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The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

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Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#51

Post by OldHand2018 »

alistairSH wrote: post #45
dbatten wrote: post #40

Even for planning for personal travel, it's worth noting the massive difference in the amount of tourism between America's top 5 or 10 National Parks, and the countless other National Parks, Forests, Wilderness Areas, etc. Yes, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and a few other places are absolutely crawling with tourists. They're victims of their own success as destinations for people to check off a bucket lis…

Totally agree. Outside DC, Skyline Drive is a crowded mess in leaf season, but the rest of the year, it's not bad. The most popular day hikes are overcrowded on weekends (White Oak Canyon) as described in the article, but there are less popular hikes that are almost as dramatic and far less crowded. Also, the Mt Rogers Wilderness is only a few hours drive south, on the TN/NC/VA border area. It's absolutely STUNNING h…

It’s worth pointing out that Pisgah, Nantahala, and Mt Rogers are all administered by the Forest Service, which is a division of the Department of Agriculture. They are NOT part of the National Park Service and are maintained with far different goals in mind!

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#52

Post by pbuzbee »

It's difficult to balance access with conservation. I don't feel that limiting access is the right approach on its own. There's clearly a demand for visiting scenic parks, and why would I have more of a right to visit than anyone else? And seeing natural beauty is important for valuing natural beauty. As others have pointed out, it's mostly the main sites in a handful of parks that are overrun. I think it's unfortunate to effectively sacrifice some of the most beautiful parts of the country, but it might still be a fair tradeoff.

There are room for improvements, though. For one, I think parks could have strict enforcement and fines for littering. Second, driving into a park usually means wasting a lot of time getting through the entrance station and finding somewhere to park. Post-COVID, I wish parks would provide better public transit into and within a park so driving isn't as necessary. Similarly, I wish they would set a cap on daily car entrances and let you purchase admission online beforehand.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#53

Post by hinkley »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #32
space_fountain wrote: post #10

We can have wilderness. The eliteness of this article really bothers me. Why should we be trying to make parks less appealing to people. Again we have wilderness preserves in which we preserve wilderness, letting people experience natural beauty is a different but also good thing

The difficulty is always balancing accessibility to beautiful areas for people who don't have the wherewithal to hike for 2 days in rough terrain, with preserving the wilderness aspect for those who can. I've found the biggest issue in preserving wilderness is helicopters and planes - they can easily cover large amounts of terrain in short time in a very noisy and intrusive manner. In NZ, we try to a) ensure the 'fro…

In a large enough park, you could have several “front countries” for attractions near the edge of the park without upsetting the interior with roads.

Roads through a park have all the same problems as logging roads for habitat disturbance, plus having people who like to stop or throw shit out the window.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#54

Post by alistairSH »

OldHand2018 wrote: post #51
alistairSH wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agree. Outside DC, Skyline Drive is a crowded mess in leaf season, but the rest of the year, it's not bad. The most popular day hikes are overcrowded on weekends (White Oak Canyon) as described in the article, but there are less popular hikes that are almost as dramatic and far less crowded. Also, the Mt Rogers Wilderness is only a few hours drive south, on the TN/NC/VA border area. It's absolutely STUNNING h…

It’s worth pointing out that Pisgah, Nantahala, and Mt Rogers are all administered by the Forest Service, which is a division of the Department of Agriculture. They are NOT part of the National Park Service and are maintained with far different goals in mind!

Oh yeah, just using it as another example of someplace that's stunningly gorgeous that isn't on many people's radars.

I'd never heard of it until a few years ago when a friend mentioned it as a tangent in another conversation. Piqued my interest and last summer gave us a good opportunity to go. We just day-hiked, and based out of a tiny cabin a bit outside Grayson Highlands (a state park within or adjacent to the broader Mt Rogers zone, IIRC). I'd love to go back and do a week of backpacking or bike-packing.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#55

Post by retzkek »

mauvehaus wrote: post #41

I was born just 6 years before Edward Abbey died. He wrote about this problem long before I was even born. This problem is not new, and some of its causes have been well known for a long time. He argues that the major problem is that the parks are too easy to visit. If you make people get out of their cars and walk a bit, you might stand to preserve some kind of semi-natural experience. If you pave a road to the rim…

Abbey (and climate change) has had a profound effect on my view of traveling. I once had a bucket list to visit every national park (and every continent, and every wonder, etc), but after reading Desert Solitaire I've tried to better appreciate and pursue a deeper relationship with what's around me (even in somewhere as "dull" and flat as the Midwest), rather than dreaming about and planning shallow, wasteful trips to other places. One quote in particular has really stuck with me:

"A man on foot, on horseback or on a bicycle will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourists can in a hundred miles."

Looking over the tens of thousands of miles I've traveled, it's always the hiking/walking that's the most memorable, despite being the tiniest proportion, in distance, time, and cost. Whether hiking to Half Dome or walking around my local park, forest preserve, or neighborhood, there's so much more to experience.

Most tourists today are just checking off items on their list and taking a selfie for Instagram, then moving on to the next item, without ever really experiencing anything.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#56

Post by lacker »

dbatten wrote: post #40

Even for planning for personal travel, it's worth noting the massive difference in the amount of tourism between America's top 5 or 10 National Parks, and the countless other National Parks, Forests, Wilderness Areas, etc. Yes, Yellowstone, Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, and a few other places are absolutely crawling with tourists. They're victims of their own success as destinations for people to check off a bucket lis…

Even in Yosemite, at the absolute peak of the tourist season, if you go to one of the trailheads outside the main valley, in the Chilnualna or Hetch Hetchy area, it isn’t overcrowded at all. If you take a multi-day backpacking trip, after the first half day hiking into the interior, you’ll hardly see any people at all. And the vast majority of Yosemite is further than an easy stroll from a parking lot. One tiny, tiny bit of Yosemite is crowded and the rest has very few people and still incredible natural beauty.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#57

Post by lacker »

The idea of making the parks car-free doesn’t really make sense to me. Right now, the vast majority of the parks are car-free. When you visit, you drive in, park in a huge parking lot somewhere, and then you have a vast area you can hike through. What would change if the whole park was car-free? You still have a lot of people who want to come visit from far away and they’re going to drive. So now the parking lots are just right outside the border of the park? It doesn’t really seem like it would make any difference.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#58

Post by jfengel »

alistairSH wrote: post #46
mauvehaus wrote: post #41

I was born just 6 years before Edward Abbey died. He wrote about this problem long before I was even born. This problem is not new, and some of its causes have been well known for a long time. He argues that the major problem is that the parks are too easy to visit. If you make people get out of their cars and walk a bit, you might stand to preserve some kind of semi-natural experience. If you pave a road to the rim…

He argues that the major problem is that the parks are too easy to visit. This is absolutely true. And not uniquely American. Iceland has the same problem - many of the major sites are right off one of the various major roads (Golden Circle and Route 1/Ring Road). I visited in January and naively thought it would be quiet. Ha! I was so wrong. Reykjavik, Golden Circle, and the southern Ring Road area (out to Vik) were…

That's interesting. I visited Iceland in early September and the Golden Circle tour bus was only about half full. I certainly didn't have the place to myself, but it was quiet enough. At that time of year it was definitely chilly but not awful.

This was 2013. I wonder if a few years made a difference.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#59

Post by lostandbored »

jfengel wrote: post #58
alistairSH wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He argues that the major problem is that the parks are too easy to visit. This is absolutely true. And not uniquely American. Iceland has the same problem - many of the major sites are right off one of the various major roads (Golden Circle and Route 1/Ring Road). I visited in January and naively thought it would be quiet. Ha! I was so wrong. Reykjavik, Golden Circle, and the southern Ring Road area (out to Vik) were…

That's interesting. I visited Iceland in early September and the Golden Circle tour bus was only about half full. I certainly didn't have the place to myself, but it was quiet enough. At that time of year it was definitely chilly but not awful. This was 2013. I wonder if a few years made a difference.

Definitely. Since 2013, Iceland has been advertised more as a tourist destination leading to more tourists.

Re: The Business of Scenery: Why America’s national parks need new management

#60

Post by alistairSH »

jfengel wrote: post #58
alistairSH wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He argues that the major problem is that the parks are too easy to visit. This is absolutely true. And not uniquely American. Iceland has the same problem - many of the major sites are right off one of the various major roads (Golden Circle and Route 1/Ring Road). I visited in January and naively thought it would be quiet. Ha! I was so wrong. Reykjavik, Golden Circle, and the southern Ring Road area (out to Vik) were…

That's interesting. I visited Iceland in early September and the Golden Circle tour bus was only about half full. I certainly didn't have the place to myself, but it was quiet enough. At that time of year it was definitely chilly but not awful. This was 2013. I wonder if a few years made a difference.

I'd guess so. We went 4? years ago, in late January.

Every site off the southern side of the ring road had 4-5 tour buses full of tourists, plus assorted individual cars. It wasn't crowded to the point of annoyance, but it was close. What was annoying was poor behavior by many tourists - stepping inside the chains and touching water at Geysir, going into the "caldera" of Kerid Crater, and going near the water at Reynisfjara Beach. All despite many signs in many languages. And poor tour guides chasing the idiots back to safety.

I'd guess if we went north, it would have been relatively quiet, but we only had 4 days, so based out of a flat in Reykjavik.

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