I live in CO and we have been to our fair share of national parks and other outdoor spots in the past few years and one of the things I now blame for overcrowding is: social media.
Much in the same way that you can have 100 content creators producing similar content but only 3 out of that group go viral. I've seen instances where certain spots will go viral on social media and garner way too much attention while very similar places largely go unnoticed.
A great example of this is about a year ago we were in Moab and visited both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Arches is arguably the prettier park but it's also much more "viral" than Canyonlands. When we went into Arches it was so crowded and we needed a "timed entry" ticket.
Contrast this with Canyonlands where we felt like the only ones there, no timed entry and we saw maybe a handful of other folks at the park. This mind you is one day after Arches and these parks are maybe 45min apart.
Now we have an "anti-social rule". Basically if we want to go somewhere we first check if that place is "viral" and avoid it if there's loads of buzz on social media about it.
This is where locals have an advantage. My friend lives in CO and knows a bunch of fantastic hikes that maybe are not in a NP or that tourists don't know about yet.
TBH there's not that much of an advantage over someone just doing their homework before a trip. For things like hiking trips I highly recommend going on AllTrails and look at places there, you can find tons of awesome spots on there.
I live next to a large park that requires a nominally priced parking pass to enter ($7) with an online portal, and it keeps the numbers somewhat managed, but it creates an overflow of people who just park on the road instead. If there are no attendants for crowd control, you get mobs. My area is now a dense forest of no-parking signs and with lists of things not to do. loitering isn't outdoorsy behavior, and what's acceptable outdoorsiness is a sensitive topic.
the crux of it is a class and culture issue in how people use parks and nature. where previously it was hikers and cyclists, people who actually _moved_, many people today just want a place to sit in their cars or have tailgate parties, often on any given roadside. they're looking for social and family gathering spaces that are cheap or free, and nature is incidental and not primary for that.
the article concludes with:
> Fees for permits are frowned upon all around. The idea is to give recreation managers enough analysis to make informed decisions.
This is naive to me. Most of our parks and outdoors culture is based on assumptions about population, accessibility, culture, and demand that just aren't true anymore. What's more likely is we will need to adopt more semi-private policies that resemble tourist nature preserves elsewhere in the world.
> “Calls for such research became louder in the 2000s. As visitation to national parks and forests increased, and climate change and human development put more pressure on public lands, the need for evidence-based approaches to human impacts became stark […] In 2009, the director of the National Park Service hired its first official science adviser.”
Sounds like necessary work— creative and effective management. I dont envy the choices.
I live now in NY we have the privilege of wilderness dispersed camping. In some of those areas you will find designated campsites.
I planned and took a camping trip to PA and they don’t have wilderness camping. Everything is designated AND they require reservation.
Some of the areas I go to in NY have these old outhouses. Kinda sketchy. There are some areas where the use pressure is high, and they don’t even have the sketchy outhouses. There you may find areas 100 feet from designated campsite a surrounded by a sea of toilet paper tufts.
In PA, when you reserve your spot, the reservation system directs you to odd or even numbered sites to reduce pressure and let the ecosystem recover. And the outhouse I found on my trip was literally a brick s#!thouse.
I think I can say peeps in PA have upped their game.
While I like the opportunity to do wilderness camping, of what I’ve seen in NY, unmanaged sites suck.
That photo of "Bison crossing the road in Yellowstone National Park" triggers me. When I visited there was a family of bison crossing the road, and the young bison became separated from parents. I stopped my truck to give them space, but people behind me kept racing around and past me oblivious or uncaring. Park Rangers were were nowhere close, I can only assume (hope?) it's a frequent occurrence given the traffic but overall it was fairly traumatic.
I live in CO and we have been to our fair share of national parks and other outdoor spots in the past few years and one of the things I now blame for overcrowding is: social media.
Much in the same way that you can have 100 content creators producing similar content but only 3 out of that group go viral. I've seen instances where certain spots will go viral on social media and garner way too much attention while very similar places largely go unnoticed.
A great example of this is about a year ago we were in Moab and visited both Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. Arches is arguably the prettier park but it's also much more "viral" than Canyonlands. When we went into Arches it was so crowded and we needed a "timed entry" ticket.
Contrast this with Canyonlands where we felt like the only ones there, no timed entry and we saw maybe a handful of other folks at the park. This mind you is one day after Arches and these parks are maybe 45min apart.
Now we have an "anti-social rule". Basically if we want to go somewhere we first check if that place is "viral" and avoid it if there's loads of buzz on social media about it.
This is where locals have an advantage. My friend lives in CO and knows a bunch of fantastic hikes that maybe are not in a NP or that tourists don't know about yet.
TBH there's not that much of an advantage over someone just doing their homework before a trip. For things like hiking trips I highly recommend going on AllTrails and look at places there, you can find tons of awesome spots on there.
I live next to a large park that requires a nominally priced parking pass to enter ($7) with an online portal, and it keeps the numbers somewhat managed, but it creates an overflow of people who just park on the road instead. If there are no attendants for crowd control, you get mobs. My area is now a dense forest of no-parking signs and with lists of things not to do. loitering isn't outdoorsy behavior, and what's acceptable outdoorsiness is a sensitive topic.
the crux of it is a class and culture issue in how people use parks and nature. where previously it was hikers and cyclists, people who actually _moved_, many people today just want a place to sit in their cars or have tailgate parties, often on any given roadside. they're looking for social and family gathering spaces that are cheap or free, and nature is incidental and not primary for that.
the article concludes with:
> Fees for permits are frowned upon all around. The idea is to give recreation managers enough analysis to make informed decisions.
This is naive to me. Most of our parks and outdoors culture is based on assumptions about population, accessibility, culture, and demand that just aren't true anymore. What's more likely is we will need to adopt more semi-private policies that resemble tourist nature preserves elsewhere in the world.
> “Calls for such research became louder in the 2000s. As visitation to national parks and forests increased, and climate change and human development put more pressure on public lands, the need for evidence-based approaches to human impacts became stark […] In 2009, the director of the National Park Service hired its first official science adviser.”
Sounds like necessary work— creative and effective management. I dont envy the choices.
I live now in NY we have the privilege of wilderness dispersed camping. In some of those areas you will find designated campsites.
I planned and took a camping trip to PA and they don’t have wilderness camping. Everything is designated AND they require reservation.
Some of the areas I go to in NY have these old outhouses. Kinda sketchy. There are some areas where the use pressure is high, and they don’t even have the sketchy outhouses. There you may find areas 100 feet from designated campsite a surrounded by a sea of toilet paper tufts.
In PA, when you reserve your spot, the reservation system directs you to odd or even numbered sites to reduce pressure and let the ecosystem recover. And the outhouse I found on my trip was literally a brick s#!thouse.
I think I can say peeps in PA have upped their game.
While I like the opportunity to do wilderness camping, of what I’ve seen in NY, unmanaged sites suck.
You can do dispersed camping in the allegheny national forest in PA.
Take nothing but pictures, leave nothing but footprints.
Pack it in, pack it out.
Only the most radical hikers will or special places require packing out your own waste.
That photo of "Bison crossing the road in Yellowstone National Park" triggers me. When I visited there was a family of bison crossing the road, and the young bison became separated from parents. I stopped my truck to give them space, but people behind me kept racing around and past me oblivious or uncaring. Park Rangers were were nowhere close, I can only assume (hope?) it's a frequent occurrence given the traffic but overall it was fairly traumatic.
Land back
https://www.therednation.org/10-point-program/
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