Long article on Cell phones in Yellowstone and Glacier
Great Falls Tribune
Forum Discussion
monkey44 wrote:
One thing for certain (we just spent a week in Yellowstone and stayed in FSCG, my sixth trip since the 1980's) that park looks NOTHING like the original developers viewed it when they protected the land.
Far as I'm concerned, the development has gotten way out of control, and the crowds unbelievable. NO WAY can we protect this park from the "progress of cell phone, FHU, and eventual destruction over time". And that is truly unfortunate.
If and when we decide to truly protect these national park and forest lands, we can only do that if we return to more primitive style campgrounds. Only that way, can the people that visit Yellowstone and other parks understand the original intent of wilderness protection within the national parks and forests systems.
Given the sheer size of the human population, and the resulting large number of people trying to enjoy the "outdoors", it isn't possible to keep things as they were without banning people or at least significantly limiting the numbers that are allowed into the "protected" areas. Kind of a catch 22. We desire to preserve the beauty, which can only be done if we prevent ourselves from seeing and enjoying it.
Having explored and enjoyed so much of the backcountry areas for decades, I'm amazed at how many people now venture out, and how many areas now have lottery permit systems to allow visitation now. As a person who often attends land use discussions, I anticipate that camping, and venturing into the back country are something that will change significantly in the next 20 years or so.
Finally, back to the cell phone discussion, I still find that at least a third of the state of Utah still doesn't have coverage, and we don't miss it at all. Of our camping trips this year we only spent about a fourth of it in areas that had cell phone coverage. It's kind of nice in that we don't get any "work" calls, and don't have to feel guilty about being dishonest when we say there wasn't phone coverage available.
