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|  Segment# |

| 11 |

| Location |

|  |

|  Date |

| 10/8/2007 |

| |

|  Story Name |

| KEY TO SUCCESS VOLUNTEERS CLEAN YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK |

| |

|  Notes |

|  |

| |

|NINOV, GRANT HISKES, ADRIENNE FREEMAN |

|18:53:19 |

|Prepared by The Transcription Company, , (818) 848-6500 |

|Which takes sole responsibility for accuracy of transcription |

|18:53:19 CHARLES GIBSON |

|(OC) Finally, nurturing nature. |

|18:53:21 CHARLES GIBSON |

|(VO) With the reduced commercial time on these Monday broadcasts, we're |

|looking at a series of success stories, what we call the 'Key to Success." |

|18:53:28 CHARLES GIBSON |

|(OC) Tonight, spirit of volunteerism in America and just what that can |

|achieve. Three and a half million people go to Yosemite NATIONAL PARK |

|every year and they leave a lot of mess. |

|18:53:38 CHARLES GIBSON |

|(VO) What to do about it? Just call a few thousand of your best |

|friends. ABC's David Muir reports from Yosemite. |

|18:53:46 DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS |

|(VO) As the sun rises over Yosemite NATIONAL PARK, the storied El |

|Capitan is ready for another day in the spotlight, another day of tourists |

|taking photographs and climbers scaling his 3600-foot facade. Ken Yager |

|is among those devoted climbers. He's been coming here since 1972. And |

|just as the park comes alive beneath the morning sun, Ken, too, readies |

|himself for a monumental challenge. |

|18:54:10 KEN YAGER, VOLUNTEER |

|Let's do that. |

|18:54:11 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) Not Capitan, a different uphill fight. |

|18:54:13 KEN YAGER |

|On three. |

|18:54:14 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) He wants to clean the park, and he's serious. |

|18:54:18 KEN YAGER |

|And we got over 25,000 pounds. |

|18:54:20 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) That's 25,000 pounds of garbage picked up last year by him and his |

|volunteers one piece at a time. And this year, he's at it again, trying |

|to convince Yosemite's visitors that their own footprint can be erased. |

|18:54:35 SCOTT GEDIMAN, RANGER |

|I don't think the average visitor to Yosemite realizes the impact that |

|they have, the cumulative effect of three and a half million visitors. |

|18:54:43 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) When you look at this map, are you impressed? |

|18:54:46 KEN YAGER |

|I am, yeah. Actually, for just two days, this is very good. That's the |

|best start we've ever had, I mean, by far. Are you impressed? |

|18:54:54 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) I'm impressed. I've seen them out there today. |

|18:54:56 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) Each stretch of road highlighted is a road cleaned by the growing |

|number of climbers and visitors who, by word of mouth, have joined Ken's |

|cause. This year, there are nearly 3,000 of them. |

|18:55:08 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) Some of the most accomplished climbers from all over the world come |

|here to Yosemite to scale El Capitan. They are all adventurers, but so |

|many of them have now become spotters, looking out for what's been left |

|behind by the millions of tourists who visit here every year. How much is |

|the drop, you said? |

|18:55:25 IVO NINOV, VOLUNTEER |

|At 700 feet going down. |

|18:55:26 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) Over the edge? |

|18:55:26 IVO NINOV |

|Yeah. |

|18:55:27 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) Climber Ivo Ninov moved here from Bulgaria. |

|18:55:30 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) So how many times do you suppose you've scaled Capitan? |

|18:55:33 IVO NINOV |

|Fifty-one. |

|18:55:34 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) Fifty-one? |

|18:55:34 IVO NINOV |

|Yeah. |

|18:55:35 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) Not that you're counting or anything. |

|18:55:36 IVO NINOV |

|No, I have been counting. |

|18:55:37 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) You have? |

|18:55:38 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) Fifty-one times. But on this day, he's rappelling down a cliff to |

|pick up trash. |

|18:55:43 IVO NINOV |

|I'm blown away myself to see the amount of garbage, which is here. Rope. |

|18:55:47 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) Armed with cables and trash bags, the climbers are cleaning the |

|cliffs, bringing in a helicopter to carry heavy loads of garbage from atop |

|the monuments. But some loads are too heavy even for a helicopter. Grant |

|Hiskes has been climbing Yosemite for three decades and is always on the |

|lookout for new trails. He was scouting a path, when buried in the brush, |

|he saw what at first looked like a piece of rusted metal. |

|18:56:10 GRANT HISKES, VOLUNTEER |

|It turned out a 1951 Nash, yes. They don't, they've tried to find the |

|VIN number on it. The motor was completely encased with squirrel nests |

|and pine cones. |

|18:56:22 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) Nearly a half century after it ran off the winding roads of |

|Yosemite, they're now pulling the car out as part of Yosemite's facelift. |

|But the mystery of who was inside that car remains. Park historians have |

|no record of any accident. And this cleanup is about more than just |

|beauty, though. There's also the beast. Up to 450 black bears live here. |

|And in recent years, garbage left behind has become far more than an |

|eyesore. It's become eye-catching, at least for the bears, especially in |

|the fall, when the bears beef up for their winter rest. |

|18:56:53 ADRIENNE FREEMAN, RANGER |

|Well, each acorn has about five calories, somewhere between five and 20. |

|And they're trying to get 20,000 calories a day. That's a lot of acorns. |

|18:57:01 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) So the bears find other sources, food and garbage left behind. |

|This bear sees the camera, but that doesn't stop him because what he sees |

|left in the car is far more enticing, a loaf of bread. And rangers say |

|scenes like this one have become commonplace. They now send out weekly |

|alerts, reminding visitors and campers to leave nothing behind. It's the |

|kind of lesson learned early by the youngest volunteers, the group of 30 |

|students who actually go to school here in the park in the shadow of |

|Yosemite's giant treasures. |

|18:57:31 DAVID MUIR |

|(OC) You found junk? What do you think of it, Jackson? What do you |

|think of the junk? You don't like it, huh? |

|18:57:40 KEN YAGER |

|The kids are going, 'Thank you, Ken, for letting us pick up trash." And |

|I'm like, 'No, thank you." The young kids are the future land stewards of |

|our public lands. And so if we start them at an early age, that maybe we |

|can change kind of people's behavior in the woods. All right, good job. |

|18:57:56 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) In the meantime... |

|18:57:57 KEN YAGER |

|Thanks, guys. |

|18:57:58 DAVID MUIR |

|(VO) ...it is Ken who has become Yosemite's steward, a steward whose |

|impact is now measured by the tons. But Ken secretly looks forward to the |

|year when there isn't enough trash to break his record, instead, breaking |

|habits one visitor at a time. David Muir, ABC News, Yosemite National |

|Park, California. |

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