Did you read the part about how they’d never had one of the giants fall in that park?
It isn’t just a tree. It’s a 1500 year chunk of history, and some people - especially visitors to the park and those who support the park - have a lot of emotion invested in it.
Oh, and did you catch the part where it’s a park? As in “owned and operated by the Federal gov’t” - you know, the entity that, by design, must respond to the wishes of the electorate?
No, they don’t get to just chop it up and haul it off. Or tunnel through it. Or build a bridge over it. Why? Because the park has a responsibility to listen and respond to the people it serves. Those people don’t want it done right now, they want it done right.
Cheez, mon, find a real problem to get wound up over.
The park is kind of out of the way, it’s a long drive from almost anywhere on some narrow mountain roads. If you were to schlep all the way up there expecting to commune with the giants and found the trail closed, I suspect you’d be pretty disappointed.
Did you read your own article? The trail has been re-opened. I think they just closed it while they cleared the debris (I imagine a tree that big takes down a lot of other stuff when it goes over). The actual tree doesn’t seem to be that big an obstruction, tourists have just been climbing it or walking around.