> The old system of phone calls would have just made the parks out of reach for all of these new folks interested in them.
Deep down, that’s what a lot of the critics want a return to. They just won’t say the quiet part out loud.
Deep down, that’s what a lot of the critics want a return to. They just won’t say the quiet part out loud.
It's part of the everyday jobs of these agencies to try to maintain that illusion for its visitors, where possible. And part of why it's so hard to do juggle these needs. We could of course tear down more forest and build more parking lots around our parks, then add more paved trails and tramways and escalators to different parts of the park, turning them into amusement parks... but that would defeat the point. It's not easy to balance visitor accessibility with resource protection, especially when so many visitors barely ever step outside of their vehicles to go on the trails, instead tending to horde the most scenic viewpoints at a quick stop.
The NPS was established primarily as an automotive touring network, and were designed as such. Only recently have we started to try to encourage motorists to exit vehicles and actually fan out across the park, but it's not easy. And even that effort eventually backfires, as more and more people DO hit the trails and in turn crowd them, too. At some point lotteries are inevitable. Even designating new parks isn't really a fix, especially since people will horde new parks all at once in its first few years (see Indiana Dunes, which used to be a laid-back state park and then became a major destination because of its new National Park designation).
Don't get me wrong: I think it's awesome that more people are able to participate in our public lands (and in turn develop an appreciation for nature, wilderness, maybe even the climate and conservation, etc.). But it absolutely HAS to be deliberately managed, or our lands will be "loved to death"...