Are America's National Parks Becoming Parking Lots?

Voice of America ^ | 12 August 2005 | Ted Landphair

[Our_Man_In_Gough_Island]

Would you like to visit one of America's awe-inspiring national parks? Yosemite in California, perhaps, with its soaring cliffs and cascading waterfalls.

Well, get in line! About 3.5 million people will enter Yosemite this year. Four and one-half million will beat a path to the Grand Canyon in Arizona. So much for undisturbed wilderness.

The National Park Service, which administers these wild places as well as historic sites like Civil War battlefields, must walk a fine line between preserving vistas and wildlife -- and making parks accessible to people and cars.

Thirty years ago, according to the Christian Science Monitor newspaper, 80% of Yosemite's visitors stayed the night in camps or a lodge. So they c Civil War Battlefield at Gettysburg National Park uld take their time, stroll through the evergreens, and soak up the sights. Last year, 80% of visitors showed up, paid the entry fee, searched for parking spots at the overlooks, took some photographs, bought some postcards, and left the same day.

People want paradise prepackaged, park rangers say. When do the bison and bears come out for the next show? When's the next rainbow?

To moderate the tourist crush, the park service has closed vast sections of some parks -- like Zion in Utah -- to all vehicles except guided sightseeing buses.

American naturalist John Muir, who introduced the pristine Yosemite Valley to the nation, once wrote, "In God's wilderness lies the hope of the world -- the great, fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness."

"That's really nice," a visitor to today's Yosemite might tell him. "Say, do you happen to know if there's a McDonald's near the waterfall?"

[Hornet19]

We were at Rocky Mountain National Park two weeks ago and a Park Ranger told us that attendance at the Park had been down from last year.

[PeteB570]

Hey - This is America. Everybody has the same right to go and look at the country.

If it takes a few more parking lots to fit all the cars - so be it.

Compared to the amount of land in the Park system, parking lots, building, roads, trails, etc. are nothing.

[pageonetoo]

I spend many days walking on the trails, locally. We are 1 1/2 hours west of DC, in the panhandle of eastern WV.

It is rare that I will encounter another human being, despite miles of cleared trails, and easy hiking. I drive there, passing few cars as I traverse the switchback roads, to let my dog Spot run. I walk 3-10 miles a day. I have no need for a leash, and I take his collar off, to keep him from getting snagged, while chasing whatever. We don't worry about other people, except during hunting seasons...

I believe it is mostly the result of the Nintendo generation. It requires effort, and sweat, to get outside. Why bother, when you can sit in your A/C and push a few buttons...

See Spot run...

[Lord Basil]

Perhaps the author should read Thomas Sowell's take on Yosemite.

[Tax-chick]

As always, Dr. Sowell nails it!

[goarmy]

"The National Park Service...must walk a fine line between preserving vistas and wildlife -- and making parks accessible to people and cars."

Doesn't this story come out EVERY year about family vacation time? Gimme a break, just came back from Glacier-Yellowstone-Badlands, and the only crowds I encountered were at Yellowstone due to the buffalos meandering on the roadway and backing up traffic.

[Hornet19]

Thanks for providing that link. Thomas Sowell is a straight shooter and a treasure to read.

[R. Scott]

I passed through Yosemite in the spring of 1985. I intended to pitch a tent and spend some time. My vision of Yosemite was formed from tourist brochures and ads. It wasn’t a realistic picture. No backcountry camping was allowed, so I was assigned a “campsite” that was actually in a gravel parking lot. From where I was I could see the falls – and lines of hikers a hundred strong on the various trials. The exhaust smoke seemed stronger than in San Francisco – and I think the noise level was higher with kids screaming, boom boxes turned up to the max, and traffic noise. Concrete and asphalt is quieter than gravel.
I stayed about an hour – mostly trying to get through the traffic congestion to the exit.

[TexGuy]

From Sowell's article: ... environmentalists could more accurately be called green bigots ...

"Green-Bigots", I like that name, very appropriate.

[Ludicrous]

I cannot tolerate these type of commentaries.... all complaints with no solutions. Yearning for the good ole days with no vision for the future.
Is that the Voice of America?

[randita]

Go to the National Parks between September and May to avoid crowds. If you can't get off work or take kids out of school in the off season, you have to expect crowds.

Anybody ever go to the Jersey Shore in summer -- can't find a spot on the beach to lay your towel if you get there after 12 noon. But go to the Jersey shore in May or September and you have the place all to yourself.

Reports are that Wash., D.C. has the most visitors this summer since 9/11. All hotels are overbooked (I experienced this firsthand.)

Visit Hawaii in Jan.-Mar. and sit in traffic jams wherever you go. Visit in the fall, and you have the road to yourself and have the same gorgeous weather. It's not rocket science. Take vacations when most other people don't and you have the place to yourself.

"Nobody goes there any more. It's too crowded."

[Issaquahking]

Bingo! Someone else in that knows how to enjoy America! What is scary, is that we see the places as they are really are. What else is scary is that people think you can drive to nature, and expect to watch it. They are without a clue. I know a few places where I can go and turn the vehicle off, and after thirty minutes, nature returns to normal. Deer come out at the edges of the timber and continue to feed, etc, however, it takes that much time for everything to return to normal.

The person from the city who wants a prepackaged picture in a micro-second, is also the same dolt who decides at polls, and thinks its great that the sierra club, and a bunch of other commy's are "making things better for them" without a clue to reality. IF the typical American who lives in the city, started scratching the surface, and doing the research, about the truth of America's parks, lands, and private property, they'd be up in arms!

[Brilliant]

Jack up the entrance fee until you get just the number of visitors you want. It's as simple as that. The fee at National Parks is pathetically low. It costs many times that amount to get into Disney World.

[Tax-chick]

Excellent points. People are so enslaved by the school schedule that they don't realize the whole world exists during the rest of the year.

[Paulus Invictus]

Not in Zion National Park! The Park Service agreed to allow a private bus service handle all Canyon visitors and the Canyon has changed for the better. Trouble is, they chose hot (no A/C). environmentally-pleasing, propane burning buses whose windows allow for a very poor view of the Canyon. Parking at the bus head is so ridiculous that it is impossible in summer periods to get a parking spot. All in all, the buses have helped a lot. Before, the Canyon was one big parking lot. Now, drivers are turned away to find parking in the town of Springdale next door. Strangely enough, Zion Park buses also run in the town to pick up parkers and take them to the Park entrance, thus being the only Federally-run, city bus line in the US.

[Texas_Conservative2]

All parks should be free period. If we the people own them them we the people shouldn't have to pay to enter them.

[metesky]

At the summit of Cadillac Mountain (highest point on the eastern seaboard) in Acadia National Park there is a sign purporting to explain to the great unwashed that humans are eroding the mountain.

The mountain is a gigantic slab of solid granite.

[dljordan]

"See Spot run..."

Go Spot go...

[angkor]

Several years back I spent a summer traveling around the parks out west, and then up the Alcan to Alaska.

I found that there are lots of state parks and national forests adjacent to the popular NP's, and they generally offer equally nice terrain, more space, less noise, camping wherever you want, and other good stuff.

And usually they were almost vacant.