naturist wrote:
In contrast to our visit to Glacier NP ten years ago, which I posted about above, was our visit to Denali NP in Alaska in June of 2019. For those who have never been there, you can't just drive in and wander around. Although the park is vast, one of the larger ones in the world, you can only drive into the edge of the park. From there, getting into the interior of the park requires a shuttle bus ride. The longest bus trip into the park, that takes you as close to the mountain itself, is an approximately 10 hour round trip.
FWC wrote:
For context, those that enjoy the backcountry of the National Parks have dealt with limited numbers, permits and lotteries for a long time. Yes it can be disappointing when you can't get the backpacking, rafting, climbing or canyoneering trip on the day you wanted (or at all). But most agree that for the wilderness to remain wild, you need to manage the visitation and impact and can't have a free-for-all.
I personally would prefer to have a less frequent but experience-of-a-lifetime type experience in the wilderness than to be able to go whenever I want and have to play bumper boats on the Grand or race people for campsites on the Teton Crest Trail. Obviously visitation will be higher and the experience is less wild in the front country, but it still comes to the point where the crowding detracts from the experience for everyone.
One thing I do hope is that if/when they do go to reserved/permitted entry, that the commercial operators don't get to jump the queue. This is a huge issue with backcountry use, where a certain percentage of permitts are reserved for a small number of commercial operators, meaning they are not available to the general public.
FWC wrote:valhalla360 wrote:
Other than this past year, which is an anomaly, many of the parks are heavily traveled by foreigners. Particularly they busiest parks.
Nothing xenophobic about it. As the owners, citizens should have first access if we need to reduce numbers as you suggest.
Will we have to show our papers to enter the parks?
Even before the pandemic, foreign visitors made up 9% of the visitation to Glacier, and only 6% of visitation to Zion, so restricting foreign visitation will not solve the issue.
I believe that sharing the worlds cultural and natural treasures brings people together. It would be really sad if Egypt decided to no longer let foreigners into Giza, France no longer let foreigners visit the Louvre and Australia no longer let foreigners visit the Great Barrier Reef.
valhalla360 wrote:
Other than this past year, which is an anomaly, many of the parks are heavily traveled by foreigners. Particularly they busiest parks.
Nothing xenophobic about it. As the owners, citizens should have first access if we need to reduce numbers as you suggest.
naturist wrote:
In contrast to our visit to Glacier NP ten years ago, which I posted about above, was our visit to Denali NP in Alaska in June of 2019. For those who have never been there, you can't just drive in and wander around. Although the park is vast, one of the larger ones in the world, you can only drive into the edge of the park. From there, getting into the interior of the park requires a shuttle bus ride. The longest bus trip into the park, that takes you as close to the mountain itself, is an approximately 10 hour round trip.
FWC wrote:
For context, those that enjoy the backcountry of the National Parks have dealt with limited numbers, permits and lotteries for a long time. Yes it can be disappointing when you can't get the backpacking, rafting, climbing or canyoneering trip on the day you wanted (or at all). But most agree that for the wilderness to remain wild, you need to manage the visitation and impact and can't have a free-for-all.
I personally would prefer to have a less frequent but experience-of-a-lifetime type experience in the wilderness than to be able to go whenever I want and have to play bumper boats on the Grand or race people for campsites on the Teton Crest Trail. Obviously visitation will be higher and the experience is less wild in the front country, but it still comes to the point where the crowding detracts from the experience for everyone.
One thing I do hope is that if/when they do go to reserved/permitted entry, that the commercial operators don't get to jump the queue. This is a huge issue with backcountry use, where a certain percentage of permitts are reserved for a small number of commercial operators, meaning they are not available to the general public.
FWC wrote:valhalla360 wrote:
Other than this past year, which is an anomaly, many of the parks are heavily traveled by foreigners. Particularly they busiest parks.
Nothing xenophobic about it. As the owners, citizens should have first access if we need to reduce numbers as you suggest.
Will we have to show our papers to enter the parks?
Even before the pandemic, foreign visitors made up 9% of the visitation to Glacier, and only 6% of visitation to Zion, so restricting foreign visitation will not solve the issue.
I believe that sharing the worlds cultural and natural treasures brings people together. It would be really sad if Egypt decided to no longer let foreigners into Giza, France no longer let foreigners visit the Louvre and Australia no longer let foreigners visit the Great Barrier Reef.
valhalla360 wrote:
Other than this past year, which is an anomaly, many of the parks are heavily traveled by foreigners. Particularly they busiest parks.
Nothing xenophobic about it. As the owners, citizens should have first access if we need to reduce numbers as you suggest.
