What am I missing?
Park rangers need to account for the people coming in and out of the canyon. They can only handle so many.
The idea that places of beauty might be privately owned and privately exploited was anathema to certain people in the government. Why should a place like Yosemite or the Grand Canyon be in the hands of only a few? Shouldn't ALL the people have access? And so the government set aside millions of acres so that ALL the people would be able to visit.
And then they limited the number of campers to 11,500 a year.
If a private company owned camping rights to the Canyon, a heck of a lot more than 11,500 people would have the pleasure. But the do-gooders efforts at making this something for ALL the people is a primary reason why it is available to so few.
Much of our country is empty. Why? Well, that's not a lot you can do with some of it. Opening up those lands to the public will NOT result in 5 million people camping in the Grand Canyon next Tueaday.
I see the National Parks as an exclusionary effort whereby the rabble are blocked and the elite get privileges. It's an indication of a feudal society. [/rant]
Remember, while some parks are huge in size, as a practical matter there are limited trails that can be used by the public. So they try to limit the number of people in the backcountry to protect both the resource and the user experience.
Because there really isn’t that much land down there, if you just let anybody camp down there during peak months it would be a tent city and would really suck. By limiting the numbers you leave it worth camping in.