley.

Stereo­typ­i­cal Latin crosses were few. This one was the most promi­nent, and belongs to James Hutch­ings, an early Yosemite hote­lier and major booster of the Sierra Nevada, partly through his pub­li­ca­tion of Hutch­ings’ Cal­i­for­nia Mag­a­zine.

G. B. Cavagnaro’s rest­ing place also sported a tra­di­tional marker. This one was white mar­ble, incised with oak leaves and acorns, a nod to the land­scape all around. When I entered the ceme­tery every­thing was in shade but for this shaft of bril­liant white stone. Talk about theatrical.

The most beau­ti­ful and place-appropriate mark­ers took this form, slabs of Yosemite gran­ite, large or small, barely worked.

They reminded me of Isamu Noguchi’s sculp­tures at their best, or stand­ing stones of the sort you’ll find in the British Isles. This one was as tall as I am.

No ceme­tery is com­plete with­out botan­i­cal remem­brances. Here the flow­ers took the form of lit­tle plas­tic bou­quets tucked around the stones or attached to them. I sup­pose it was a lit­tle sad to see the imper­ma­nent plas­tic flow­ers, but many of the inscrip­tions on the heav­ily sculpted head­stones were already start­ing to be illeg­i­ble. Noth­ing is permanent.