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National parks are overcrowded and closing their gates
- stefan_ 5y agoIt's very weird to me that Americans have turned nature into Disney-esque amusement parks with clearly delineated opening times and their own little police force.
- nickff 5y ago>"...Americans have turned nature into Disney-esque amusement parks..." This comment makes me think you've never been to North America. The stretches of wilderness are truly vast; it's nothing like Britain or Europe.
- rackjack 5y agoAgreed, their comment screams "I'm European and I think I can drive across America in a day" to me, especially the bit about the police force.
- mortehu 5y agoMost of the wilderness is quite nondescript, though. There are far too many people for the few amazing sites. Compare to Norway, the Mediterranean coast and islands, the Alps, and the Canary Islands.
- dougmwne 5y agoEurope has no true wilderness and is not even in this race. Huge areas of the US are essentially untouched, no visitors, no buildings, no roads, just primal Earth. The Alps are practically suburban in comparison to the Rockies.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mortehu 5y agoI wasn't really talking about unvisited regions, so the Alps wasn't meant to be an example of that. I think you should be pretty easily able to find more remote wilderness if you look to the North or the East. Recall that Europe is larger than US, although of course a large part of that is very remote.
- DetroitThrow 5y agoHe edited his original comment to omit "repetitive", which made it even more chuckle-worthy. I've driven through most of the places he mentions in Europe, and with that knowledge it seems even more arbitrarily chauvinistic to try to claim the limited areas he mentions are close to the diversity of the entirety of the US or North America. While I love several of the national parks in France, their nature of being so clustered ends up being much more repetitive than the gigantic sequoias, brutal deserts, enormous mountains, and temperate rainforests one can experience in the USA - and that's just west of the Mississippi.
- mortehu 5y agoThe fact on the ground is that if you visit a tiny 100 foot waterfall in Pennsylvania, there will be a parking lot, a $25 entrance fee, a gift shop, a show every two hours, and security rails around the path. The travel distances between sights most people would want to see are vast, and hence the crowding. Go to Niagara falls, and there's literally an amusement park.
- 5y ago
- ianlevesque 5y agoWow I feel attacked. Its hardly Disney-esque, there are some delineated trails for safety and restrictions to prevent them from being destroyed by the millions of yearly visitors. If you want federally owned but chaotic there's millions of acres of BLM land, particularly in the west. Not every American is a blithering idiot.
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoNational Forests are a nice balance between the two. Most trails are lightly trafficked, especially when you get more than a couple of miles from the trailhead.
- ianlevesque 5y agoThat's true I forgot about the third designation.
- GavinMcG 5y agoDon't forget National Wildlife Refuges!
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoAnd the National Grasslands.
- quickthrowman 5y agoAnd the Wilderness Areas. One of my personal favorites: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Waters https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Waters If you portage in far enough, you can be the only person/people on a lake, with no cell phone service. On the other side of the Canadian border is Quetico Provincial Park, which is a Canadian canoeing wilderness. The million acres of BWCA and 1.2 million acres of Quetico join to form a massive wilderness full of lakes and wildlife. Native Americans left pictographs which are still visible, and French Voyageurs used this area extensively to travel from Canada to Lake Superior. I highly recommend a trip if you ever get the opportunity.
- tmotwu 5y agoWhy is it weird to preserve and strongly regulate natural landmarks?
- yupper32 5y agoI'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Americans like nature too much? We protect it too much, including with rangers? We have specific landmarks that are absolutely amazing and popular? If you want to see specific landmarks (Yosemite valley, Arches), then they're going to be crowded because they're popular (for good reason. they're amazing). If you want to be deep in the wilderness with no one around, there are a massive number of options.
- GavinMcG 5y agoThey're hardly amusement parks. Many don't have gates, but the most popular ones do need to control the flow somehow. There are roads, and trails, and sometimes lodging. People can buy souvenirs from affiliated nonprofits. Aside from that, though, there's a lot of emphasis on education, not entertainment. Also, I've experienced an order of magnitude more joy and awe in various National Parks than in any amusement park.
- handmodel 5y agoI went to Yellowstone a couple years ago over a holiday weekend and it was absolutely packed trying to find parking near Old Faithful or the prismatic springs. However, if you walked literally 10 minutes onto a trail you'd reach a point where you'd start to only see people pass every few minutes. Completely isolated for the rest of the day.
- tomc1985 5y agoWell yeah, the fastest way to ruin natural space is to let in too many people. This is just national parks. There is a lot of wilderness that is not governed by that system. As another example, BLM land is pretty much free use.
- User23 5y agoIn California BLM land is popular for plinking because of the supremacy clause. Sadly people abuse the opportunity and leave filthy messes behind.
- tomc1985 5y agoHuh, never heard that word until now. I guess that's why so many of the road signs have bullet holes. It's really cool to be able to simply pull over to the side of the road and put up a tent nearby
- soneil 5y agoIt makes sense to me. There's a line between preserving it and enjoying it. We've had plenty of similar problems in the UK with staycation-ers enjoying their first trip out into the lake district, and leaving behind their empty beers, the remains of the cheapest tent they could find, etc. If you've ever seen the leftovers of people camping at a festival, it's immediately obvious that there's a saturation point for things like this.
- mc32 5y agoIf you like open wilderness and few people, there is ample BLM land[1]. It’s vast and you can camp in it. No need to go to national parks to camp in the open. [1] https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/BLM%20Camping%20Guidelines.pdf https://www.blm.gov/sites/blm.gov/files/BLM%20Camping%20Guid...
- prawn 5y agoAnd many national parks have reasonable rules for backcountry camping - the rules themselves encourage you to get out of sight. It's restrictive at Zion, but I've camped in the backcountry at Joshua Tree a couple of times, at Arches, Canyonlands, etc. You leave the trail and won't necessarily see anyone until you return.
- hindsightbias 5y agoYou should read some Edward Abbey.
- hornd 5y agoPrior to the 70s, rangers weren't law enforcement officers. This changed with the Yosemite/Stoneman riot.
- omegaham 5y agoIf you don't do that, the areas will be absolutely ruined by people just doing whatever they want. There are literally tens of thousands of other campsites and trails to hit if you want to avoid that kind of thing. Hell, even in the more crowded areas, it's straightforward to head into backcountry trails and go from hundreds of people to none. From personal experience: Multnomah Falls, in the Columbia Gorge in Oregon, is a madhouse. Tour groups get bused in, everyone and their dog (literally) is walking up to the top of the waterfall, etc. More than two million people visit the falls every year. But if you head past the waterfall, you'll only see a few people, and after five miles up the Larch Mountain trail, there's absolutely nobody except for the very occasional weirdo like me. And if you don't like the crowds even at the entrance, there are a gazillion other trails in the Gorge that are very sparsely traveled.
- jdavis703 5y agoI was in Yosemite early this spring (before they implemented the advanced registration system). Even the backcountry trail I was on was crowded. There were so many people it felt like taking a walk in an urban park.
- seattle_spring 5y agoMany trails near Seattle are actually more crowded than the urban parks within the boundaries of the city. Lake Twentytwo and Mount Si are conga lines compared to places like Seward Park or Discovery Park.
- dougmwne 5y agoWe have so much public land that's essentially uninhabited and in a wild state. A small amount is managed as parks, essentially natural tourist attractions. The fees, entry gates and infrastructure is not only to better accommodate and attract tourists. It's also to carefully manage the human impact on these natural areas. It's not Disneyland, it's a fragile natural ecosystem. The visitors can very easily destroy the very thing they are coming to see.[1] [1]https://www.audubon.org/news/a-drone-crash-caused-thousands-elegant-terns-abandon-their-nests https://www.audubon.org/news/a-drone-crash-caused-thousands-...
- quartesixte 5y agoAmerican National Parks are still very much wilderness landscapes. Even the most touristy of areas can have the barest of amenities. There are no guard rails at the edge of many popular high points. You can fall off the top off Half-Dome in Yosemite if you’re not careful. Bison will and often do gore people in Yellowstone. Hikers drown in flashfloods all the time.
- yupper32 5y agoI can't read the article, but how is this actually a problem? Set up a permit system and call it a day. They already do that for popular trails/activities.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> how is this actually a problem? Over-use damages our natural spaces.
- yupper32 5y agoSorry, I meant that this is self inflicted by the national parks. They know how to run a permit system and if the spaces are actually over crowded they can implement more of these systems across their parks and areas.
- ra7 5y ago> Set up a permit system and call it a day. Yosemite implemented reservation system due to Covid and they carried it over. It works great. There’s less traffic inside the park, fewer people on trails and plenty of parking spots available. Only drawback is that tickets run out very quickly as it’s such a popular place.
- chrisseaton 5y ago> plenty of parking spots available The dream of the outdoors...
- scruple 5y agoEdward Abbey is rolling in his grave.
- ianlevesque 5y agoUnless you intend to walk the 85 miles to get there from the nearest population center, you're going to need a car.
- secabeen 5y agoI was in Moab when the author of this article was. It was busy, but not honestly that bad, especially if you went to the park in the evening. We entered the park at about 5:30pm with no line, was all the things we wanted to see, enjoyed the stars coming out, and were home by bedtime.
- prawn 5y agoCorrect. Get into Arches before sunrise - most people sleep in. Hike trails as everyone is leaving for dinner in town. Last trip, we did Devils Garden out on the primitive trail from about 7-10pm with sunset - barely saw anyone. Both times I've been to Fiery Furnace, I didn't see more than a couple of people. Some places will inevitably be busy (Delicate Arch at each end of the day) and Windows for sunrise but you don't have to adjust your behaviour much to miss the hordes. Even Windows at sunrise is tolerable as most people arrive after that.
- LiquidPolymer 5y agoI love National Parks and have done a ton of federal contracts with as a producer and photographer. But when I go camping - it’s far from the parks. I just spent 5 days out near Fort Rock in Oregon. Absolutely incredible high desert landscapes and epic skies. Nary a soul to be seen for days. Cougar tracks were visible on the trail. Creating a National Park here would ruin it. Sadly.
- spodek 5y agoWe Can Dance Around Environmental Problems All We Want. We Eventually Reach Overpopulation and Overconsumption: https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-environment/episodes/475 https://shows.acast.com/leadership-and-the-environment/episo....
- kleer001 5y agothankfully we'll peak at about 10 billion and drop from there https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/world/world-population-shrink-intl-scli-scn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/14/world/world-population-shrink...
- yboris 5y agoWhenever I hear "overpopulation" from anyone, I want them to watch this video: Overpopulation or Underpopulation by Toby Ord https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7LgGylpI9U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7LgGylpI9U A rough snippet: note that hammers and songs are different. Hammers are made of matter and require labor. Songs are a pattern and can be copied virtually for free. Songs are more valuable when there are more people: greater total enjoyment. And having more people means more minds to create great things. Some things like computers are so complex that they require a large population to make. Smaller populations might not yield the amazing technology we could otherwise have.
- xscott 5y agoThis video might be more approachable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LyzBoHo5EI I'm sure it won't convince all of the Malthusian doom and gloom sorts, but it's worth a try.
- bsder 5y agoExcept that as soon as you make life for women not suck, your country falls below replacement rate almost immediately. The easiest way to avoid overpopulation is to establish equality for women.
- tpmx 5y agoRelative to the population: So much land... but so little "open" land. Edit: The US has a higher population density number than I thought: 36 people per km^2. Still, it's not far that away from Sweden's 25 people people per km^2. Norway: 15 people per km^2, Finland: 18. These scandinavian countries have a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam - of course it's culturally quite different in the US for historic reasons, but.. it just seems so weird to have opening hours to the nature. If it was culturally/legally possible to step-by-step implement something like this in the US, I think it would be a great thing. I do see the challenges.
- bombcar 5y agoThere are millions of acres of insanely easy to access BLM land but it’s all kinda boring.
- tpmx 5y agoIn this context: BLM?
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
- smartbit 5y agohttps://archive.is/Njmby https://archive.is/Njmby