National park changes

beemerphile1 wrote:
Entrance fees are insufficient to operate the parks and in fact, most US National Parks do not have entrance fees.

That is undoubtedly true, minor parks rarely if ever have fees. So the Congress would have to provide for them as they already do. But the major top 20 or so parks, Yosemite, YNP, Glacier, Grand Canyon and so on have large entry fees and because of the heavy visitor load have great need for extra income. Alibiades Flint Quarry (if I spelled that right) has few visitors and much less pressure from mobs of tourists. The two times we visited we seemed to be the only visitors in the park at the time.

Frankly the park system needs a decade or more hiatus on buying new parks. They need to use that time and money to fix the problems in the existing parks. The park workers need to concentrate on getting that done by streamlining the procedures for getting that work going. And on providing for the visitors to the park.

I have heard some really stupid things in my decades of going to parks. I recall, for example, a park ranger in Big Bend saying that the river valley on the west side of the park was forested 75 years ago before people cut the trees down. I asked why don't we replant the missing trees and other vegetation? And she replied, seemingly shocked at the question, "Oh we can't do that. We have to preserve the park as it is!"

That sort of attitude shows a major problem in those worker's thinking. Reforesting that valley would benefit the critters in the area, increase their population, and benefit the visitors too. I suspect John Muir would be for restoration to the historic norm. The damage was done by humans and humans should undo it.