May 27, 1969
Page 13937
PULITZER PRIZE WINNERS
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I invite the attention of the Senate to the recent awards of Pulitzer Prizes to American authors who have concerned themselves with the importance of our environment and our natural resources. Dr. Rene Dubos won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for his book, "So Human an Animal: How We Are Shaped by Surroundings and Events." The Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution and the Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations have long had the benefit of Professor Dubos' counsel, and I am pleased to note his recognition by the Pulitzer Advisory Committee and the trustees of Columbia University.
Mr. Robert Cahn is the Washington correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor. He has had extensive experience in writing about the preservation of our natural resources, and I have just recently had the pleasure of talking with him regarding the dangers of thermal pollution. Mr. Cahn traveled across the breadth of this country and visited many of our national parks. His series of articles entitled "Will Success Spoil the National Parks?" was thoroughly absorbing. I ask unanimous consent that they be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the articles were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
HERITAGE OF WONDER
(By Robert Cahn)
WASHINGTON, May 1, 1968.– A little more than a century ago, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted wrote a prophetic report about a federal area called Yosemite in California. Congress and President Lincoln had just granted California the right to preserve the scenic marvels of the area, mainly giant Sequoia trees, then being threatened by commercial exploitation. Said Olmsted, also famed as planner of New York City's Central Park:
"It is but 16 years since the Yosemite was first seen by a white man. Several visitors have since made a journey of several thousand miles at large cost to see it, and notwithstanding the difficulties which now interpose, hundreds resort to it annually. Before many years if proper facilities are offered, these hundreds will become thousands and in a century the whole number of visitors will be counted by the millions.
"An injury to the scenery so slight that it may be unheeded by any visitor now, will be one of deplorable magnitude when its effect upon each visitor's enjoyment is multiplied by these millions. But again, the slight harm which the few hundred visitors of this year might do, if no care were taken to prevent it, would not be slight if it should be repeated by millions...."
The Olmsted prophecy of millions of visitors to Yosemite – which at the time must have seemed sheer fantasy – is today merely a routine statistic. Yosemite, now a national park, drew 2,238,000 visitors last year. Total attendance at the 32 national parks which were operational in 1968 was nearly 40 million.
But the Olmsted warning of injury to the scenery from those millions of visitors to come currently presents the half-century-old National Park Service with its greatest challenge ever: how to provide for the increase of visitors without ruining the parks and spoiling the enjoyment of those very visitors for whom they have been preserved.
Concern over the problem, however, should not obscure recognition of achievement. As the worldwide pioneer in the national-parks concept, the United States has set aside for public use some 265 natural, recreational, and historical areas totaling more than 27 million acres.
The first national park, Yellowstone, was established in 1872, when the nation was more interested in taming the wilderness than preserving it.
Hub of today's expanded park system is still the national parks themselves. For the most part they include outstanding natural features, vast primitive areas, many species of wild animals, and certain unique characteristics.
Most of the parks afford a wide variety of opportunity to visitors – back-country wilderness camping; horseback trail riding; public campgrounds; fishing; bird and animal watching; or sight-seeing from roads and lookouts. These are the purposes for which they were founded. With rare exceptions commercial development of resources and hunting are prohibited.
A 33rd national park, Guadalupe, in Western Texas, has been authorized by Congress but consists of private land not yet purchased. A 34th park (Redwood, in California) and a 35th (North Cascades, in Washington) were added by Congress in 1968.
A number of the 82 national monuments almost equal the national parks. Such monuments (not to be confused with sites like the Washington Monument) are lands set aside out of the public domain which have unusual scientific, historic, or archaeological significance. They can be established by the president or by Congress. (Only Congress can authorize a national park.)
The term "recreational area" was originally given to federal water-impoundment sites such as Lake Mead. The term now applies to national seashores (such as Cape Cod and Cape Hatteras), national lake shores, scenic river ways (Ozark), and parkways (Blue Ridge, Natchez Trace). Priority in management is given to mass recreation opportunity. Newly created recreation areas generally have been close to population centers.
Although national parks, monuments, and recreation areas often include historical points of interest, the term "historical area" applies specifically to areas preserved for their place in history.
The national-park system may receive the most publicity and have the most unique areas. But it comprises only a small part of the total recreation potential of the United States. Lands managed by the Forest Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture have large recreation use, as do areas of the Tennessee Valley Authority, Army Corps of Engineers, and Interior Department Bureaus of Reclamation, Land Management, and Sport Fisheries and Wildlife. Every state also has numerous public and privately owned parks and recreation areas.
UNITED STATES MAY HAVE TO RESTRICT USE OF PUBLIC LANDS – I
(By Robert Cahn)
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, COLO., May 1, 1968.– The bright-eyed attendant with the forest-green skirt and jaunty cap of the National Park Service sat behind a ticket table at the top of the trail leading to the Cliff Palace Indian ruin.
"Ranger-guided tours are now full," she said. Only the last tour of the day, some three hours later, was open.
She handed me a blue theater-type admission ticket with "6 p.m." stamped on it.
A month later and 1,500 miles to the east, I braked to a stop behind a line of cars winding along a tree-shrouded hillside road in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Ahead – the red glow of a traffic signal. Admission tickets? A traffic signal? In America's national parks?
Yes. And more such curbs are on the way. The era of almost unrestricted use of the parks is coming to an end.
SOME PARKS MAY CLOSE
The summer of 1968 saw a record number of visitors heading for vacation trips in 32 operational parks and 213 other operational areas in the United States national park system. Administrators who once were beating the drums for more visitors began wishing they could halt the onrush at some crowded parks.
A possible severe budget cut caused by Vietnam war expenditures also threatened drastic curtailment of park personnel. With hordes of American and foreign visitors answering the Discover America campaign, an influential member of Congress suggested it might even become necessary to temporarily close some parks.
"If sharp cuts are forced on the national parks budget and we don't have enough rangers to protect the national parks and maintain their quality, I would recommend that we close those parks with lowest priority of use," said Rep. Julia Butler Hansen (D) of Washington, chairman of the House appropriations subcommittee handling the national parks budget.
National Park Service Director George B. Hartzog Jr. admits he has a contingency plan to close certain facilities, or possibly some parks, if the money is not available to hire the extra rangers needed each year to protect the parks and take care of the summer crowds.
Traveling 20,000 miles to visit 20 key park areas during a nine-month span, I saw at first hand the effects of heavy use. I talked to park superintendents, rangers and workmen, hundreds of park visitors from all walks of life, concession operators, and concerned citizens from communities near the parks.
I heard the park's problems discussed by leaders of conservation groups and private experts on parks and recreation, officials of several federal agencies with responsibilities for outdoor recreation on public lands, and members of Congress charged with providing the ultimate determination of policy for the national parks and the money to carry it out.
I saw the crowded campgrounds and carnival atmosphere of Yosemite Valley in midsummer; the "bear jams" at Yellowstone as law-violating tourists stopped their cars to feed roadside bears – tying up traffic, endangering themselves and their children, and turning the wild animals into beggars.
At Grand Canyon in mid-afternoon, I saw people turned away from already full campgrounds, forced to drive on for many more miles in their quest for a night's stopping place.
On a narrow, winding highway bordering scenic Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park I saw logging trucks doing 70 miles an hour, their engines blasting the peaceful scene and terrifying park visitors.
ON THE OTHER HAND
But these examples of overuse or misuse of parks were counterbalanced by other views:
On a trail in the Olympics, not far from where the lumber trucks careened along the lakeside, I saw a couple carrying their very young twins in special back packs as the family started on a three-day hike into the famed rain forest.
I watched boys from the Detroit area discover the excitement of hiking and camping in the wilderness of Isle Royale National Park, Michigan, the only national park in the United States that hasn't a single public road.
At Yosemite, I heard an alert, enthusiastic park naturalist helping Eastern big-city visitors learn how they could take their park experience home with them. "Everything around you is transmitting beauty and change," he told them. "If your inner 'receiver' can perceive the beauty here, you can go back to the Bronx and see the beauty there."
Here at Mesa Verde, I found park officials already taking steps both to protect the unique area and to help visitors have a more deeply satisfying park experience.
The first move had been to ban the ever-bigger house trailers that were blocking the narrow, winding mountain roads and making things miserable for everyone on the hour-long drive from the park entrance to the cliff dwellings. New regulations required that trailers be left at a parking site at the entrance or at a campground nearby.
NEW RULES ADOPTED
At the most popular cliff dwellings, Balcony House and Cliff Palace, it was found that heavy use was damaging the fragile ruins. At Cliff Palace, for instance, it had been routine for rangers to begin conducted tours every 20 minutes.
Groups numbered as high as 170, which meant there were up to 500 people at a time in the dwellings. Group crowded group as ranger guides outshouted each other trying to make themselves heard.
In July, 1967, new rules went into effect. Trips took off every half-hour and were limited to 75 people. Tickets for the day's trips were given out free, first come, first served.
As soon as the day’s ticket supply had gone even if it was still only noon – visits ended for the rest of the day. No exceptions were made to expand the groups, even for visitors who had traveled long distances to experience the special wonders of Mesa Verde. At Balcony House, smaller tours and a ticket system were also adopted.
Some visitors at first protested the new policy. But when park rangers explained that this was a way of saving the area for future generations, and making each trip more meaningful, they accepted it. By the end of the 1967 season, not a single written complaint had been recorded.
Mesa Verde typifies the trend from free to limited access. The trend undoubtedly has been accelerated by widespread criticism of the National Park Service for allowing the public to crowd and misuse the national parks. This year, the ax of regulation will cut much deeper.
PARKS ENFORCING CONTROLS
Among national parks imposing restrictions are:
Great Smoky Mountains: For the first time, fees are being charged by the National Park Service for use of campgrounds. Those arriving at the park after campgrounds are full will not be allowed to park alongside the roads, nor overflow campgrounds.
Laws against feeding of bears are being strictly enforced to eliminate traffic jams along the main highway through the park.
At a key road junction, the first traffic signal ever installed in a national park has reduced traffic tie-ups considerably.
Crater Lake: Park campgrounds are being operated by a concessionaire who charges a minimal rate per car. This is in addition to the park entrance fee of $1 a day (or Golden Eagle $7 passport good for a year in all parks). Other parks may soon follow with concessionaire-operated campgrounds under park service supervision. This action is being taken because of budget restrictions which have cut down park service personnel.
Everglades: Starting February, 1968, those entering the park were informed whenever the Flamingo campground – 38 miles away and the only overnight camping area – was filled. The former practice of allowing overflow camping was banned completely. Most other parks have eliminated use of overflow camping areas.
Yosemite: This most crowded of all the parks (press and TV have dubbed Yosemite Valley a "slum" on holiday weekends), is undergoing more extensive changes than any other national park. Public campground capacity in the valley is being cut in half by a policy of marking out definite campsites and eliminating the former practice of allowing people to crowd together almost tent-peg to tent-peg.
The traditional nightly "firefall," in which a half-ton of campfire embers was pushed over Glacier Point to cascade through the darkness, has been snuffed out. National Park Service officials say this popular traditional event put on by Yosemite concessioner caused traffic to build up and people to accumulate in one small section, and also created an atmosphere inappropriate for a national park.
A one-way road system has been installed at the crowded end of Yosemite Valley. And concession-operated buses now operate on a loop to cut back use of automobiles.
PRESSURE OF CRITICISM
These new policy changes and others under study for problem areas within the national park system result partly from the pressure of public criticism which has caused park officials to make a massive reassessment. They are acting with the full awareness that the attempts in recent years to increase facilities to keep up with burgeoning demands have satisfied neither the users nor the critics of expanded park development.
Efforts to take care of increased numbers of visitors have brought criticism from conservationists who feel that permanent damage is being done to the nation's natural "crown jewels" by the added roads and campgrounds, buildings, and blacktop.
The conservationists argue: "Let's keep the unique natural areas of the parks for those who want to get off by themselves in the wilderness and refresh the mind and spirit away from the multitudes, attractions, and problems of the cities. The people who only want outdoor fun or a cheap camping vacation along the road should seek it in other places"
The average park sightseer or campground user might reply: "The back packers already have 95 percent of most parks for their type of use. We prefer to get our enjoyment out of seeing the wilderness from the road, or just being among the trees even when in a big public campground. What we really need are more campgrounds and more roads."
VOICES OF PROTEST HEARD
One Californian, after hearing about restrictions in campground use being planned for Yosemite, wrote an angry letter to the Park Service Director.
"Each year I look forward to spending a week in Yosemite with my trailer," he said. "And, by George, I don't want any government official telling me I can't do this."
Park officials point out that each national park has a certain "carrying capacity." Use beyond this yet-to-be-determined figure would damage either the basic resource or the aesthetic satisfaction of the visitor, or both.
But what is the carrying capacity of Yosemite National Park and how can it be measured? It may be possible to calculate that the soil at a particular campground will permit only a certain number of visitors per acre. But at what point does the intrusion of one more family in the campground, one more car on the road, one more building, or one more hiker in the wilderness lessen the quality of the park experience for an individual?
The National Park Service is sponsoring research to determine the carrying capacity for each unit in the system. So complicated is the problem and so large the lack of basic knowledge, that answers may be years away.
"We are going to develop our parks only to what each one can bear or stand," says Stewart L. Udall, whose job as Secretary of the Interior includes responsibility for the National Park Service. "If we are going to continue the present rate of population growth, we are simply going to have to have rationing of use of the parks. The country might as well face that as a fact. Our master plans for the parks are not going to include unlimited development to meet all the demands of the people."
"PARKS ARE FOR PEOPLE, BUT" – II
(NOTE.-Are America's "crown jewels" in jeopardy? The pressing question confronts national park custodians as they seek to preserve a priceless heritage for future generations.)
WASHINGTON, May 8, 1968.– In the national parks today you'll find more and better roads, intones the liquid-voiced narrator.
But the picture on the screen shows it like it sometimes was in the bustling summer of 1967 – cars, camper-trucks, and giant trailer homes in a creeping, bumper-to-bumper mass.
"Camping areas have increased tremendously – one can rub elbows with countless thousands of others right on nature's doorstep," the soundtrack continues brightly.
And on the screen: tents, cars, trailers, people in a solid phalanx almost blocking out the trees.
The privately made film picturing problems of the United States national parks satirizes intentionally. Yet millions of park visitors across the nation would recognize the scenes.
"In this modern world where change is commonplace, what are the national parks doing to keep pace with change?" the screen voice asks, and answers with not so gentle irony: "Individual specimens of wild animals no longer need to be seen in the wild. They can be kept safely behind fences for the safety of visitors.
"Campgrounds can be replaced by permanent residences inside the parks to be rented by week or month.
"Unused parkland [camera shows serene untouched wilderness] will finally serve the public interest – by being converted to stores and entertainment centers and more roads.
"And we of this generation, in handing over these unique areas with their simple beauty and rustic splendor [camera shows tin cans and garbage floating down a park stream] can say with pride to the generation of tomorrow – This we have done!' '
A JOLT FOR RANGERS
This telling film was made for showing exclusively to the National Park Service staff. The purpose, according to park service officials: to jolt employees into realizing the potentially devastating effects upon the parks if an unrestricted normal increase of visitors is matched by increasing the facilities to meet all the demands of park users.
Although the film undoubtedly played a useful audiovisual role, neither National Park Service director George B. Hartzog Jr. nor his staff aides need any reminders of the problems faced by the national parks. Newspapers, magazines, and TV for some time have been hammering home the problems at some of America's park areas.
Early this year a 60,000-word report by two scientists for the Conservation Foundation sharply criticized certain National Park Service policies and practices, while at the same time praising the park service for its achievements.
Elaborating on a 1964 interim report, scientists F. Fraser Darling and Noel D. Eichorn declared that too many people using the parks have already caused "ecological deterioration." They also faulted the park service for its excessive interest in showing an increase in visitor statistics each year, and for developing the parks to take care of the mass of visitors rather than conserving the unique habitats.
Conservation expert Peter Farb, writing in this newspaper, concluded that the national parks are in deep trouble. Mr. Farb charged that the present administrators of the park service "are actually encouraging an overuse, which, if continued, will see the destruction of the national parks in our time"
When he became director of the National Park Service four years ago, Mr. Hartzog strongly promoted increased use of parks. Today he no longer pushes the park service slogan of recent years – "Parks are for people." Yet he is optimistic that, despite the increasing popularity of the parks, the carrying out of some drastic new policies can prevent the ruin of these priceless natural areas.
Who will be proved right – Mr. Hartzog or his critics? Are the parks headed down-hill irretrievably? What can future generations expect to find in the scenic wonders of the national parks that have been called the nation's natural "crown jewels"?
CRIME AND POLLUTION RISE
In 20,000 miles of travel through many parts of the national park system, I discovered that every park has problems in varying degrees of seriousness.
Overcrowding does exist in the developed areas of such older national parks as Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, Everglades, Mesa Verde, and Mt. Rainier – but only during the peak periods of use.
Crime, while still insignificant in total amount, is growing in the national parks at double the rate of crime in American cities. Several parks are undergoing water shortages either from man's interference with the source or from too many people using the normal supply.
Park rangers are so busy with management, safety, maintenance, and traffic during peak periods that they have too little time for helping the public understand the parks.
Many visitors add to the difficulties by trying to do too much, too fast; seeking and demanding the creature comforts of home in pristine areas of nature; failing to respect the land and the wildlife or refusing to see it on its own terms.
Despite all this and more, it is only fair to say that, on the basis of my observations, the national park system appears to be in relatively good physical condition. No disaster situation is evident.
But looking ahead 10, 20, or 30 years, the story could be different indeed. The mounting pressures of use, and staggering predictions for future use, point to a crisis of decision making.
If the right decisions are not made, or are made too late, the national parks could be spoiled for both present and future generations of visitors.
The crisis of decisions involves not just old-line popular parks like Yellowstone or those like Yosemite, near urban areas. Even in new and remote areas of the national park system, the pressures of use already are forcing some difficult decisions.
VIRGIN ISLANDS "DISCOVERED"
Consider Virgin Islands National Park, for instance. Four years ago, on the second day of a Caribbean vacation, my wife and I "discovered" this national park and its delightful campground at Cinnamon Bay on St. John Island. We instantly fell in love with its quiet beauty. Finding that the concessionaire had housekeeping accommodations available, we stayed there our entire two weeks.
Park service guide Noble Samuel, a native of St. John, taught us how to snorkel and also interpreted the fantastic display of underwater life we encountered around coral reefs. Evenings we sat by a beach campfire and listened as park service naturalists unlocked the secrets of St. John's marine, animal, and plant life. We explored the island and lounged on its white sand beaches, some of the best in the world.
The open-hearted concessionaires, John and "Dib" Woodside, managed to create a homey atmosphere for the 70 of us who were occupying the tent sites and screened-in, one-room beach cottages. There was no organized entertainment, and everyone went his own way. If you didn't mind the no-see-ums (minuscule sand flies with a maxi-powered bite), cooking on a barbecue grill or Coleman stove, using a kerosene lamp, and having no running hot water, it was an idyllic vacation spot.
When we returned to Cinnamon Bay last fall, everything looked unchanged. But it wasn't. At Christmas, Easter, and other popular vacation periods, accommodations were booked solid a year in advance; visitors arrived without reservations, forcing overflow camping. Too much foot traffic along the beach had caused severe erosion; the limited water supply was running dangerously low. A proposed airport for nearby St. Thomas threatened the tranquillity of the park.
As a result of these pressures, superintendent Joseph Brown faces some basic decisions.
Should Cinnamon Bay be closed for overnight use and another campsite developed up in the hills?
Should the length of camping stay be reduced? Should additional campgrounds or overnight lodging be built on other park service-owned land on the island? Or built by private enterprise outside the park?
Cinnamon Bay illustrates the problem as a whole. On a systemwide basis, a number of decisions basic to many national parks also are demanding attention.
How many more public campgrounds or lodges should be built within the parks? Are there other solutions to the vast "housing" need?
Should there be a limit on size or number of vehicles in the parks? Should visitors be required to leave autos or trailers at the gates and travel inside on public transportation?
How much of each park should be set aside as wilderness? How much, if any, should be given over to roads, restaurants, stores, lodging, and other services for the public?
The questions may be different now from what they were when the National Park Service was founded in 1916, yet the one underlying issue remains: preservation vs. use.
DUAL PURPOSE CONTRADICTORY
Those far-sighted men who drew up the legislation half a century ago for a national park system outlined a dual purpose: (1) to conserve the scenery, wildlife, and natural and historic objects; (2) to provide for their enjoyment in a manner that would leave them "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations."
Evidence exists that the politicians of that era realized the mission had a built-in contradiction. But to pass the National Parks Act of 1916 they needed the votes not only of the conservation advocates but also of those members of Congress who saw the parks as vacation resorts.
In 1916, with 356,100 visitors using 13 national parks, the conflict between use and preservation was minimal. Today, even though the park system has grown to include 34 national parks and more than 200 other areas (such as national monuments, recreation areas, and historical areas), use has far outstripped the capacity of additional facilities.
In 1967 the national-park areas alone received 39.6 million visitors, up 5 percent over 1966. And all indicators point to even heavier use in 1968 and succeeding years.
Population is increasing regularly, and so is the leisure time of Americans. Fatter pocketbooks enable wider travel. People cramped in cities surge to the countryside. Advancing transportation technology squeezes travel days into hours and makes remote areas of the country readily reachable.
It is no longer a problem the National Park Service can solve alone. Other federal agencies involved in recreation have 20 times more area than the park service.
A way must be found for the recreation areas of the other federal agencies and for those of states and cities to absorb more of the visitation pressures that now concentrate on national parks.
ROLE FOR PRIVATE ENTERPRISE
Private enterprise also will need to provide more outdoor recreation opportunity. Furthermore the park-going citizen will have to adjust to restrictions which may be placed on use of the parks and accept a greater sense of responsibility for preserving the fragile areas he uses.
If this conflict of preservation vs. use is not resolved, the one thing for which parks exist could be lost. After all, the uniqueness of a national park is its atmosphere in which a visitor can experience a sense of oneness with nature.
People commune with nature in different ways. For one it may be a hiking trip into a wilderness. For another, a short walk on a nature trail near the highway. Some feel satisfied just looking through a car window, or standing at a lookout point and taking in a magnificent vista.
However one sees a park the essential requirement for a rewarding visit is that the area be preserved so it can be appreciated.
All of the recent rumblings about crowding or abuse of the national parks may thus serve a useful purpose if they bring the issues to the surface where solutions may be reached.
CARS, CROWDS, CRIME-III
(NOTE.-City problems are spilling over into a growing number of America's national parks. Even the crime rate is rising. The dilemma for government custodians: How to cope?)
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIF., May 15, 1988.– “The conditions in Yosemite Valley are a national disgrace," a San Jose, Calif., man wrote in the summer of 1968 to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.
"The extreme beauty of the place is marred by the noise and confusion of excessive motor traffic. A heavy pall of campfire smoke hangs over the campgrounds. Wild, noisy activities continue through the night."
Another critic, from Hyattsville, Md., wrote to Mr. Udall complaining that after driving 3,000 miles to visit Yosemite – "perhaps only once in our lifetime"– she and her husband had found that "it has been overrun by local hoodlums not at all interested in the natural beauty or phenomena of the park."
To Secretary Udall, National Park Service Director George M. Hartzog Jr., and rangers at an increasing number of parks, these and other letters or verbal complaints point up a growing dilemma: how to cope with the problems of the city now spilling over to many of the national parks?
THREE C'S RELATED
The most pressing problems are what might be called the three "C's" – cars, crowds, and crime.
They are, of course, related. The cars, trailers, camper vehicles, and even motorcycles, have enabled people to escape the cities in large numbers on weekends or vacations. Yet the capacity of roads, campgrounds, lodging, food, and other services has not kept pace with the burgeoning demand.
The result: Crowds and congestion. During much of the summer, Old Faithful and Canyon Village in Wyoming's Yellowstone, Yosemite Valley in California, Grand Canyon Village in Arizona, the main highway through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, Paradise Valley at Mount Rainier in Washington, and many other areas teem with people, cars, trailers, and camp mobiles.
Along with the crowds, crime has come to the parks. It is not yet as dangerous a situation as in some cities. But park officials view the upsurge with alarm.
CRIME UP 67 PERCENT
In 1967 serious crimes in national parks rose 67 percent compared with a 16 percent crime rate increase in U.S. cities.
Park crime included:
Safe-cracking jobs in the Grand Canyon, Glacier Park in Montana, and Aztec Ruins National Monument in New Mexico, and an armed robbery at Glacier Park Lodge. A high ranking lieutenant of La Cosa Nostra was arrested in Hot Springs National Park in Arkansas and charged with attempted bribery. Thefts from cars increased 330 percent at Kentucky's Mammoth Caves National Park, and such thefts have become a big problem at many parks.
Vandalism was reported throughout the system. Trees, rocks, and cliffs were defaced. Signs were damaged or stolen, public facilities damaged. At Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, 361 people were caught trying to leave the park with a total of 2,177 pounds of stolen artifacts. In 93 of the cases, formal charges were made and convictions obtained.
At California's Sequoia National Park, after 37 years of unlocked doors, the concession operator had to order locks for cabins.
Use of narcotics caused trouble among student employees and visitors at Yosemite, Glacier, Grand Canyon, and the Grand Tetons in Wyoming.
Poaching of wildlife was reported at many parks and was especially serious at Wind Cave (South Dakota) and Everglades (Florida).
The crime rise, the overcrowding, the traffic jams do not constitute a present crisis. They are exceptions to the generally serene atmosphere to be found in the national parks.
Only 1 out of every 5,700 visitors is affected by crime. Crowding is a more prevalent problem, but is experienced mostly on holiday weekends or at the peak of the season and in certain sections of the parks. The danger lies in what the present trends indicate for the future.
When the topic arises of urban conditions in the national parks, the example usually cited is Yosemite. Yosemite is not typical of the parks I saw in 20,000 miles of travel through parts of the national park system. Because of its special characteristics, it is a hotbed of all the problems experienced piecemeal in some other parks.
Yosemite, lying within a day's drive of Los Angeles and San Francisco, gets heavy weekend and vacation use from residents of those megalopolitan areas. Its magnificent waterfalls, sheer rock walls, alpine lakes and meadows, and giant Sequoia trees have made it a touring must for foreign as well as out-of-state American visitors. But they have a hard time finding space among the two million Californians who crowd the park each year, some of them coming every year or even several times a year (85 percent of all visitors are from California).
The park's magnificent "back country" still has its pristine wilderness intact, although the best campsites along the trails or beside the mountain lake now fill up by early afternoon.
In a. summer visit to Yosemite, however, I found that 95 percent of park visitors prefer to squeeze into the narrow (seven-square-mile) Yosemite Valley, which contains only 1 percent of the total park area.
Everywhere in the campground, village, and lodging areas it was people, cars, trailers, camper vehicles, tents, cabins, sleeping bags – and more people.
THEY HAVE A GOOD TIME
Visitors queued up outside the cafeteria. Barefoot, ragtag hippies congregated around an outdoor eating concession. A dress shop's summer clearance sale attracted clusters of women. A public lounge hall was filled with teenagers and some older folks playing cards, oblivious to the glories of nature all around them.
"Outrageous," say conservationist critics who hear about Yosemite or see its crowds on television during a holiday newscast showing the park at its worst. "Take the honky-tonk atmosphere out of the national parks," say those who go to the parks and find the development overly commercial and out of place for a national park.
Yet there is another side. Any observer who looks around even in Yosemite Valley sees that most of the people are enjoying their stay. Those in the campgrounds have only to walk a few yards from any crowded area to enjoy some of the most beautiful scenery in the world.
"We came here because of the crowd," commented undismayed Joseph Dioege. He and his family were relaxing in front of a campfire in a densely crowded campground. With Mrs. Dioege and five of their six children, he had come from Canoga Park, Calif., where he works for an aircraft company. "We can do our primitive camping later when the children are grown. But this is what they want – to have other youngsters around and things to do."
HIPPIE'S VIEW: "IT'S REAL"
One afternoon at Yosemite I talked with a group of hippies – about 20 of the 100 or so who had left their Haight-Ashbury haunts for a summer in the park.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
Bill, a 16-year-old from Georgia, replied: "There are no real values left in society. We come here because it is beautiful, it is real." Jack, a handsome, unshaven youth from Canada, said: "Here, I don't need LSD to turn me on. I can get the same feeling from seeing the beauty of the mountains and the cliffs and the trees.”
Park officials at Yosemite say that many visitors are shocked and bothered by the presence of the hippies with their strange mode of living and slovenly dress. But they, too, have a right to be in the park unless they break the law.
Then there are the problems of young folks of both sexes camping together. "How do you know which ones are married and which aren't?" asked one park ranger. "We can't do anything about it if their parents let them come up here without chaperones."
A special report on the Yosemite crime problem made by three police experts also placed the blame on parents.
"From the growing number of unsupervised juveniles visiting the park, one conjectures that some parents must imagine the park is as a safe, federal nursery school where rangers act as baby- sitters," the report said.
PATROL RANGERS CALLED IN
The city-like problems created by the crowds in Yosemite Valley during the peak of the 1967 summer season required pulling in most of the patrol rangers from the back country. Twice, specially trained park police from the Washington area had to be flown to the park to assist in crime control. Twenty arrests were made for narcotics violations – four times more than in the previous five years combined.
Much of the crime is committed by petty thieves who find park conditions ideal for stealing from cars and campsites.
"We have thousands of people in an unfamiliar environment doing unfamiliar things," a park official told me. "An unshaven man in mid-afternoon carrying a bundle of clothes is a normal sight in a campground. He may have just stolen the clothes, but no one would suspect it."
Criminals also know that Yosemite and other parks are short of help. Exit gates are unmanned much of the time, so getaways are easy even when crimes are reported.
LAW ENFORCEMENT CRITICIZED
Park officials say that the hippies in 1967 proved far less troublesome than motorcycle gangs and rowdy juveniles who invaded Yosemite Valley in large groups during 1965 and 1966.
The entire law-enforcement system in national parks – which most officials agree is archaic – is in need of overhauling. Many park rangers, with the responsibility for making arrests, have not received adequate police training. And justice is dispensed with little uniformity by park commissioners or the nearest United States district commissioner.
In Grand Teton National Park, a park seasonal ranger, acting on a tip, barged in on two college youths sleeping in a tent. One of the youths admitted he had taken a small amount of LSD two days earlier (which in itself was not illegal) and even showed the ranger where he kept another capsule of LSD.
Hoping to make an example of the youth, the seasonal ranger, a law-school student during most of the year, arrested the two 19-year-olds for "disorderly conduct." The U.S. District Commissioner in Jackson, Wyo., ordered them placed in a county jail cell along with drunks and common criminals. The youth who had admitted taking the LSD was fined $500 by the district commissioner and sentenced to the maximum six months in jail. Five days later, when the youth's parents arrived in Jackson and made a protest, the sentence was reduced to five days and $100.
CONVICTION REVERSED
The case was appealed to the federal district court of Wyoming, where the conviction was quickly reversed.
There are no easy answers to the city-like problems of the parks today. The park service experimented with several restrictions in the summer of 1968, including reduction of the number of vehicles and tents allowed in Yosemite Valley campgrounds and making a one-way loop road system in the most heavily used end of the valley.
Additional ideas being considered for Yosemite and other crowded parks include shorter camping stays, higher fees, and a reservation system. Spreading the use of the parks by having more visitation in spring and fall would, in theory, reduce congestion greatly. But no one knows how to get millions of Americans to shift their traditional vacation plans.
More campgrounds and developed areas could be constructed in park sections now unused. But such extensions are opposed by conservationists and others who want to maintain as much of the park as possible in its original condition.
Establishment of slow-speed roads, charges for camping, and other regulations may eliminate some of the people who now go to a national park just because it's there. Many of these visitors do not really care whether they visit a national park as long as their recreation needs are met.
RESTRAINTS OPPOSED
These people might be satisfied at state or city parks, private campgrounds or recreation spots, or in other federal areas. California state parks already are so crowded that a reservation system was started in 1968.
Some National Park Service officials balk at restraints that would keep the average sightseer out of the park. The parks, they argue, are supported by all the people. And the park service cannot close the gates to "nonbelievers," who may really need the park more than the wilderness buffs. Coming even as sightseers, they may learn how the wonders of nature refresh the inner man.
That ideal is fine, agree the conservationists. They then add a sizable "but": The park service had better find a way of putting it into practice that won't violate the mandate of Congress back in 1916 – to preserve the park areas for future generations.
"PARKINSON'S LAW" IN THE PARKS – IV
(NOTE.-The National Park Service has found itself with an uncomfortable equation: Every increase in visitor capacity is outmatched by increase in use. It's a case of access vs. excess, with conflicts of interests and pressures – and some hard decisions due.)
ISLE ROYALE, MICH., May 22, 1968.– Something is missing from this idyllic, water bound national park in the upper reaches of Lake Superior.
About 700 moose live on 45-mile-long Isle Royale, 15 miles from the nearest mainland shore. There are also 25 wolves (almost never seen) as well as assorted birds and small animals – and the fish that swim in surrounding waters.
The park also has amenities for human visitors: 2 rustic lodges, 88 camping shelters, and 115 miles of hiking trails.
But by contrast with all other United States national parks, Isle Royale definitely lacks two inevitable conveniences of the combustion age:
Cars.
And roads.
If you want to come to Isle Royale, you must travel by boat or chartered plane. Once here, if you want to get from Rock Harbor at the east end of the park island to Windi-go at the west end, you must go by motorboat, canoe, or foot. Those who hike the Greenstone Ridge Trail running the length of the island are entitled to wear a blue-and-white shoulder patch to prove they've done it.
CANOES REPLACE CARS
The roadlessness of Isle Royale not only makes this park distinctive, but it sets the tone of the entire island. The people I saw getting off the National Park Service boat from the mainland had packs, sleeping bags, canoes, and groceries, ready to go off to the trails and shelters for a weekend or week-long experience with nature.
Elsewhere in the national park system the pattern is quite different. In the rest of my 20,000-mile swing through major park areas, I found that the majority of visitors regard roads and motor vehicles as a boon.
On the weekend I visited Yellowstone in Wyoming, the road alongside Old Faithful geyser was one continuous traffic jam. "Bear jams" occurred every mile or so as cars stopped right in the road for occupants to feed the bears or take pictures. Trailer homes and camper vehicles crowded together in an overflow area resembling a supermarket parking lot on Saturday morning.
Similar situations prevailed elsewhere. California's Yosemite Valley suffered traffic jams, the roar of motorcycles, the chug of trailer generators, and smog caused by vehicle fumes plus campfire smoke.
BUMPER-TO-BUMPER TRAFFIC
One campground in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee was almost filled by a mobile home club of retired people from all parts of the United States. They had chosen this public area as their rendezvous spot.
Traffic on U.S. 441, running 34 miles across the Great Smoky Park, was almost bumper to bumper on a Sunday afternoon. Visitors traveling just for the scenery had to endure the push of high-speed drivers using the road only as the shortest distance between points in Tennessee and North Carolina.
On U.S. 101 inside Washington State's Olympic National Park, I saw heavily loaded lumber trucks speed along the side of scenic Lake Crescent at 70 m.p.h., occasionally forcing park visitors onto the shoulders of the narrow two-lane road.
A survey of 17 National Park Service areas in 1967 showed that camper-trucks and mobile homes accounted for more than 50 percent of vehicles using national-park camping facilities.
The increase of vehicles produces a demand for more and bigger roads and for added natural areas to be turned into campsites. That means more gas stations, grocery stores, coin laundries, cafeterias, and trailer hookups.
The result is escalation a la Parkinson – for every increase in capacity an even greater increase in use.
Conservation groups have for years been demanding an end to new road construction within the parks and a limitation on campsites and other tourist-serving facilities.
The National Park Service has been caught between pressures to conserve the natural areas and to make them available for more visitors.
From 1956 to '66, during the Mission 66 development program, the "parks are for people" concept seemed to be winning out. A change in policy, however, is beginning to emerge now.
Following a task-force study of park roads, their use, and other transportation possibilities, Park Service Director George B. Hartzog, Jr. and Interior Secretary Stewart L. Udall approved a revolutionary new set of road standards.
ROAD POLICY OUTLINED
The road-policy statement says that the national parks "Stand today at the same crossroads as do the American cities – some of which seem on the verge of choking on their automobiles. Just as noise, congestion, and pollution threaten the quality of urban life, they have begun to erode the quality of the park experience."
The national parks can no longer accommodate every person who wants to drive an automobile without restriction unless an open-end road-construction program is carried out, the statement adds. And an open-end road program is not favored.
"Inevitably, if the park experience is to maintain its distinctive quality," the statement continues, "the numbers of people, their methods of access and circulation, will necessarily have to be more closely controlled."
Specifically, the new policy advocates that: Park roads should not be links of the federal network.
The National Park Service must not be obligated to construct roads, or to manage traffic, in order that new kinds of mobile camping vehicles be accommodated. The development of parking areas for trailers at park entrances, and the exclusion of vehicles from park roads not capable of handling them, are appropriate solutions. Faced with a choice of creating a severe road scar in order to bring visitors close to a point of interest, or requiring visitors to walk a considerable distance, or considering an alternate transportation system, the decision should be against the road.
Research be conducted and high priority given to pilot programs seeking other transportation systems more appropriate than roads – tramways, monorails, rail conveyer systems, helicopters, and hydrofoils.
Long stretches of straight roads in parks should be avoided, and they should not be designed simply to link points of interest. Every park road should, to the extent possible, take maximum advantage of scenic and interpretive values and constitute an enjoyable and informative experience in itself
Speed limits can be reduced, roads converted into one-way systems, service roads be made into one-way nature roads, or autos limited to certain portions of a park and replaced by bus, mini-train, or other transportation.
EARLY HIGHWAYS ENCOURAGED
Implementing some of these changes may cause severe adjustments for many citizens accustomed to easy road access to the national parks. By a significant coincidence, the national park concept reached its development stage about the same time as the automobile, and they have grown simultaneously.
Secretary Udall and Parks Director Hartzog are in the midst of an administrative battle now with the Department of Transportation on the problem of through highways inside the parks. Mr. Udall wants existing U.S. highways in the parks to be stripped of their designation as federal highways. And he has requested that other routes be designated or constructed so the parks can be bypassed by through traffic.
Mr. Hartzog is entangled in a bureaucratic tussle with the Bureau of Public Roads over his attempt to cancel, defer, or change some roads previously approved and now in the design stage. He wants low-speed, narrow, scenic roads instead of straight, wide roads the BPR people say are necessary for safety considerations.
"We have been building roads so visitors can drive 45 to 65 miles an hour," says Mr. Hartzog. "I don't think you can have a quality park experience at that speed.
"The parks are not crowded with people, but with autos," he adds. "We hope to demonstrate that by slow speeds, one-way motor nature roads, interpretive signs, and short walks from road turnouts, there is an experience beyond the road for the average visitor."
Secretary Udall says the nation should have "a series of scenic parkways like the Blue Ridge for people who don't want to get out of their automobiles except maybe at an overlook. But the big national parks should be dedicated to the idea of getting people out of their automobiles"
Although obstacles confront the park service in effecting new policies, Mr. Hartzog already has taken some action.
To relieve traffic congestion in Yosemite Valley, the service is experimenting with a one-way road system in the most crowded part of the valley, and the park concessionaire is providing bus service.
At Colorado's Mesa Verde National Park, Mr. Hartzog has canceled a contract for a high-quality road to Wetherill Mesa, an area of newly excavated cliff ruins due to open soon. After a personal inspection of the site, he decided in favor of having the public use a narrow, winding old fire road to the mesa. It will be improved slightly and covered, not with blacktop, but with a composition that blends with the setting.
PEOPLE WELCOME, CARS NOT
No automobiles will be allowed on the mesa overlooking the cliff-ruin site. Cars will be parked at a central location far back from the rim, near a visitor center and small food concession. Visitors will either hike the half mile to the rim, or be taken part way by small mini-trains.
"I don't want automobile noise or gasoline fumes or any dust detracting from this experience," Mr. Hartzog said during an inspection trip as he looked out at the cliff dwellings from which the Indians had mysteriously departed 700 years ago.
"Those who come to Wetherill may have to work for it a bit, rather than driving right up to the rim in a car," he added. But it will be worth it to see it in as quiet and inspirational an atmosphere as possible."
The whole question of new modes of transport is at the moment highly controversial, both among the public and within the National Park Service.
Howard Stricklin, superintendent of Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, would like to have several tramways going down into the canyon to give visitors a breathtaking and educational trip. But Mr. Hartzog has ruled that the tramway proposal not be included in the park's master plan for the future.
TRAMWAY DEBATE
Mr. Hartzog believes that in some parks, however, tramways or other types of transport may be the best solution to future problems of access within parks.
Anthony Wayne Smith, president of the National Parks Association, disagrees.
"We are opposed to tramways because they would be mechanical intrusions into areas which ought to be kept in their natural state," Mr. Smith says.
But Joseph W. Penfold, conservation director of the Izaak Walton League, advocates seeking ways to apply new transportation technologies in the parks. He even suggests that at Yellowstone, a monorail system might be preferable to expanding the major road network.
These controversies seem less important today than the overall objectives as put forth in the new road policy statement:
"The single abiding purpose of national parks is to bring man and his environment into closer harmony. It is therefore the quality of the park experience – and not the statistics of travel – which must be the primary concern."
Conservation groups which in the past have criticized the park service for being too interested in the statistics, in trying to get more people to the parks, will be watching to see that the park service lives up to the noble purpose embodied in its new road policy.
HOW MUCH SHOULD WE TAME THE WILD PLACES? – V
(NOTE.-A century ago, America was conquering its wide-open spaces. Today, it is trying to preserve them. Result: a ceaseless struggle between forces determined to save the wilderness areas and those bent on making them more accessible to more people.)
DERRICK KNOB. TENN., May 29, 1969.– As we relaxed around the campfire after an all day backpack trip to Derrick Knob in the Great. Smoky Mountains National Park, I asked my fellow hikers:
"Why are you here?"
What was it that made this group of 20 Smoky Mountain Hiking Club members leave the comforts of home to tote a 30-pound pack alongside a rushing creek for eight hours, cook a meal of dehydrated or canned food, and sleep on the hard ground?
"I love the quiet here and getting away from city noises and smells," said Ruth Young. A secretary five days a week, Miss Young is captive to canned music all day at one of the Atomic Energy Commission plants in Oak Ridge, Tenn. "I enjoy sleeping among the rustling leaves and hearing the mountain streams,"she said. "When leaves fall at home it means something to clean up."
Ernest Wroblewski, also from Oak Ridge, had been trying along the way to interpret nature to his 11-year-old son Tommy.
"What we learn from things like the seeds and the turning of the leaves helps man to understand his universe," Mr. Wroblewski said. “If we get a lesson from the world of nature on how to survive, we can apply this to our own future."
Leroy G. Fox, a chemical engineer from Knoxville, said the wilderness was to him a "humbling experience." Mechanical engineer Ray Payne, from Oak Ridge, said the hikes offered a physical challenge, the satisfaction of accomplishment, of finding out what you can do.
"The Bible says people went into the mountains for inspiration," said O. K. Sergeant of Oak Ridge. "And so do we."
INSTANT RELEASE
Mr. Sergeant, president of the hiking club, invited me on the two-day outing so I could see the kind of national park experience he believes is missed by the vast majority of visitors who get their impressions out of a car window, from a crowded highway overlook, or at an equally crowded campground.
No doubt about it. I felt an instant release from the pressures of civilization once we started up the side of Sams Creek, crossed and recrossed the creek, accompanied by nature's gentle sounds – birds and squirrels and the wind. And at the top, hiking along the Appalachian Trail, we saw the bright colors of autumn splashed on the neighboring hillsides.
Yet the wilderness experience has its drawbacks, especially to this tenderfoot who had not carried a backpack since the wartime training days of the early 1940s. And I did not sleep too well under the stars after hearing some rustling near my sleeping bag and having to chase away a black bear which had come too close for comfort.
Those who make the effort to get away from the roads and commercial developments to enjoy nature on its own terms feel very strongly that every square foot of wilderness area in the Great Smokies park should be preserved. They are equally opposed to opening the national parks and other natural areas to more extensive tourist facilities.
The ageless Smokies typify strikingly the wilderness terrains over which opposing forces wage a ceaseless battle attempting to exert pressure on the public, on Congress, and on the National Park Service.
HIGHWAY OPPOSED
As we hiked along the Appalachian Trail toward Clingmans Dome, "Sarge" Sergeant pointed out the area where the National Park Service had proposed building a transmountain road across this park which straddles the Tennessee-North Carolina border.
The Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and conservationists throughout the nation flooded Congress, the Secretary of the Interior, and the President with mail opposing this road. It would scar the countryside, they charged, and would ruin for all time a priceless wilderness area.
The hiking club even staged a protest hike, with 600 people, ranging in age from 7 to 81, walking through part of the area. And 300 witnesses testified at two public hearings, a heavy majority of them arguing against the road and for additional park acreage to be set aside exclusively as wilderness area.
The National Park Service had offered to build the transmountain road to fulfill a previous legal commitment to citizens on the North Carolina side of the park. Park Service officials also contended that the road was needed to relieve the congestion on the single existing highway across the park.
Conservationists countered that the traffic problem could be solved without building a road that would destroy wilderness areas and detract from the very things which attract the tourists in the first place.
The nationwide pressures of the conservationists far outweighed the pressure by the businessmen of the small towns in North Carolina and Tennessee who were backing the road. Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall decided in December, 1967, that it would not be built.
The intensity and strength of the campaign against the transmountain road disclosed the extent to which public opinion regarding wilderness has shifted over the years.
A century ago the great push was toward conquest of the wilderness. This has been replaced by demand for protection of what wilderness remains. The demand is not just from those who use the wilderness. They are far outnumbered by millions of urban Americans who may never venture into the wilds themselves but who feel a responsibility or a need for knowing that wilderness still exists "out there."
This groundswell of popular support, molded into a national political force by such organizations as the Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, and the National Parks Association, was largely responsible for passage of Wilderness Act of 1964. The landmark act provided for designation by Congress of sections of federal lands to be kept forever in a wild state.
WILDERNESS DEFINED
Official wilderness designation includes much more than just large stands of virgin timber. Wilderness is "an area of undeveloped federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural condition ....”
The Wilderness Act brings both benefits and difficulties to the National Park Service. It will give added protection to national parks and monuments against threats such as the recent proposals for power dams on the Colorado River which would have backed up water into Grand Canyon.
But, concomitantly with outlining wilderness areas, the act also requires the park service to specify exact boundaries of acreage in the parks to be kept free of roads, campgrounds, and all other development for all time to come.
In most national parks, roads or mass-use facilities take up less than 5 percent of the total park area, although campgrounds or lodges often are in several sections of a park. Park service management of the rest of the park is stricter than that of any other government agency with responsibilities for wilderness land. The park service does not allow campgrounds or roads in its back country. It prohibits mining, logging, grazing, hunting, or water development.
National Park Service Director George B. Hartzog Jr. is required under the Wilderness Act to determine that areas left out of wilderness classification will be sufficient for all possible future demands of an ever-increasing visitation load.
Use of national parks has doubled in the last 12 years. Most visitors want to be able to see the wilderness from a road, without actually going into the back country. Hence the questions: Should additional roads or campgrounds or lodges be built for tomorrow's visitors? And can all of the visitor needs of the future be met within the corridors of development kept out of wilderness classification?
CONSERVATIONISTS SPEAK OUT
At the first series of local public hearings on specific park areas to be included as wilderness, the park service ran into severe opposition from organized conservationists over the amount of acreage to be set aside as wilderness.
At hearings on the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Wilderness Society and other conservation groups suggested preserving 30 percent more area than the 350,000 acres in the park service proposal. Park service plans for additional campgrounds, added scenic motor-nature trails, buffer or "threshold" areas around existing roads, and a rustic hiker's overnight lodge were all opposed by conservationists.
For Lassen Volcanic National Park in California, the park service proposed setting aside 49,800 acres as wilderness. At the public hearing the Wilderness Society spoke out for twice that amount. In a revised plan recently submitted to Congress, the park service increased its wilderness proposal to 73,333 acres. But it still left large sections – up to a mile or more on either side of the park roads – as threshold areas, instead of having the wilderness boundary go right up to the road's edge, as demanded by conservationists.
Mr. Hartzog believes that threshold areas adjoining existing roads, or those set aside to provide space for one-way, motor-nature trails, are needed to give park visitors who may be planning only to drive through a park the opportunity to explore the mood and temper of the wild country. Once the visitor samples it, he may have the desire to return for a hiking trip into the wilderness.
"You can't just order a visitor to get out of his car," says the national parks director. "You have to entice him out of his car. We may be able to show, through motor-nature trails, short nature walks, lookouts, outdoor exhibits, or other methods of interpretation, the meaning of wilderness and what it can offer."
Most conservation groups disagree with this wilderness threshold concept. "Apparently the newcomer is expected to explore the mood and the temper of the wilderness from the cushioned seat of his air-conditioned car, or at worst, from the uncushioned seat of a picnic table within a few feet of a road," comments Stewart M. Brandborg, executive director of the wilderness Society.
ENCROACHMENTS SEEN
"Also, a motor-nature trail can't be a trail if a car can go on it," Mr. Brandborg adds. "While there may be merit in getting people out of cars to walk a few yards. I don't see that motor-nature trails justify the exclusive use of hundreds of thousands of acres of wilderness.
"The only effective buffer zone must be within the wilderness area boundaries. Anything left out ultimately will be put to some other conflicting use despite the best intentions of today's administrators, who promise to protect it under the wilderness threshold concept."
Members of Congress, beset by pressures both from conservationists and from constituents who want parks made more accessible, also have definite views on these issues.
"I supported the wilderness bill," Says Rep. Roy A. Taylor (D) of North Carolina, chairman of the House interior subcommittee on parks and recreation. "But the national parks also have got to be made to serve all the people. I don't buy the concept that we should build roads only to the end of a park and then have people walk. The walkers are being heard from a lot more than the car riders. We are paying too much attention to vocal minorities. The parks should be developed to meet the needs of all users"
Congress eventually will hold hearings on all park wilderness plans and then make the final decision as to which areas should be held forever inviolate as wilderness and which should be left for roads and other developments.
If the soundings taken as I traveled through national parks in recent months are a true indicator, the enthusiasm and dedication of those who hike the back country will carry the day in assuring that adequate amounts of wilderness are preserved.
I recall meeting a young couple, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Reischke, on a trail in Olympic National Park. Vacationing from their studies at Central College of Washington, the Reischkes were heading up the trail toward Mt. Olympus and the high divide on an eight-day pack trip. Betty Reischke, from nearby Tacoma, had hiked in the Olympics since she was 12, and was introducing her North Dakotan husband to its natural glories.
"Write in your article," she said, "that they should leave the wilderness areas for backpackers like us, and not put a lot of roads in the parks."
O.K., Betty, it is written. Now it's up to Congress.
PEOPLE VERSUS LIFE – VI
(NOTE.-A raft down the Snake River is a fine way to get close to Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. But how much more human traffic can course the river without disturbing the birds and animals that live there? The threat here and in other national parks has officials concerned.)
GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK, WYO., June 5, 1968.– "Please keep your voices down. We are coming to an area where some bald eagles nest in a cottonwood tree."
Frank Ewing, our guide on this float trip at dawn on the Snake River, skillfully poled the small rubber raft around a bend, avoiding the protruding gnawed logs of a beaver dam on the bank.
A short distance from the river we saw the nest high in a cottonwood tree. But no eagles. Current swept us around another bend. Frank put a finger to his lips and pointed to a high cottonwood snag. Sitting on a jagged top, perfectly still, was a baby eagle, gazing into the sunrise.
It was a moment to frame forever in memory. Early morning mist rose from the river. The snow-patched Grand Teton range towered in the background, just emerging into light. And a rare wild bird in his native habitat, content to watch us curiously – as long as we kept our distance.
As we drifted downstream, scene after scene of native wildlife unfolded in the valley of the spectacular Jackson Hole country. We passed within 25 feet of a cow moose and her calf, munching their morning meal of young willow twigs by the river bank ... then two bull moose ... and in the distance, leaving a tree to soar into the sky as we approached, the mother – or father – of our baby-eagle . . . in a little side slough, a blue heron, motionless, beak down, fishing ... a half dozen young American mergansers skittering past the raft, going upstream.
So it was for 10 miles, silence unbroken except by rushing water, blowing leaves and the gentle sounds of the morning.
And then ... people.
Almost with a shock, after seeing nothing but scenic beauty and wildlife for three hours, we heard the sound of cars and looked up to see the 20-foot-high garish Indian tepee facade of a highway chuck-wagon restaurant. The float trip was over and we were back to the sights and noise of civilization.
That afternoon we stood on the bank and in the space of a few minutes watched four large rafts coming down the river. In each raft about 20 adults and children crowded together.
The thought came to mind: It's a great way to see a park. But how much human traffic could the wildlife absorb without ill effects? Mr. Ewing, Yale-trained biologist turned commercial river boatman, asserted that the river can't take much more. Sure, he could profit from added business if greater numbers of people wanted boat rides. But he knew and loved the river and the wildlife. And he is afraid of what might happen.
"Three years ago there were only four raft operators," he said. "Now there are 18, and there's no end in sight. Some of the operators have half a dozen large rafts, each making two or more trips a day. And there are private rafts and canoes which stop to let off the people. They often frighten the animals or birds while trying to get pictures.
"My concern is for the ecology of the river. The game we saw today don't stay if the river is overused by people. Or the wildlife will stay away from the river banks where they would normally feed"
WHO COMES FIRST?
National Park Service officials agree. Some reduction has already been noted in the number of wildlife to be seen from Snake River. It is suspected the invasion of people may have caused this decline. But what of the future? Almost 25,000 people went on raft trips in 1967, a 45 percent increase over 1966. If this rate of increase were to continue unchecked, that stretch of river could see a million people a season by 1977.
Because the Snake River is under state rather than federal control in this area, the park service cannot at present limit the number of raft operators as long as they comply with regulations and obtain a special use permit. Park officials, however, are hoping some method can be found to regulate use of the river.
The problem at Grand Teton is repeated in one way or another at almost every national park in the United States: wildlife vs. people. Whose rights are preeminent when the goal of having people use the park and see the animals and birds clashes with the mission of preserving the wildlife in their native habitat?
One of the most urgent situations facing the park service concerns the safety of back country campers in Glacier National Park. After two 19-year-old girls were killed by grizzly bears in separate incidents on the same night in August, 1967, some citizens wrote to the park service suggesting that all grizzlies in the park (there are about 100) be eliminated. Most letter writers, however, urged saving the grizzlies.
A grizzly bear attack on a human is rare. With 15,643,361 recorded visitors in the previous 56 years of Glacier Park's existence, only 11 persons are known to have been injured by grizzly bears. None of these injuries was fatal. Normally the grizzly avoids humans unless provoked or surprised. Grizzlies that become obstreperous and threaten visitors are hunted down and trapped or destroyed by park rangers. Four grizzlies – two of them believed to have been the ones involved in the August tragedies – were destroyed immediately after the attacks on the girls.
This year the park is intensifying precautions to prevent the recurrence of attacks. Group hiking rather than hiking alone is strongly encouraged. The use of wrist bells or other noise making devices by hikers is being advocated on the premise that this will reduce the possibility of surprising grizzlies.
GARBAGE RULES TIGHTENED
Certain trails or back-country areas may be closed to travel for periods of time if a troublesome bear has been frequenting these areas – until the bear has been eliminated. Plastic bags are being given all back-country hikers with strict orders that they carry out with them all unburnable garbage and containers. And the park service has supplied the Granite Park Chalet concessionaire a larger incinerator in which to burn wet garbage. Officials believe the bear involved in one of the fatal accidents was en route to a garbage area near where one of the girls was sleeping.
Early in 1968 a visiting Canadian school teacher saw a grizzly sow and her cub near a road, and approached them to take pictures. When the cub became frightened, the mother charged the photographer, inflicting some injuries.
The visitor told park service rangers that because he was to blame for the incident, he did not want the bear to be punished. The park authorities, considering the cub's need for its mother, agreed that no action should be taken against the grizzly.
Another species – the black bear – creates a different kind of problem at several parks, especially at Yellowstone.
"Enjoy them at a distance," warned the flyer I received on entering Yellowstone. The handout, given to visitors at all parks where bears are present, depicts a cute cub bear in a begging pose, and a mother bear wearing a menacing scowl. The text says that the bears are dangerous, that it is against park regulations to feed or molest them, that car windows should be shut when bears are near, and that cars are not to be stopped on the roadway.
During three days in Yellowstone, I saw hundreds of visitors ignoring the warning. It was hard to drive more than 10 minutes without encountering a "bear jam."
Traffic backed up on the highway is almost a certain sign that several cars have stopped – sometimes in the middle of the road – because a bear has ambled into view along the shoulder of the road. Many of the bears have become veteran panhandlers, have staked out territories and keep regular roadside hours.
I saw one father, camera in hand, encouraging his young daughter to get closer to a small bear to feed it some cookies. Fortunately, the child was afraid and kept her distance. Other parents were allowing their children to reach out of open windows and tease the bears with food, closing the windows at the last minute just before the bear tried to reach into the car.
ATMOSPHERE DISRUPTED
The park rangers I talked with at Yellowstone said the situation is bad for bears and for people. It creates an unnatural atmosphere. The wild bear is reduced from a majestic independent creature stalking the country for natural food to a disreputable beggar, living off handouts and spending most of the day along the roadside.
Bear feeding is dangerous. Out of 91 known cases of injuries inflicted by bears in national parks in 1967, 61 were reported at Yellowstone. Most of the incidents occurred along highways.
And "bear jams" completely disrupt the movement of traffic throughout the park. Although short-lived attempts have been made in the past to get the bears off the highway, the "bear jam" is practically an institution now at Yellowstone. Effective control measures would take more manpower than is available at present. It would also cause a wave of protests from visitors if bears could not be seen on a drive through the park, even if the bears are upside down in a garbage can. So the National Park Service chooses, for the time being, to give only lip service to enforcement of the regulation banning bear feeding at Yellowstone.
The limited numbers of rangers now on highway patrol do break up bear jams they see and warn visitors who break the law. Any ranger could easily issue a dozen citations a day and prefer charges which would be heard by the United States commissioner assigned to the park. But in all of 1967, only 13 arrests were made at Yellowstone for bear molesting or feeding. And the fines were small – averaging $10 per conviction.
FEEDING BAN ENFORCED
"We should warn them at the gate that they will be arrested for feeding bears," one ranger told me. "If we enforced it with stiff fines the word would soon get out. If we also chased the bears away from the roads, the bears undoubtedly would intrude on campgrounds for a while. We might even have to destroy some of the troublesome ones. But gradually, if bears were deprived of handouts and if all garbage cans were made bear-proof, the animals would be forced to seek their natural foods which are just as abundant today as they were before man came on the scene."
In Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina, I found Superintendent George W. Fry in the midst of an all-out campaign to enforce the regulation against bear-feeding. Added ranger patrols on the highways and more warning signs for tourists are the chief tools in the campaign.
In three days at Yellowstone, of the park's 500 black bears, I must have seen 50 along the roadside. At the Smokies in a similar period of time, I saw along the well-patrolled highways only three or four of the park's 800 black bears.
In some parks poaching is the people versus animal problem. Stealthy killing of alligators in the boondocks of the Everglades National Park in Florida takes more than 50 of the rare 'gators each year.
Poachers, usually sneaking into back roads at night, illegally shoot elk, deer, and buffalo in Wind Cave (South Dakota) National Park, bears and deer in Great Smokies, and even wolves at Alaska's Mt. McKinley. A recent added problem has been the use of snowmobiles to poach elk at Glacier Park, Montana.
PREDATORS ELIMINATED
Most of the wolves, cougars, and many similar predators have already been eliminated from national parks. Usually this was done by ranchers when the animals left the protection of the parks, although in the early days of the National Park Service, wolves, coyotes, and cougars were destroyed to make parks safer for people.
Today, the underlying philosophy of the park service regarding wildlife is that the public has a right to view it, but, as far as is possible, on the animals' terms. National parks are not Zoos. Fences or cages are forbidden, except in a few rare cases to keep buffalo from developed areas.
Park service officials realize that, for many visitors, seeing wildlife may be the most important part of a park tour. Thus a current objective is to find ways of working out the people-animal relationship on a compromise basis.
Projects being planned to achieve this include:
Overlooks and turnouts near areas frequented by wildlife, one-way motor-nature trails, guided caravans on old roads, or organized hikes into back-country wilderness. A few observation blinds may be tried.
Neil J. Reid, chief of the wildlife branch of the National Park Service, points out one major difficulty to be overcome if most tourists are to see or hear wildlife.
"The height of the daily activity of wildlife does not coincide with our activity peaks." notes Mr. Reid. "The wild animals and birds are most active during the evening, when people are having dinner, or before the alarm goes off in the morning.
"Except," he adds, "for the black bears at Yellowstone"
A TASK AS BIG AS ALL OUTDOORS-VII
(NOTE.-"A national park should represent a vignette of primitive America." That's what the Advisory Board on Wildlife Management declared in a special report to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall. Easier said than done. And – as a Monitor reporter discovered – highly controversial.)
SEQUOIA NATIONAL PARK, CALIF., June 12, 1969.– Until I saw what was going on in a
magnificent stand of 2,000-year-old giant sequoia trees, I always had thought that fire was the worst thing that could happen in a forest.
Yet here were grown men involved in setting fires right among these largest growing things in the world. I was ready to call for Smokey the Bear.
These same men were talking about "managing the resources." My whole house of cards about what should and should not be done in a national park was tumbling down. Shouldn't the parks be left "unimpaired for future generations"?
That was the trouble, explained my guide for the afternoon, San Jose State College scientist Howard Shellhammer, as we walked in a remote area of the park among these 250-foot-tall Sequoia Gigantea (a sister species to the even taller but slimmer Sequoia Sempervirens, or coast redwoods).
"Before these groves were given the protection of man when the park was established 77 years ago, the giant sequoia trees survived lightning fires about every 15 years," Dr. Shellhammer said. "This flushed out the under foliage.
FIRE STUDIED AS TOOL
"Now the undergrowth is so thick that if a fire should start, it might become so intense that it would penetrate the insulating nature of the bark. It could become a crown fire and sweep the trees that have withstood natural fires for all these hundreds and thousands of years. "
Most of the giant sequoia trees in the area showed blackened places on their bark, evidence of fires in earlier years.
Each summer, for the past five years, four San Jose State College scientists, led by Dr. Richard J. Hartesveldt, have been conducting a broad study of the effects of fire as a management tool, not only on the giant sequoias, but on the plant and animal life of the area.
Low, carefully controlled ground fires have been set, or the undergrowth cleared by bulldozers, on several small plots where the absence of fire for many years had allowed white fir, incense cedar, and other shade tolerant trees to grow up among the giant sequoias.
In addition to the fire danger, the undergrowth had prevented sequoia seeds from reaching the bare mineral soil they needed to survive. The thick stands of smaller trees had shut off what sunlight there was from sequoia seedlings that did get started.
In one of the fire-cleared areas amid a grove of nine towering sequoias, I saw hundreds of small stakes in the ground.
Dr. Shellhammer stooped down to show me a second-year-growth seedling almost a foot tall.
"I feel like these are my children," he said. "If they get too much sun they scald and die. Too little, and they won't grow."
About 6,000 seedlings had sprouted the first year after the controlled burn, and several hundred of these survived the second year. The scientists are hopeful they may soon have enough evidence to push for major controlled burning in other sequoia groves in the park and in adjacent Kings Canyon National Park.
NATURAL FIRES TO BURN?
Back in Washington a short time later, a National Park Service official told me the service hoped to put into effect a policy for many parks that when natural fires occur, they will be allowed to burn within predesignated fire-management units.
"Nobody has any trouble with this policy – philosophically," one top park service official said. "But when it comes down to giving the orders to let it burn.. . ."
In Everglades National Park, Florida, controlled burning already is being conducted extensively in the pine lands to reduce unnatural competition from hardwoods. The "managed" fires take the place of natural fires which, in the years before park protection, kept the hardwoods under control. Controlled burning is only one of a variety of techniques available to the park service in following a policy suggested five years ago by a blue-ribbon private panel on wildlife management.
PRIMITIVE VIEW BLURRED
"A national park should represent a vignette of primitive America," concluded the report of the Advisory Board on Wildlife Management submitted to Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall.
Prior to becoming national parks, most park areas have gone through periods of indiscriminate logging, burning, livestock grazing, hunting, and predator control, the report said. Then these areas entered the park system and shifted abruptly to a regime of being unnaturally protected. Add the factor of human use – clearing areas for roads and campgrounds – and the plants and animals that survived in the park often did not represent primitive America.
The board recommended that the animal and plant life within each park should be maintained, or where necessary restored, "as nearly as possible in the condition that prevailed when the area was first visited by white man."
Easier said than done. And highly controversial.
For instance, imagine the howl from ranchers – who have over the years killed off the predators which, they say, attack their livestock – if the National Park Service tried to reintroduce wolves and cougars into parks adjoining their ranches.
The elk-control problem in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, arouses the anger of hunters each winter.
In 1961, the presence of 10,000 elk in the northern herd of Yellowstone, twice the capacity of the range, was causing extensive damage to the plant life and was depriving other animals of food. Buffalo, moose, mule deer, and antelope compete with the elk for available food.
Not enough of the elk went outside the park in winter, as their ancestors had, to become targets for hunters. (This is the preferred method for eliminating the surplus.) Live trapping was unsatisfactory and too expensive. So the National Park Service entered on a "direct control" program, as a last resort to effect the required reduction.
INDIANS GET MEAT
Direct control is a euphemism for shooting the elk. The shooting was done in sub-zero weather by park personnel who then distributed the meat among Indian communities in the area. More than 4,000 elk were disposed of during the winter of 1961-62, resulting in vigorous protests from Wyoming hunters demanding the right to participate in the reduction.
Western sportsmen also demanded that more of the excess elk be trapped and given to other states to stock suitable elk ranges for hunting. But trapping that many animals takes more money ($100 an animal) and more manpower than is available.
The 1961-62 reduction program was not a permanent solution. Each year the number of animals added to the herd has exceeded the number trapped inside Yellowstone or taken by hunters outside the park. It has thus been necessary to continue a limited amount of liquidation. As a result pressures have mounted to permit hunting in the park.
HIGHWAYS DISCOURAGED
In keeping with laws establishing the parks, hunting is prohibited in all but one of the 82 national parks. It is allowed only in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming in a very limited way (and under the guise of elk reduction), as part of a political concession.
The advisory board's wildlife management proposals of 1962 also had strong recommendations in another controversial area – the overcrowding of man's "range."
The whole effect of maintaining or creating the mood of "wild America" can be lost, the report said, if the parks are overdeveloped for motorized travel.
Their solution: Ration the tourists rather than expand the roads.
Secretary Udall's Wildlife advisory board also urged elimination in the national parks of mass recreation facilities such as golf courses (at California's Yosemite), ski lifts, motorboat marinas, "and other extraneous developments which completely contradict the management goal"
PROTECTIVE EFFECTS STUDIED
Although most of the board's suggestions were welcomed by officials, many of the proposals have not yet been implemented. One of the biggest obstacles to restoring primitive conditions is lack of basic knowledge of the effects of the years of overprotection. Also, techniques need to be developed to restore natural conditions.
The meager programs for basic research recently have been expanded somewhat. And in 1957, Dr. A. Starker Leopold, chairman of the advisory board, was appointed chief scientist for the National Park Service, on a part-time basis.
Much additional information is required to determine the needs of the ecosystems of each park, or even the larger area surrounding the park which is part of the ecosystem. An ecosystem is the community of plants and animals (including man) together with the environment that controls them. It is continually changing, never static.
Cutting off fresh water (by another federal agency) from the Everglades National Park is threatening to change the entire ecosystem of the park. Removal of predators and blocking of migration routes with man-made developments have contributed to the Yellowstone elk problem.
In the Virgin Islands National Park on St. John Island, man brought in the mongoose to eliminate rats. But mongooses are day creatures; rats nocturnal. And now the ecosystem has been upset because both species thrive, with the mongoose doing unlooked for damage by eating the eggs of birds and eliminating some species of native lizards.
When hiking along the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I literally stumbled upon another resources management problem – a pig hole. European wild pigs, not native to America and not having enough natural enemies to keep them in check, have dug deep wallows along trails and in many places of the park.
RESTORATION EXAMINED
There are other examples of nonnative animals which many people believe should be removed from the parks where they are "unnatural" but by now permanent residents. These include the burro in Big Bend National Park, Texas, Death Valley National Monument, California, and the Grand Canyon; the goat in Hawaii's Volcanoes and Haleakala National Parks; and the wild horse in Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park. North Dakota.
A counter-problem is how to restore the native species where they no longer exist – the wolf in Yellowstone, kit fox in Badlands National Monument, South Dakota, the Bighorn Sheep in Theodore Roosevelt Park.
Intrusions of man in many parks have forced wild animals from their accustomed feeding spots, or made beggars out of bears and deer. And, as discussed earlier, the absence of natural fire has actually endangered the park-protected giant sequoias and disturbed their regeneration process.
HABITAT EMPHASIZED
"We make a mistake in thinking we can preserve living things," says Lyle H. McDowell, chief of the National Park Service branch of resources management. "We can't.
What we can do instead is to perpetuate by preserving the habitat that makes these things possible.
"We try to save giant sequoia trees in one area of California," he adds, "or a certain number of redwoods in another section. But if we save these redwoods and do not consider the entire habitat, it is possible that our protectionist policy might disturb the ecosystem and eventually ruin the forest.
"We have been unable to project our thinking beyond our own lifespan," says Mr. McDowell.
"Removing trees or inducing a controlled burn to eliminate unnatural competition that is impeding the perpetuation of the giant sequoia, might leave a scar. But the scars won't be there in 500 years.
"It is not enough just to think about the next 10 years, or the next generation even. We have to be concerned about what the people in the 50th generation are going to see.
"Why do people go to national parks?" Mr. McDowell asks, and then answers: "Because of the resources. So we are going to have to become resource conscious, first and last."
OF POLITICS AND PARKS – VIII
(NOTE-Conflicting interests traditionally have surrounded efforts to establish U.S. national parks. California's majestic redwoods stirred one of the longest and bitterest of such controversies.)
WASHINGTON, June 19, 1988.– Apparently there is only one consensus . . at least 95 percent of the people from whom we have heard want a national redwood park."
Rep. Wayne N. Aspinall paused a moment, looking out from the curved dais. In the audience government officials, lumber company presidents, conservation leaders, and assorted lobbyists waited to present their views at the final set of "Redwood National Park" hearings of the House interior subcommittee on parks and recreation.
"I would say, though," continued the veteran chairman of the full House Interior Committee, "that at least 50 percent of the people want a redwood park at the expense of the other person, or the other group, or the other area."
After three days and more than 100,000 words of testimony, the record clearly showed the extent to which politics and parks have become entwined.
Cabinet Secretaries Stewart L. Udall of the Department of the Interior and Orville L. Freeman of the Agriculture Department both spoke in favor of the park but sharply disagreed with each other on a key provision of a bill already passed by the Senate. This provision – to trade prime redwood-bearing land owned by the Department of Agriculture's Forest Service to private lumber companies in exchange for company-owned redwood land to be included in the Interior Department's national park – would lower the purchase price of the park by about $40 million and also appease local critics.
Secretary Udall testified that he was against such a land trade "in principle." But if it was a case of the trade or no park at all, he (and the administration) would accept it. Secretary Freeman spoke heatedly against the trade, and said he, too, was speaking for the administration.
REAGAN APPROVAL SEEN
A spokesman for the State of California testified that Gov. Ronald Reagan now favored turning over some of the state redwood parks to help form the new national park, but that the State Legislature would have to decide the matter. This magnanimity was accompanied by hints that the state expected the federal government to make certain Defense Department ocean beach land in southern California available for state recreation use.
Executives of the four lumber companies with major redwood holdings in the proposed national park area were called ensemble to the witness table. Each had a different proposal for areas to be included in the park. And each offered to cooperate in making some of its redwood land available provided that the Forest Service land trade was completed.
Finally, leaders from the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, the National Park Association, and other conservation groups made their pitches. They, too, all had their own plans for the amount of redwood land to be set aside and boundaries of the park.
Most argued for a much larger park than provided in the Senate bill, which, in turn, was larger than the bill submitted by an economy-minded administration. And these spokesmen asserted that there is a need for a national park to preserve the best of the virgin redwood groves that have managed to survive but might soon fall before the saw.
Last August I revisited the northern California redwood country and found the citizens greatly concerned about the proposed park. Opponents distributed campaign-type buttons reading: "Don't 'Park' My Job"; park advocates offered "Don't Pulp Our Parks" buttons. Residents of Humboldt and Del Norte Counties feared loss of industry, jobs, and tax revenue if timberlands were taken out of use and not replaced with other federally owned redwood-bearing land.
FORESTS STRIPPED
Going through the redwood country, I saw effects of the half century of delay in establishing a "Redwood National Park." Time after time groves of towering trees were interrupted by large denuded areas where clear-cutting practices of lumber companies over the decades had swept through acres of once majestic Sequoia Sempervirens – the coast redwoods that grow more than 350 feet high.
One afternoon I drove into Jedediah Smith Redwoods State, Park, which probably will become a part of the national park. The approach along rustic, narrow, dusty Howland Hill Road is spectacular, with the redwood trees so close they almost scrape the car.
But when a turnoff took us into Stout Grove the scene was the most awe-inspiring of anything I have ever witnessed in thousands of miles of travels throughout the nation.
No human architect could duplicate such a setting: the redwoods rising into the sky, just close enough to each other to allow shafts of late afternoon light to stream into the grove . . almost utter stillness except for a few distant bird calls ... green ferns . .. some alders dwarfed by the redwoods . . . paths winding through the grove ... one immense tree stretched out horizontally just as it had been felled by wind years ago.
In these moments at Stout Grove it was quite clear why they call the oldest and biggest of these stately wonders "cathedral" trees, and why so many people have worked so hard to save the redwoods.
The Save-the-Redwoods League has raised $12.5 million since 1918 to purchase outstanding redwood forests and groves, and the state of California has matched these funds to provide a number of redwoods state parks. The combined efforts of conservation groups finally prevailed to convince Congress to authorize a large redwood national park.
PRESSURE GROUPS FORM
Over the years, a growing array of political forces has become involved in proposals to establish new national parks and in policies adopted to develop and manage national park areas.
In some cases, mining, lumber, grazing, and hydroelectric power interests have opposed "locking up" of resources by the strict preservation code of the national parks.
Hunters – barred from national parks – always form a highly vocal opposition to new parks.
Government agencies such as the Forest Service (which has lost much land to national parks), and the Bureau of Reclamation and the Army Corps of Engineers (who seek to put dams and water projects in parks) have built up strong alliances with Congress or industry and frequently feud wit the National Park Service.
An influence more powerful in the past than at present is the concession operator. In early days, business interests were courted to build lodges and develop conveniences for tourists, and the concessionaires had a great deal to say about policy in specific parks. At present, concessionaires are consulted in regard to development of master plans for each park but do not exert much influence.
Homeowners in or near a proposed national park ordinarily seek to block the proposal. Tourist- oriented businesses in the towns or along the highways nearby are usually park advocates.
The makeup of Congress or the administration is basic in every national park issue. Rarely can a park be established without the support of members of Congress from the state or district.
At the same time, one of the inevitable political realities is that a member of Congress who is a key figure on a powerful committee or is an influential voice in the Senate or House can push through a park for his area while other possibly more worthy park projects are left in limbo.
The balance of power in the conflicts between park protectionists and resource exploiters has completely changed over the past half century – from Hetch Hetchy to the Grand Canyon dams and the redwoods fights.
YOSEMITE DAM BUILT
A proposal at the turn of the century to build a dam in the Yosemite National Park wilderness at Hutch Hetchy to carry water to San Francisco was fought by park pioneer John Muir, the Sierra Club, and conservationists throughout the United States. Favoring the dam were Secretary of the Interior Franklin K. Lane (who had been San Francisco city attorney) and Gifford Pinchot (a great practical conservationist but never a friend of national parks). The bill finally passed Congress in 1913 and the dam was built.
In those days, the conservationists were few, mostly the individuals who backpacked or rode horseback through the wilderness. And Hetch Hetchy was the last dam ever authorized in a national park, although there have been many close calls over the past half century.
The recent battle to put two dams on the Colorado River near Grand Canyon National Park as part of the Central Arizona Project showed the turnabout of political power. Both dams would have affected the river, and one dam would have backed water into the canyon.
Led by the Sierra Club, conservation groups mobilized citizen support from millions of Americans who may never have seen Grand Canyon, but who now are aware of the importance of preserving the irreplaceable natural resources. So great was this citizen pressure that Secretary Udall was forced to reverse his original position of support for the dams and to seek a compromise. The bill passed by Congress in September, 1968, authorizing the Arizona Project, had specific safeguards prohibiting the building of dams.
Conservation groups now exert a good deal of influence. Those concerned most directly with national park problems – the National Parks Association, Wilderness Society, and Sierra Club – have a total membership in excess of 150,000.
On a given issue, they can obtain cooperation from many other groups such as the League of Women Voters, the Izaak Walton League of America, and the National Wildlife Federation. All of these groups have offices in Washington, some of them heavily staffed.
The Wilderness Society, for instance, has about 1,300 "leaders" in communities all over the nation. If an issue is coming up in Congress, these leaders are provided with information, pro and con. The leaders at the community level then try to interest other citizens in letting their own views on the issue be known to members of Congress or public officials.
Although the forces of conservation have been growing in influence, they have lost many of their park crusades. For instance, protests did not prevent the building of Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado, which will back water up under Rainbow Bridge National Monument.
In Indiana, conservationists won a late and hollow victory after most of the state's delegations to Congress, steel companies, and other industry had fought an "Indiana Dunes National Park" for 50 years. By the time a small Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore could be authorized in 1966, steel companies had purchased and leveled the best dunes. The area that remained was far below national park system standards.
COMPROMISES ACCEPTED
In some cases the National Park Service and conservation leaders had to compromise park principles in order to get parks established. For more than a decade, ranchers and hunters fought the addition of Jackson Hole lands to Grand Teton National Park. Legislation finally passed in 1950 permits deputizing a select group of Wyoming hunters each year to shoot elk in the park, ostensibly in the cause of reducing the overabundant supply.
In today's complicated political atmosphere, National Park Service Director George B. Hartzog Jr. spends a major share of his time dealing with Congress, testifying at hearings, or figuring out what to do about the 90 major pieces of legislation affecting the national park system which were before Congress in 1968.
A lawyer by training and a career park service official, Mr. Hartzog is highly respected by members of Congress. Some of his critics in conservation circles, however, charge that he is too much of a wheeler-dealer and backroom operator.
"Sure he's an operator," says one park service official. "But that's how conservation is made these days – not by ecologists alone. On some things we have to compromise."
Some conservation leaders I talked with said privately they think Mr. Hartzog is dedicated to the national park ideals – preserving the areas in their pristine state. Yet they criticize him for what they say is too great an emphasis on trying to provide for needs of mounting numbers of visitors.
DUAL ROLE JUGGLED
Mr. Hartzog admits he is walking a tightrope between what he sees as his responsibility to the average American to have the opportunity to visit national parks, and the time-honored requirement of keeping parks "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." He also knows he cannot make policy in a vacuum. Congress is always looking over his shoulder, sometimes saying, "Don't build more roads or lodges"; at other times saying, "Don't give in to the backpackers by locking up the parks for just the few." The hard-working director (he puts in 14 hours a day or more on the job and visits park areas on most weekends) seems to enjoy the political maneuvering.
"All decisions made in a political environment are ultimately going to be validated or rejected by the public," Mr. Hartzog says philosophically. "when an administrator in government gets reversed, it is because somewhere along the line you failed to have your action accepted by the people. And it is the people that are going to reverse you, although it may be in the person of a congressman or a Cabinet secretary."
THE ROCKY ROAD TO PARK EXPANSION-IX
(NOTE.– President Johnson has proposed that the U.S. national park system be completed by 1972, 100th anniversary of Yellowstone, the first park. But lack of funds plus opposition from various sources to any new park make achievement of this goal highly unlikely even in a decade.)
ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS, N.Y., June 26, 1968 – We followed the graded road through the scenic foothills of the Adirondack state park. Trees on either side were defaced with no-trespassing signs.
Then a large sign: "Elk Lake Lodge, private park, all persons are warned against hunting, fishing, or camping hereon or trespassing for these purposes without express permission from the owner. Violators will be prosecuted."
Not easily intimidated, we pressed on. A few yards up the road, we encountered another sign, pointing to a trail: "Forest Fire Tower, Boreas Mt. Public welcome. New York Conservation Department."
Funny way to run a public state park. Were we legal or illegal?
If our purpose was hiking, we soon learned, we could follow the trail along New York State lands. But Elk Lake itself – a picturesque jewel in the wilderness – and all the access points to it, were on private property, open only to paying guests.
NATIONAL PARK URGED
And that, we discovered, was one of the chief reasons that Laurance S. Rockefeller and others were advocating the establishment of a national park here. The proposed park constitutes the largest wild area still available east of the Mississippi.
Today, 76 years after New York created Adirondack state park, only 40 percent of the land within the boundary has been acquired for public use. The rest is private. Much of the best wilderness is owned by clubs as well as by lumber companies, real estate developers, and other commercial Interests.
The state-owned wilderness lands in the state park are protected by a "forever wild" constitutional provision that requires Legislature and citizens to approve any change in use. But private lands are gradually being lost to real-estate development and other commercial activity.
HIKERS DIVIDED
In my visit to the Adirondacks area I discovered the issue divides even those using the hiking trails.
"I'm in favor of making a national park here and keeping the land from being commercially developed," said Alfred Bender, from Long Island, whom I met on the Mt. Marcy trail. "Some of the lakes we used to visit already have been ruined," he added.
"The federal government louses up everything," said Marvin Samansky of New York City, another hiker on the Mt. Marcy trail. "The national park might be good in that it would let a lot more people come. But I'm selfish. If the National Park Service took it over they might put roads in and people would be driving all through it."
It is unfortunate that the National Park Service, in need of additional area to take care of future demands, suffers from its blurred image among some citizens. These citizens think it devotes too much attention to providing roads, campgrounds, commercial development, and mass recreational attractions such as beaches and scenic parkways.
This view of the park service was perhaps encouraged by Mission 66, with its annual ballyhoo about increased visitation and all the road improvements, new visitor centers, and other construction over the 10-year program which ended in 1966. And the recent outburst of articles and TV programs depicting the slumlike conditions in Yosemite Valley have spread the idea that all parks are overcrowded.
California, the most populous state, has four national parks and eight national monuments with just over 3 million acres; New York, a close second in population, has no national parks and no national monuments with natural areas.
Laurance Rockefeller, the conservation-minded one of the famous brothers, seeks to remedy this imbalance. He helped finance a study in which three experts came up with a plan to establish a 1.72 million-acre Adirondack Mountains National Park. It would include most of the present state park, but would have the advantage of stimulating the purchase and preservation along with it of the private lands within the park.
A national park in this area would also be within a one-day drive for one-fourth of the nation's population.
The New York State Conservation Department, which supervises the forest-preserve lands within the state park, strongly opposes a national park. Chief among its arguments are that the proposed park would disorganize the timber industry, would shut off an area of 1.7 million acres to thousands of hunters who generate $4 million a year in business, and would have an adverse effect on the state's water resources.
Gov. Nelson A. Rockefeller has ducked the issue for the time being, referring it to a study group that is to report back to him in April, 1969. The National Park Service is withholding its own analysis on the issue.
Current policies of the National Park Service are swinging away from new roads and increases in park commercial development, although the increasing number of Americans wanting to visit the parks brings new pressure each year to add to campgrounds, roads, and service facilities.
NEW PARKS SCARCE
The National Park Service hopes to acquire additional areas to meet the demands of present and future generations. The federal government also is seeking to help states obtain new park sites before all the prime land goes under the bulldozer or blacktop.
In his 1966 conservation message to Congress, President Johnson asked that the national park system be completed by 1972, the 100th anniversary of the world's first national park, Yellowstone. But no one has ever defined what a "complete" system should include.
Furthermore, lack of funds plus opposition from many sides to each new park proposal make it highly unlikely that the park system will be completed even in a decade.
Until 1968 only two entirely new national parks have been established in the last two decades – Virgin Islands in 1956 and Canyonlands in Utah in 1964. Virgin Islands was entirely a gift from Laurance Rockefeller. Canyonlands was acquired from public domain and state lands.
A 33rd national park, Guadalupe, in Texas, was authorized in 1966, but does not yet have enough area to be legally established and available for visitors. More than 90 percent of the projected park was private property; Congress so far has appropriated only enough money to purchase one-fifth of it.
REDWOOD PARK ADDED
A Redwood National Park in northern California has just been authorized by Congress and will become the 34th national park. It is expected to be operational in about two years. North Cascades National Park in northern Washington state was also authorized as park No. 35, along with the adjoining Ross Lake and Lake Chelan National Recreation Areas. This complex of rugged alp-like mountain ranges, glaciers, valleys, and lakes near the Canadian border is already 99 percent in federal ownership. Some campgrounds, roads, and trails already have been built by
the forest service, which previously owned most of the land.
PURCHASE PRECEDENT SET
Establishment of a new park area is far more complicated now than in 1872, when Congress could carve Yellowstone out of the abundant public domain and declare it a national park. In the ensuing 90 years other parkland was added to the national park system through transfers from federal agencies or gifts from states, individuals, or philanthropic organizations.
But until 1961, Congress refused to establish any new parks (other than historic sites) which require federal funds for purchase of the basic units. In that year Congress authorized $16 million from general funds to buy privately owned land for the new Cape Cod National Seashore, and thereby gave its blessing to the use of tax funds to buy new parks.
What will be next? The National Park Service has a number of areas under study, and bills have been introduced in Congress for some of them. Much of the area needed for new parks is in private hands and its purchase will require sizable federal funding.
Also, the park service estimates it will take (at present prices) $155 million just to acquire the private lands still to be purchased in park areas that have been authorized since 1961.
Congress this year also expanded the Land and Water Conservation Fund to authorize an additional $100 million a year or more out of continental shelf oil revenues to be used for the purchase of new federal and state park and recreation areas.
This provision greatly enhances the prospects for new national parks.
RELUCTANCE LIKELY
However, Congress and the administration will be reluctant to commit money for parks until the Vietnam war costs recede. Furthermore, proposed park areas still must get sufficient backing from Congress and conservation groups to offset the customary opposition of those who, for one reason or another, are against park expansions.
In the populous northeastern section of the nation, which now has but one national park (Acadia in Maine), the only remaining area considered large enough and of park quality is the Adirondacks. Most of the best potential areas are in the west.
Following are some possibilities for new parks and the prospects for their establishment. Those marked (A) have been studied by the National Park Service and approved by the Secretary of Interior's Advisory Board on National Parks.
Alaska – Glacier Bay National Park (A): Redesignate national monument and terminate mining in the area. Glacier Bay would be larger than Yellowstone, now the largest national park. Glacier Bay has spectacular glaciers coming down to the ocean, breathtaking mountain ranges, and rare wildlife species. Prospects – fair.
Alaskan – Katmai National Park: The park proposal would redesignate the present national monument, home of the world's largest bear, the brown Kodiak bear, and unique Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, scene of the violent eruption of 1912. The area is almost entirely wilderness and would become the largest park in the national park system. Prospects – good, once studies have been made.
Arizona – Sonoran Desert National Park: The plan would enlarge present Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and add most of the Cabeza Prieta federal game range to make a 1,242,000- acre park, all out of federally owned land. Legislation has been introduced in Congress. The area has the last sizable expanse of Sonoran type vegetation in the nation, and is a sanctuary for rare desert bighorn sheep. Prospects – fair.
Californian – Channel Islands National Park (A) : The proposal, introduced in this session by three California congressmen, would greatly enlarge the present national monument consisting of Santa Barbara and Anacapa Islands. It would add San Miguel Island (now under the Navy), as well as Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa Islands (now privately owned). These five islands exhibit a unique combination of islands, seashore, and related marine values resulting from a million-year isolation from the mainland, and include sea elephants, fur seals, sea lions, great rookeries of nesting sea birds and significant geological structures. Prospects – fair.
California – Death Valley National Park (A) : Another redesignation of a national monument, with mining to be abolished. Prospects – long delay.
Hawaii – Kauai National Park (A) : This park would be in the northwestern portion of the island of Kauai, and would contain such outstanding features as the Na Pali Cliffs, Haena and Barking Sands undeveloped beaches, Alakai Swamp, Waimea Canyon (the Grand Canyon of Hawaii) – all in an area in which rainfall varies from 20 inches to 500 inches a year. Much of the land now is owned by the state. Legislation has not yet been introduced, and there is strong state and local opposition. Prospects – long delay.
Minnesota – Voyageurs National Park (A): This 103,000-acre park on the Canadian border is in an outstanding setting of lakes and wilderness, and would include a 40-mile portion of the route of the voyageurs – the intrepid 18th-century fur traders who opened up America between the Great Lakes and the Rockies. Half of the land would have to come from a lumber company which opposes the park unless other lands are obtained in a trade. Cost of the park – $20 million for the private lands – is also a major problem. Prospects – fair.
Nevada – Great Basin National Park (A): This proposed area would preserve a remarkable cross section of plant and animal life, extending from the desert floor through five life zones to the 13,063-foot Wheeler Peak. The basin contains 14 mountain peaks with an elevation greater than 10,000 feet, the Lehman Caves National Monument, Lexington Arch which spans an opening higher than a four-story building, and five alpine lakes – all within an otherwise arid region. Prospects – poor.
New Mexico – Valle Grande-Bandelier National Park (A) : This would combine Valle Grande, one of the greatest collapsed volcanic summits in the world, with Bandelier National Monument and its Indian ruins. Prospects – poor.
Oklahoma or Kansas – Prairie National Park: This park would preserve in its natural state a typical example of prairie, with its bird life, flowers, and sweep of grasslands, and would give the opportunity to show the meaning of prairie and the part it played in the development of the country. Prospects – poor.
OTHER AREAS UNDER STUDY
Natural areas having the best opportunity of being added to the park system as national monuments include: Big Thicket, Texas; Biscayne, Florida; Congaree Forest, South Carolina; Florissant Fossil Beds, Colorado; Fossil Butte, Wyoming; Great Salt Lake, Utah; Cape Fear, North Carolina; Hualapai, Arizona; and Fahkahatchee Strand, Florida.
National seashores or lakeshores being considered for establishment include: Cumberland Island, Georgia; Oregon Dunes; Gulf Islands, Florida and Louisiana; Canaveral, Florida; Sleeping Bear Dunes, Michigan; Apostle Island, Wisconsin; Guam (in the Pacific); and Sandy Hook, New Jersey.
National scenic rivers being considered include: Buffalo River, Arkansas; St. Croix, Minnesota and Wisconsin; Potomac, Maryland and Virginia; Suwannee, Georgia and Florida; Wolf, Wisconsin; and a section of the upper Missouri River in Montana to be designated the Lewis and Clark national scenic river.
PRIVATE POCKETS IN PUBLIC PARKS – X
(NOTE.– Only seven national parks in the United States are completely in public ownership, Privately owned "inholdings" exist in all the other parks and in many national monuments.)
OLYMPIC NATIONAL PARK, WASH., July 3, 1968.– This 896,000-acre park in and around Washington's rugged Olympic mountains has two distinctions.
It contains some of America's most magnificent scenery and wilderness – snow-capped mountains, rain forests, dense stands of giant Douglas fir, alpine lakes, and miles of primitive ocean beach.
It also contains 550 pockets of private property – 6,416 acres divided into more than 1,200 tracts.
National Park Service Director George B. Hartzog Jr. says these pockets of private property – which the service calls "inholdings" – are a threat to the integrity of the park.
For example, an abandoned, half-burned sawmill and a collection of ramshackle cottages desecrate the view in one area. In another, a landowner is believed to be planning to sell to real- estate subdividers property in the heart of the park's winter elk range.
Other national parks also have inholding problems, some of them extensive. Actually, only seven national parks are completely in public ownership. When a national park is established, legally defined park boundaries almost always include some private property.
PROPERTY VALUES SKYROCKET
"Inholdings are a major problem," according to Mr. Hartzog. "It's like the worm in the apple. They may not take up much of the total park area. But they tend to cluster around the prime scenic attractions or along natural access routes, where they are seen by millions of visitors."
"On private lands within parks you will find lumber yards, pig farms, gravel pits, logging operations, and sheep and cattle ranches," he says. "Plus power plants and mine shafts, auto junk yards, garbage dumps, private plane landing strips, and proliferating residential subdivisions."
In the 68 national parks and monuments designated as natural areas, private owners hold less than 300,000 of the total 23 million acres. But, Mr. Hartzog points out, current inholdings cover twice as much land as is now developed for public use (roads, campgrounds, lodges, stores, etc.) and which absorbs the brunt of visitation.
All of the inholdings in natural areas could have been purchased in 1961 for $59 million. Due to rising land values, these same inholdings would now require $143 million for purchase, an increase of 142 percent in seven years.
Driving along U.S. 101 at the edge of Olympic National Park one day last summer, I noticed a small sign.
"Elwa campsites for sale," it read. "Three miles on right."
Following a tree-lined road alongside the peaceful Elwa River, I came upon the 30-acre subdivision right in the heart of the park. Dirt roads had been bulldozed out of the timber grove, and 50 or more small lots (a tenth of an acre each) were staked out in blocks, side by side and back to back, city-housing-tract style.
On each lot was a sign: "$2,500. $300 Down. $25 a month." Nowhere was there a mention of the fact that the development is in a flood plain on which the Elwa River frequently overflows, and that no houses can be built there – the lots are only for trailers, camper vehicles, and tents.
SPECIFIC EXAMPLES CITED
In another area even deeper into the park I ran across a rundown resort, complete with shabby cottages, tennis courts, a pool, and a small lodge. This was Sol Duc Hot Springs, a major thorn in the park's side until Congress finally appropriated enough money for its purchase by the National Park Service two years ago.
The selling price was $880,000 for the 320-acre resort, more than 3½ times the appraisal obtained by the government five years earlier. In the southern end of the park, alongside the Quinault River, I saw an 875-acre tract which constitutes Olympic National Park's biggest inholding problem. Park service officials have heard that the owner is ready to sell to real-estate developers and the National Park Service may have to take condemnation proceedings to prevent the land from being subdivided.
The park service succeeded in purchasing three inholdings in the last year; but because of subdivision sales, the number of individual private owners in the park increased from 426 to 550.
A thousand miles South of Olympic Park, the inholding situation at Yosemite National Park confronts park officials with difficult problems. Yosemite's privately owned area is relatively small – 720 acres (plus 1,728 acres owned by the City of San Francisco). The troublesome part is that almost all of the 559 owners of private tracts are grouped into three communities.
The most severe problems come from the Wawona area along the South fork of the Merced River.
This already developed section could support camp grounds and visitor facilities for thousands of visitors a year – thus relieving the pressure from overcrowded Yosemite Valley. On homesteaded land acquired before the national park existed, a hodge-podge village has grown up with all the problems of a small town.
The 390 privately owned acres are divided into 458 private tracts. Seventy people live there permanently, and about 1,200 people can sleep at Wawona village each night in the summer.
I saw motels and trailer courts, old cottages, modern $60,000 homes, and others under construction.
In one new development, small lots are being sold for from $5,000 to $10,000; "cottages" being built on them start at $16,000.
In addition to other inholdings problems, park service personnel must spend an enormous amount of time investigating vandalism and domestic squabbles, issuing building permits, watching for fire hazards, and checking on sanitation. (No sewage system exists, and there is real danger of polluting the south fork of the Merced River, which is used by thousands of park visitors each year at a public campground a few miles downstream.)
"The government shouldn't be providing summer homes for a few people within a national park," commented one park official.
The park service has tried to buy up tracts in Wawona village when they come on the market. It now owns 250 acres of the 640-acre Wawona section, as well as the once-luxurious Wawona Hotel (with golf course, tennis courts, and swimming pool). But the history of land acquisition has been one long, sad story after another.
The classic example is a tract of 163 acres, near Wawona, purchased in 1948 for $2,550 by a Mrs. Adeline Udell at a county tax sale. The land, on a very steep hillside, has been logged over and was swept by fire in 1951. The park service started negotiations in 1951 for the purchase of the tract, which was then appraised at $14,500.
Mrs. Udell turned down a park service offer of $15,000. In 1956, she gave the park service
an option to buy the land for $20,000. But Washington officials decided they could only spend $15,500. By 1959, the asking price had gone up to $25,000, and the land was appraised at $27,500.
While the park service was still considering it, three men purchased the property in 1961 for $25,000, and later formed the Juniper Land company. The park service offered $31,500 for the land in 1964. The owners rejected it.
The Yosemite National Park superintendent, fearing subdivision, asked his superiors in Washington to start condemnation proceedings. Nothing happened. The park service, in 1965, offered $175,000 for the land. The offer was not accepted.
One summer day in 1965, while Yosemite rangers watched helplessly, bulldozers started tearing up the hillside, crisscrossing it with roads, staking out 123 quarter-acre lots, many of which had slopes too steep for building.
Shortly afterward the government filed condemnation proceedings, took title to the land, and the owners went to court seeking a higher payment than the government appraisal of $175,000.
When the case finally came to trial late this June, the Juniper Land Company asked $800,000. A jury awarded them $265,000.
One more inholding has been reduced. But every day, as hundreds of visitors stand at 6,800-foot- high Wawona Point, one of the famous scenic overlooks in the park, their view of mountains and valley is blemished by the ugly, bulldozed scar on the hillside 2,800 feet below.
QUICK-BUCK OPERATORS
Far across the continent in Florida, Everglades National Park holds the dubious distinction of having the largest amount of privately owned land – 70,468 acres – within a national park perimeter. In testimony last March before a House appropriations subcommittee, Mr. Hartzog cited the Everglades as an acute example of the inholdings problem.
In the Taylor Slough – a biological resource of enormous significance – quick-buck operators moved in with bulldozers to create primitive roads so they can peddle 'waterfront' lots," Mr. Hartzog told the subcommittee.
"Farther north, in the labyrinth country of the park, similar real-estate promotions threaten the proposed Inland Wilderness Waterway from Flamingo to the Ten Thousand Islands area. The potential damage from these activities is incalculable."
Besides the inholdings in the older established areas, park service officials face a related problem – the need to purchase private land within the many new national parks, seashores, lakeshores, and scenic riverways that have been authorized since 1961.
Congress considers these private ownerships even more troublesome, especially as land values escalate.
Shortly after Point Reyes National Seashore in California was authorized in 1962, Congress appropriated $14 million to buy the 53,000 acres of private land within park boundaries. Today the $14 million has been spent purchasing 28,312 acres. At present prices, it would take another $45 million to buy the rest.
In Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas, the nation's 33rd national park, only 14,000 acres have been purchased out of the 71,886 acres of private land within the park boundaries. The authorizing legislation provides that the park cannot be opened until all the private land is purchased.
Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, authorized in 1966 after a half-century struggle, is still far from becoming operational. The park service has been granted funds to acquire only 100 of the 8,721 acres of privately owned land.
As of the end of the 1968 fiscal year (June 30, 1968), it would have taken $155 million to buy up all the remaining private land within the park service areas that have been authorized since 1961.
Most of the money to purchase these lands – and lands needed for new areas such as the Redwood and North Cascades National Parks – will come from the federal share of an expanded Land and Water Conservation Fund, using offshore oil revenues, a proposal initiated by Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D) of Washington, chairman of the Senate Interior Committee.
Also in the new Land and Water Fund Act are concepts that were sponsored by Senator Jackson, other conservation-minded congressmen, and the National Park Service to make use of additional methods for speeding up acquisition of lands or preventing private property intrusions in park areas.
One method is the outright purchase of scenic easements to prevent uses by the owner that would interfere with park values.
Another is sellback or leaseback. The park service would buy the private property, then sell or lease it back to the previous owners, or another party after writing into the contract the necessary protection to prevent changes in use of the property that might be adverse to park interests.
In addition, the Land and Water Fund will authorize federal agencies (mainly the park service) to spend $30 million a year for the next two years to acquire key tracts which suddenly become available. And the parks director will have $500,000 to use for taking two-year options on private parks lands which come on the market. These fiscal shortcuts may prevent land prices from soaring during customary legislative delays in the authorization and appropriation process.
LAND-ACQUISITION POLICY
National Park Service policy on land acquisition is often misunderstood. After Mr. Hartzog had requested funds of Congress to buy up all inholdings, a Richmond, Va., newspaper called the parks director an "ogre" who deprives private landowners of their property rights.
In an editorial titled, "Phooey to George B. Hartzog, " the paper called him a federal bureaucrat "Who, on the pretext of necessity, argues for the diminution of the people's liberty."
Actually, basic park service policy on land acquisition provides that those owning homes within park boundaries may keep their property as long as they do not put the land to some new use which would be detrimental to the park, or except where the private property prevents necessary development of the park for public use. Condemnation proceedings are a last resort. In many of the new areas, the authorizing legislation provides that even those who sell their homes to the park service, can live in them for a period of years or during their lifetime, but cannot leave them to heirs.
"I don't advocate throwing out the family that wants to live the rest of their lives on the property they own in a park," says Mr. Hartzog. "But we can't tolerate the subdividers and the land speculators who are trying to take advantage of the increased value of land after it comes into the national park system."
RECREATION AREAS: A NEW DIMENSION – XI
(NOTE.-Park officials ponder how to reconcile new policies with old concepts. Demands for recreational facilities increase. But too much emphasis on water skiing and beach buggies could ruin the idea of a park area as a place for quietly communing with nature.)
CAPE COD NATIONAL SEASHORE, MASS., July 10, 1968.– At this comparatively new area of the United States national park system, a visitor can take a ranger-guided nature hike in the sand dunes, walking along some of the marshes, beaches, and woods that so enthralled Henry David Thoreau a century ago.
Or the visitor can drive a "beach buggy" across the dunes, fish from the public beaches, swim in the Atlantic, hunt deer (in season), and cycle along bicycle trails near the ocean.
In short, the Cape Cod National Seashore attracts both those who seek active physical recreation and those who seek to commune with nature.
And thereby hangs a problem for the National Park Service: how to fit time-honored park service conservation policies to a new concept of areas managed primarily for the beach-and-outdoor "physical" recreation needs of nearby urban masses.
Most of the new park areas (other than historic sites) authorized by Congress in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations have been national seashores, lakeshores, and recreation areas close to large urban centers. Each was selected for a special feature – for the most part proximity to a seashore, large lake, or reservoir.
These areas do not need to have the unique scenic elements required of a national park (although many do possess great unusual natural values). And activities banned in national parks – such as hunting, commercial logging, spectator sports, use of houseboats – are allowed at some of the recreation sites.
The predominant requirement is that the area offer visitors an active recreation experience which transcends that normally associated with parks provided by state and local governments. The area also should be adequate for interstate or regional use.
The new national recreation sites meet a need for many Americans unable to travel long distances to national parks (most of which are in the west), or who really seek a beach or active recreation type of outing. In theory (though not yet borne out in practice), the new areas should relieve congestion in crowded national parks.
One negative factor is that the increased emphasis on physical recreation and the expansion of the Blue Ridge and Natchez Trace Parkways (which receive one-tenth of the total use for the more than 250 park service areas) have drained needed personnel from the purely nature parks.
Much of the manpower previously applied to protecting resources or interpreting natural values in national parks and national monuments must now be devoted to such services as lifeguard duty and highway or boating control.
Another difficulty is confusion within the park service and among the public as to where the National Park Service is headed.
"We are beginning to color our whole national park system with the introduction of more and more of these recreation areas," comments author Freeman Tilden, an authority on the national park system. "I'm not against recreation areas. They are needed. But if people get oriented to the physical recreation concept of national parks, and not to the view of the parks as places where they find their relationship with nature, it could be disastrous to the best use of national parks"
PRESERVATION ALWAYS A TASK
An even more pressing problem is preservation of the outstanding natural resources that exist in some of the recreation areas. Developing a site for extended mass recreation may destroy or damage much of what makes the area worthwhile.
Cape Cod is a classic example of the good and the bad, the promise and the problems of a national park service recreation area.
Most of the "lower" cape from the elbow at Chatham to Provincetown still has uncluttered marshes, ponds, and beeches, birds and bogs for the avid follower of Thoreau.
This is due in part to the establishment of the Cape Cod National Seashore. Protections were written into the Cape Cod authorization law of 1961. The Secretary of the Interior could allow development of portions of the seashore for swimming, hunting, fishing, etc. – recreation needs of the city dwellers – but not at the expense of the unique flora and fauna.
It is too early to pass judgment on the Cape Cod National Seashore. The park service development program so far has been minimal. More than half of the private land within the boundaries has yet to be acquired. And the masses from the cities have been slow to invade.
In a visit to Cape Cod, however, I found park service officials facing the same problems that confront their colleagues in national park system areas around the United State. It was a time of decisionmaking, of placing limitations on use before it was too late.
Beach buggies and dune buggies were tearing plant cover off the sand dunes, bulldozers were carving out added beach facilities, and blacktop was being poured for parking areas. One of Thoreau's choice spots now sported a black-topped bicycle trail. New roads were being plotted to the beaches.
By themselves, these activities appeared to be reasonable and in keeping with the primary mission of the national seashore. They would allow millions of visitors to enjoy recreation opportunities in areas previously inaccessible.
But, ask the conservationists, what price is being paid in permanent destruction of the natural values?
Take the beach-buggy problem. These "over-sand" vehicles are allowed on the beaches when used for fishing. But owners have adapted jeeps or other types of transport into camping vehicles. They bring their families for vacations right on the dunes. And every day of such use impairs the beach vegetation and opens the way for erosion. Also, having no sanitation facilities, the beaches are beginning to evidence a pollution problem.
This year, a new rule has gone into effect at this national seashore; it limits use of any one spot to 72 hours, to eliminate permanent summer camps. New "oversand" routes have been staked out, and beach or sand buggies are allowed only along those routes. Also closer supervision insures that all vehicles staying overnight carry self-contained sanitation facilities.
No new public campgrounds have been allowed in the Cape Cod seashore. The four privately owned campgrounds outside park borders are filled to capacity during the entire season.
DECISION FACED IN DELAWARE
With use of the area expected to rise dramatically when the four-lane, Mid-Cape Highway is extended to the lower cape, authorities will have to decide soon whether to provide park service campgrounds within the park area or possibly establish a large camping facility on the mainland at the base of the cape.
The park service faces another basic planning decision at its newest recreation area in the East, the Delaware Gap Recreation Area voted by Congress in 1965. Situated on the Pennsylvania- New Jersey border straddling the Delaware River, the area puts 47,000 acres of land and a narrow 37-mile lake within easy reach of 30 million people in the New York-Philadelphia sector.
Delaware Gap is not ready for use because Congress has not appropriated funds to buy enough of the privately owned lands to establish a park entity. But when the land is purchased, the park service will have to decide what types of recreation to develop.
National Park Service director George B. Hartzog Jr. is struggling with this question as the area's master plan lies on his desk awaiting approval.
"There is a great demand for camping." Mr. Hartzog told me. "But I'm not going to cover that 47,000 acres with campgrounds just to satisfy demand. We have to be selective. Maybe we should rule out public campgrounds, and place our emphasis entirely on organized youth camping at a few places. We could let private enterprise or other agencies of government provide overnight accommodations outside the park.”
Another type of problem affects Fire Island National Seashore. The new area. authorized in 1964 on the small barrier island near New York City, has yet to acquire enough land to become a cohesive unit. And every year pressures are exerted to have a road built along the island's 32-mile length. Such a road, linking bridges at either end of the island, would ruin the area's natural quality, although it would substitute a highway of great scenic value.
The two largest recreation areas in the national park system are in the west – using the reservoirs behind Colorado River dams at Boulder City, Nev., and Page, Ariz.
The 1.9-million-acre Lake Mead National Recreation Area draws heavily from Los Angeles area residents, who take the 300-mile travel distance in typical California stride.
More than 4 million visitors used Lake Mead in 1967, enjoying the boating, fishing, and water- skiing. But this huge influx overtaxed camp sites and facilities and caused noticeable – though not dangerous – pollution.
The 1.1-million-acre Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in Arizona and Utah has opened up to boat travel some of the most beautiful wild country in the West. Ardent conservationists feel, however, that the wilderness quality was lost forever when Glen Canyon Dam was built and the waters backed up to form Lake Powell along what was once 186 miles of wild Colorado River and hundreds of picturesque side canyons.
The questions now are: How much development should be allowed in the way of campgrounds, or botels or boat marinas? How much will the new fad of houseboats on the lake contribute to further loss of wilderness value? And what, if anything, could or should he done about the expanding recreation?
At Glen Canyon I learned from superintendent William Briggle that the use explosion had occurred in the last five years – from 9,000 visitors in 1962 to 390,000 in 1967.
Traveling by boat over part of Lake Powell, I noticed few other craft on the vast lake. When National Park Service guide, naturalist Norman W. Salisbury, said we could find visitors camping at any of the hundreds of canyons shooting off from the lake, I picked one at random and challenged him to produce.
As our boat plied Rock Creek Canyon, its towering walls alternately narrowed and expanded; its sandstone cliffs were sometimes close enough to touch. After two miles, naturalist Salisbury was about to admit defeat when the canyon suddenly widened into a box end.
On the shallow beach – two boats and two tents.
The Emmet Lowry and John Hiserodt families from Redlands, Calif., on vacation miles away from the sounds and sights of their city, were having what was to them a wilderness experience. They were camping out, cooking meals over a campfire, taking hikes, and exploring other canyons by boat. Their children, in addition to swimming and exploring, were doing some water-
skiing.
VIEWS OF WILDERNESS DIFFER
Water-skiing is allowed, of course, in a recreation area. But the very mention of it brings shudders to conservationists who recall Glen Canyon as the great wilderness explored on foot and by raft by John Wesley Powell and left in its wild natural state until Lake Powell was formed.
Lake Powell National Recreation Area also brings cheers or tears – depending on one's viewpoint – for making Rainbow Bridge National Monument accessible to recreationists.
Until the lake was formed, this famed natural arch – 309 feet high and 278 feet across – was seen only by a few hardy persons willing to ride the wild Colorado and hike up a canyon, or else come down 14- or 24-mile trails. Now Lake Powell backs up to within a mile of the arch, and tourist boats arrive daily from Wahweap near Glen Canyon Dam. Last year, Rainbow Bridge had 22,000 visitors.
On my visit to Rainbow Bridge, I noted a marked difference in the ways a visitor can approach this world-famous natural wonder. One way is to arrive by sightseeing tour boat, hurry over the one-mile trail gulping down a sandwich, have a two-minute glimpse of the monument, and scurry back down the boat landing.
Another way, as evidenced by farmer Herman Beebe and his Wife Gretchen, from Center Point, Iowa, is to pack-in by horseback the 24 miles from Navajo Mountain.
"I've wanted to come here for 20 years – it's been a dream of mine," Mrs. Beebe told me. "This year when we had planned it, I knew it was possible to come by boat. But we decided to make it the difficult way. They say these things mean more when you work for them. It was really worth it to see it this way."
"ALL MANKIND HAS A STAKE" – XII
(NOTE – Far-seeing conservationists more and more are viewing national parks as treasurers for all peoples. A proposed world heritage trust would stimulate preservation of "superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for ... the entire world community.")
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZ., July 17, 1968.– "It is truly magnificent," a tall, gracious visitor from Bombay commented one day in the fall of 1967 as he looked into the Grand Canyon.
“But . . .”
The visitor paused as he gazed from the south rim into the yawning, mile-deep chasm carved by nature's forces millions of years ago. His deep-set eyes absorbed the shadings of red, yellow, and blue as the late afternoon clouds sent shadows running across the buttes and spires inside the canyon.
"When your Congress provided that natural areas like this should be maintained unimpaired for future generations of Americans, that was just the first step," he continued. "The Grand Canyon is more than American – it should be preserved for all the world."
Zafar Futehally is honorary secretary of the Bombay Natural History Society and a leader in the movement to emphasize international values of parks of all nations. Mr. Futehally had come to the United States with 34 other representatives from 25 countries. Grand Canyon National Park was the final stop in a four-week course in administration of national parks and conservation areas.
OLD CONCEPT STRETCHED
The concept of each country's international responsibility for preserving its unique natural wonders adds a new dimension to the conservation concepts of many Americans. The time- honored United States viewpoint was perhaps best set forth by the nation's foremost conservation president, Theodore Roosevelt.
"Leave it as it is," said President Roosevelt when he first viewed the Grand Canyon in 1903. "You cannot improve on it. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you as one of the great sights which every American ... can see."
Mr. Futehally and other internationally minded conservationists recognize the effects of the transportation and communications revolutions of the 20th century. The world has shrunk. Millions of foreigners now have heard about and seen pictures and even television views of the Grand Canyon or the Florida Everglades National Parks.
TOURISTS CRISSCROSS
Each year, thousands come to the United States to visit these and other scenic spots. So do thousands of Americans travel to such outstanding areas as Iguassu Falls (Argentina-Brazil) or to the volcanic cone of Japan's Mt. Fuji, or the spectacular wildlife display of Kenya's Ambosell- Masai game reserve in the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Areas of this caliber, unique in the world, should thus be given priority for preservation, says Mr. Futehally. But in the press of competing national demands, the high-sounding principles of conservation do not always win out over the pressures for industrial, agricultural, or commercial and urban development.
Mr. Futehally was too polite to mention specifics. But it is no secret that two of America's greatest natural attractions, the Grand Canyon and Everglades National Park, have in the past few years narrowly escaped extensive man-caused interference. And they may be threatened again.
WILDLIFE DECLINES
In Everglades National Park, a series of flood-control gates and canals constructed by the United States Army Corps of Engineers interfered seriously with the normal flow of water into the Everglades. The adverse effects on the park were intensified during a period of severe drought.
Water that normally would have gone into the Everglades park even in the drought years went instead to southern Florida cities and farms, or was discharged directly into the ocean.
Much of the park's wildlife suffered. Reproduction of wading birds declined drastically, the total dropping from 1.5 million in the 1930's to less than 50,000 today. It is also estimated that the number of alligators has declined 95 percent since the 1920's. This reflects the delicate relationship between the amount of water and the abundance of plants and animals on which the birds and alligators depend. (Part of the alligator loss has been due to poaching.)
After complaints from conservationists and the National Park Service, the Corps of Engineers and the Central and South Florida Flood Control District said they would give the Everglades park additional water. Although the park has sufficient water this year, the future is clouded. The Corps of Engineers failed to put in writing the terms of an oral agreement by which they were to guarantee 315,000-acre-feet of water a year to the park, regardless of the increasing domestic demands in Florida. The next drought might cause severe damage to Everglades Park plant life and wildlife.
CANYON DAM DEFEATED
Two years ago, Grand Canyon National Park became caught in the cross fire of legislation which would have permitted a large hydroelectric dam on the Colorado River just below the park. Areas in the canyon's depths, set aside for their scenic grandeur, would have been flooded as the river backed up behind the dam.
Conservation groups battled the supporters of the dam and forced Congress to listen. At present, the advocates of the dam have lost out, although they have not given up the fight.
For Mr. Futehally and the other participants in the third international course, the pressures of over-development and overcrowding of park areas are not yet imminent dangers in most of their countries. But such pressures can be expected in the future. The great need today is for these countries to set aside more park or conservation areas, to provide money for management and protection of the parks and wildlife reserves, and to encourage their citizens to use them.
The participants in this course, and those from 15 other countries taking part in each of the courses held in 1965 and 1966, readily admit their admiration for the United States in pioneering the development of the national parks concept. They are also impressed with the National Park Service's administration of American parks, the planning done for the future, and the quality of interpretive facilities available to the visitor.
LESSONS INCORPORATED
They do not agree that the policies of the park service would necessarily be suited to their particular needs (or that these policies are always best for the United States itself).
However, the best of the principles learned in visits to the United States, or at these international courses, are being incorporated in to the planning of other nations as they develop their parks and conservancy reserves.
In these courses, the National Park Service does not try to hide its own shortcomings. It hopes, in exposing these visitors to the good and the bad, to help them to avoid mistakes in their own programs.
The park and conservation experts from abroad are generally amazed at the amount of public land the United States has set aside for its national park system and the dedication to conservation principles by park rangers and most officials in the National Park Service.
Many countries over the years have asked help from the United States in planning their own national parks or setting up national park and reserves systems. In the past 10 years the United States National Park Service has sent advisers to more than 25 countries. In the last two years, American advisers have been in Turkey, Jordan, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, Australia, and Thailand. More than 50 countries have recently sent experts to the United States seeking information and guidance in working out park problems.
PRIVATE GROUPS HELP
The private sector, through American groups such as the African Wildlife Leadership Foundation, the Conservation Foundation, and the New York Zoological Society, has also assisted a number of countries with national park development and wildlife preservation, chiefly in Africa and Latin America.
The United States also realizes it can learn much from other countries.
The Belgian Congo for many years used its four national parks as laboratories for ecological studies. The present national governments of the two Congos are maintaining these parks effectively, but with less emphasis on basic scientific research.
England in its nature reserves, Poland and Argentina in their national parks, and Germany with its naturschutzparks also do far more basic scientific research than the United States does in its national parks system.
NATIONS COOPERATE
Most science research in U.S. parks has been oriented to specific problems instead of to basic ecological research.
Several African countries, especially Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, and Tanzania, have developed extensive conservation education programs which allow schoolchildren to visit the parks in organized groups.
Countries with common boundaries have in many cases cooperated to establish parks; free sharing of facilities and mutual planning still lies in the future.
Uganda and the Congo have founded national parks on their respective sides of Lake Edward on their common boundary. In the past (but not currently) Zambia and Rhodesia cooperated with parks alongside Victoria Falls. Poland and Czechoslovakia have parks on both sides of the Pieniny River and the Tatra Mountains. Argentina and Brazil have adjacent parks at Iguassu Falls.
In 1932, the United States and Canada decided to set up a Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park on the border shared by the two parks. But for all practical purposes, Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park and the United States' Glacier National Park have been completely separate.
North America's first truly international park was established in 1964. It is on Campobello Island, N.B. There Canada and the United States share the administration and development of Roosevelt Campobello International Park at the side of the summer home of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
JOINT UNITED STATES-MEXICAN PARK
The United States-Mexican border at El Paso is the site of the latest international effort. Mexico has recently completed a pavilion, visitor center, and small park on its side of the Chamizal in Ciudad Juarez. The National Park Service will soon build a half-million dollar visitor center and small park on its side of the border.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) is a strong advocate of boundary-sharing parks to act as a force for peace.
"It is high time that conservation comes to the aid of politicians in bringing nations together," says Mr. Futehally, who is an IUCN board member.
Plans are under way for a second world conference on national parks, to be held in 1972 at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. This will be part of the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the national park concept, which originated in 1872 with the establishment of Yellowstone as the world's first national park. The first world conference on national parks, held in Seattle in 1962, was attended by 145 delegates from 63 countries.
The keynote speaker, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall, called for "a common market of conservation knowledge" and commended the conference for striking "a wholesome note of sanity in a troubled world.
"It is a sign that men are questioning the false gods of materialism and are coming to realize that the natural world lies at the very center of an environment that is both life giving and life promoting," he said. "There is hope in this meeting ... that the values of the spirit are reasserting their primacy – and this in turn gives fresh hope in other vital areas of human endeavor"
WORLD TRUST PROPOSED
In 1965, at the White House conference on international cooperation, one of the major recommendations was establishment of a world heritage trust to encourage preservation of areas such as the Grand Canyon and the Everglades, the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania, Angel Falls in Venezuela, Mt. Everest in Nepal and Tibet, and spectacular animal species.
The proposed trust, the recommendation states, "would be responsible to the world community for the stimulation of international cooperative efforts to identify, establish, develop, and manage the world's superb natural and scenic areas and historic sites for the present and future benefit of the entire world citizenry."
Last year in Amsterdam at the International Congress on Nature and Man, Russell E. Train, president of the Conservation Foundation, urged implementation of the world heritage trust through the activities of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.
Mr. Train said the protection of significant areas is not just a matter of local or even national concern. In his words:
"All mankind has a stake in such areas. . . . The time has come when this principle must be established at the highest level of international affairs and made the subject of priority action by governments and peoples, individually and collectively.
"The question is no longer whether we can afford to undertake such a program. We cannot afford not to."
WHAT IS A PARK EXPERIENCE? – XIII
(NOTE.-Throughout 20,000 miles of travel and many interviews, a Monitor writer sought answers to this deep yet simple question. He discovered that the experience can be "a wordless awareness," a feeling of oneness with nature, a sense of self-discovery as "part of the whole of living creatures, a part of life's beauty.")
WASHINGTON, July 24, 1968.– When national park service people try to explain the ultimate benefits to be gained from a national-park visit, they inevitably use the phrase "a quality park experience" – or sometimes just "a park experience."
Just what is this "park experience"? During 20,000 miles of travel through park-service areas, I sought the answer.
"Everything around us is transmitting beauty," said David D. Condon, 34-year veteran of the service. We were hiking along May Lake Trail in Yosemite National Park one afternoon late last summer.
"Coming in contact with the goldenrod, the deer, the giant sequoia, we are better able to understand that there is some force, some unseen plan to this whole universe," he continued. "We are having an experience with eternity. And if we can perceive the beauty here, that ability can enrich our lives no matter where we are, and we can see beauty better than before we had the park experience."
That was one answer.
Looking through the visitor register a few weeks later at Anhinga Trail in Everglades National Park I found another equally eloquent in its way.
In the column set aside for "comments," a mother had carefully penciled:
"Margaret saw her alligator."
For Margaret that was probably as fine a park experience as anyone could ask.
The phenomenon is hard to define. It is often a wordless awareness. Sometimes we park visitors do not even realize it is happening.
"One may lack words to express the impact of beauty, but no one who has felt it remains untouched. It is renewal, enlargement, intensification," wrote conservationist-author Bernard de Voto.
It is, perhaps, easier to explain what a park experience is not.
Rep. John P. Saylor of Pennsylvania, who has gone camping with his family at national parks for more than 25 years, likes to tell of the time at Yellowstone when a man, trailing a wife and three small children, rushed to the rim of Old Faithful geyser.
"How long before it will go off?" the man asked.
Mr. Saylor looked at his watch. "About 40 minutes," he replied.
"Come on kids, we can't wait," the man answered, herding the youngsters and his wife into the car with a New York license plate.
"And to think that those people had driven clear across the country," laments Mr. Saylor.
EXPERIENCE ENVISIONED
His concept of a national-park experience includes a place to relax and "untense," the Congressman says.
"You can't appreciate what is there if you're looking at your watch or thinking about all your problems. You have to forget time and realize that you're there to observe something that the Almighty has created. It is unusual. So see it and enjoy it. But also see the bigger picture."
Many people go to the national parks looking for the wrong things and thereby miss their park experience.
“National parks are not cozy roadside tourist attractions, designed to satisfy the curiosity of mankind in padded comfort," says Mrs. Gale Koschmann Zimmer, a naturalist at Everglades National Park.
Mrs. Zimmer believes one of the big problems for the future is to explain to visitors before they come to a park what it's like. If they want to look at safe captive animals, they had better see them at a zoo; if they want to swim and water-ski, play ball or take sunbaths, they should go to a city park or public beach. Says Mrs. Zimmer:
"I think we betray the ideal behind the whole national-park system if we try to plane down all the rough spots, shoot all the touchy animals, fence off all the cliffs, and offer the visitor a national-park scene in the safe comfort of his own living room. With Thoreau, I'd like to know an entire heaven and an entire earth, and I think basically our natural national parks should offer an entire heaven and an entire earth."
RUGGED PHYSICIST HIKING
On the Appalachian Trail, at Double Spring shelter in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I met space scientist Daniel Hale from Huntsville, Ala. This rugged physicist, who has been to the antarctic twice and the North Pole area once, and is helping to plan the Mars mission, had been hiking alone for two days from the summit at Clingmans Dome, down to Forney Creek, and now back up to the summit again. The satisfaction of roaming the wilderness alone was written on his countenance and in his bearing.
To the wilderness hiker, solitude is the only way to get a real park experience. But who can say that the man or woman who looks out on nature's majesty from a highway turnout, or stops to listen to the birds or walk in the pines a few yards from a lodge or public campground, may not be getting just as much or more fulfillment from the park?
My own impressions of national parks over the past 20 years have been based mostly on ventures close to roads and lodges. Yet I have never been disappointed in the quality of my park experiences.
It would be hard to duplicate the inspiration I felt one November day many years ago at the Grand Canyon rim as I watched snowflakes paint a cover of white on the buttes and mesas below. Or the sense of oneness with nature that came to me as I stood beside a little lake in Everglades National Park before dawn and watched the blackness on either side dissolve into mangroves, and the seemingly empty mangroves gradually reveal their night visitors, a score of snowy egrets which, one after another, rustled into view midst the foliage, stretched their wings and flapped gracefully away into the dawn.
I asked Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall what he thought a national-park "experience" should be.
"It isn't enough just to see majestic scenes, to watch Old Faithful erupt, or to see some other wonder of nature," he replied. "Our job ought to be to help visitors get an appreciation of the importance of nature, how its system works, and how it affects their lives. They should leave with a new insight, a new set of 'eyes' as it were."
From George B. Hartzog Jr., park-service director, came this answer:
"A park experience means different things to different people in different places. Each area is unique. A certain historical area may give the visitor a sense of his place in the stream of humankind. A natural area can give one a new perspective on the place you have in this God-given web of life. It is re-creative, refreshing."
Sharon Francis, writer, wilderness adventurer, and currently White House staff assistant for beautification, says the national park experience "is one in which all the facilities are stretched. One comes down from the peaks with capacities expanded, feelings aware! Best of all, one breaks free of the cocoon of man-made gadgets and comforts with which we envelope ourselves in civilization and forges, in the wilds, a reassuring self-sufficiency."
TILDEN'S BOOK NOTED
Author Freeman Tilden, who has been visiting and writing about national parks for a quarter of a century, says that parks are a place where individuals can find themselves a part of the whole of living creatures, a part of life's beauty.
"Beauty is the individual's shock, his apprehension, his discovery," Mr. Tilden writes in a small book called "Interpreting Our Heritage." "What he discovers is more than what he sees or hears. He has discovered something of himself, hitherto unrealized. . . .
"Sometimes we think, in our egotism, that nature has provided these beauties as a special act on our behalf. If I may be allowed a harmless bit of fantasy, I shall imagine a conversation you might have with Nature on this point. After hearing you patiently on the subject of Beauty, Nature would perhaps say something like this:
"I see the source of your error. It derives from your very limited knowledge. You are thinking that I have a Department of Beauty – that I deal with beauty as one of my activities. Really, I do not intend beauty. I am beauty, I am beauty and many other things, such as you are trying to express by your abstractions like Order, Harmony, Truth, Love. What you see in my scenic manifestations is the glamour behind which lies an Absolute Beauty of which I myself am an expressive part. You do not understand? Naturally, it is difficult. But you are trying: I do like that in you, little man.
"No, we can only shallowly comprehend, and perhaps the mystery will always tantalize us. But, fortunately for our spiritual welfare, we live with the fact. And this fact is, that in the presence of unsullied, unexploited, 'raw' nature, we are lifted to a height beyond ourselves. . . . we grow in dimension and capacity."
A LOOK AT TOMORROW'S PARKS – XIV
(NOTE.-Federal and state officials are formulating recreational-development plans for the vast Yellowstone-Grand Tetons area. It's part of a major new approach, as the National Park Service seeks to revise its blueprints in the light of present conditions and expected future needs.)
WASHINGTON, July 31, 1968.– In a map-and-chart-filled Denver office last summer, 10 National Park Service officials and consultants sat around a paper-strewn table. Their task: to come up with a master plan for the kinds of national parks Yellowstone and Grand Teton should be 10 to 20 years from now, or even up to the year 2000.
At these two essentially automobile-access parks, the roads, campgrounds, and lodges are crowded all summer, at times past capacity. And within a few years, tourists arriving at nearby airports in 500-passenger jets will compound the problem.
So the experts asked themselves some hard questions:
Should lodges, campgrounds, and roads be expanded to keep up with the expected deluge of tourists? Or should all new lodging and camping facilities be kept outside the park? Should private vehicles be barred altogether within the parks and be replaced by public transportation?
How can more visitors be attracted away from roads and encouraged to venture into the back country? How can more people be accommodated off-season, especially in winter? How can wildlife be protected from people-intrusion? How can people see more wildlife safely? Will increasing water pollution force a limitation on use of Yellowstone Park?
FINAL PLANS SHAPE UP
A few weeks later, supervisors of national forests and representatives of other federal and state agencies having recreation facilities or potential near Yellowstone and Grand Teton met with the park-service planning team. At this meeting, they worked out a basic agreement on a coordinated plan for Yellowstone area regional development.
It is appropriate that Yellowstone, set aside in 1872 as the world's first national park, should also be the springboard for a new look into what the next century holds for national parks.
Although parks traditionally have had "master plans" to guide their development, today the National Park Service is revising all park plans.
Wherever possible, regional planning is being considered. Officials agree that park service problems no longer can be worked out nor can the people's recreation demands be met within the confines of the national park system. The 32 operating national parks are only part of the overall national recreation picture. The planners say their use must be coordinated with other federal, state, and local recreation planning and with greatly expanded recreation opportunity provided through private enterprise.
A VISIT IN I984
Let's look ahead to about 1984 – not in Orwellian style, but as some park planners visualize the possibilities.
Let's imagine that Mr. and Mrs. George Norton of Camden, N.J., and their two teenagers are about to make that long-awaited automobile trip to see some of the national parks. In December they go to the nearest big-city national visitor center, in Philadelphia. There they get booklets and borrow home-play television tapes describing several parks. At the visitor center, they learn that if they know the exact date they will be in Yellowstone, advance reservations can be made (by computer) for a two-day stay at a campground, or for en route stops at state campgrounds or private motels or campgrounds.
The Nortons, who prefer a less rigid schedule, elect to go without reservations in June to Yellowstone and other Western national parks. When they arrive in Billings, Mont. (160 miles from Yellowstone), they head for the regional visitor center. An information guide checks a computer and advises them that Yellowstone is full for the next two days. But they can be booked to visit and stay at the Gallatin National Forest the next day, at Red Rock Lake National Wildlife Refuge the second day, and then into a commercial motel in West Yellowstone.
As the Nortons approach West Yellowstone, they tune their car radio to a special wave length. Out of the wide-open spaces comes the voice of a national park naturalist, identifying the trees, mountains, and wildlife they are seeing, and describing what lies ahead in the park.
Because only cars with advance reservations for the few public campgrounds are allowed in the park, the Nortons arrange for a Yellowstone tour in an electric-powered, open-air minibus. They walk the final quarter mile to Old Faithful Geyser because all roads and parking areas were moved away from the fringes of the geyser back in 1971.
BEARS FORSAKE ROADSIDES
At a road turnout in Hayden Valley, a park service naturalist gives them information about the buffalo and moose grazing in a field nearby. He explains the ecology of the area – how each plant or animal (including man) fits into a total environmental order. Before returning to West Yellowstone for the night, the Nortons visit Yellowstone Falls and the canyon area and also see other geysers.
The next day the minibus takes them to the starting point of a seven-mile hike to Hart Lake. On the hike they see several black bears. (Strict enforcement of "no feeding" rules has forced panhandling bears to forsake roadsides and look for natural foods.) The Nortons spend their last night at a wilderness camp (food, bedding, and primitive facilities provided) at Hart Lake. Then on to another park.
That's how it might be in 1984. Meanwhile, back in 1968, a good many matters require immediate attention.
Most important, to many observers, is the need for a clearly defined and workable national recreation policy. The present policy is an often conflicting hodgepodge. The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation has just published a report listing 263 separate federal recreation programs supervised by 57 agencies in nine Cabinet departments and 36 independent agencies, advisory boards, commissions, and councils. Many of the agencies are in open competition with one another.
SOME INTERAGENCY FEUDING
The Agriculture Department's Forest Service and the Interior Department's National Park Service have been feuding recently over loss of Forest Service land for Cascades National Park and over a proposed highway to be built through a part of Sequoia National Park into Forest Service land at Mineral King, Calif. (to serve a proposed Walt Disney ski resort development).
The Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation are continuously proposing projects of various sorts that affect natural resources. The Army engineers also defied the administration and all other federal agencies involved in recreation by opposing the $7 "Golden Eagle passport," because they did not want admission fees collected at their reservoirs.
Other differences arise regularly between the Bureau of Public Roads and a number of federal and state recreation agencies over location and width of roads through wilderness or scenic areas.
A few of the interagency disputes are finally settled by the President or Congress; most get resolved by the Bureau of the Budget. Fortunately for conservationists, deputy budget director Philip S. Hughes, the adjudicator of disputes in the executive arena, is himself a dedicated conservationist who tries to preserve both interdepartmental relations and natural values.
PRESIDENT'S COUNCIL
The President's Council on Recreation and Natural Beauty is supposed to provide leadership in setting national recreation policy. On the council are the Secretaries of Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Commerce, Housing and Urban Development, Health, Education, and Welfare, and Transportation. But in the past six years, only two major disputes have been put on its agenda; both were settled before the council met. It meets very infrequently and the Cabinet members usually send deputies.
The Citizens Advisory Committee on Recreation and Natural Beauty in its 1967 annual report suggested that the President's council "could offer a forum in which a broad approach to the national interest could be taken without regard to historic jurisdictional jealousies and commitments to policies which may no longer be relevant."
The 1968 citizens-committee report stated: "There is still no force in the federal government which can be brought to bear on environmental problems no matter where they occur."
EFFECTIVENESS QUESTIONED
Appointment in 1968 of the Vice-President to head the President's council may help the situation. But at the first meeting called by Vice-President Hubert H. Humhprey, only one Cabinet member showed up, and he arrived in mid-meeting.
Laurance S. Rockefeller, chairman of the citizens advisory committee and one of the nation's leaders in the effort to preserve natural values, doubts that the President's council ever could exercise the authority it needs in order to become effective.
Mr. Rockefeller holds that power should be vested in a commission established "to coordinate all elements of recreation and conservation in our society. It should have equal representation from Congress, the executive departments, and outstanding citizens."
The Bureau of Outdoor Recreation, directed by Dr. Edward C. Crafts, is currently completing a five-year effort to develop a nationwide plan for recreation. Congress hobbled the agency in the beginning by placing it in one department (Interior) and by giving it the power only to "promote coordination" of federal plans and activities related to outdoor recreation, instead of the power to "coordinate" such plans.
When the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation's nationwide plan is finished, it will offer guidelines for national recreation policy. Because of the restraints placed on the agency, the plan will not be effective unless backed by presidential and congressional action.
As previous articles in this series have indicated, the basic problem facing the National Park Service is how to cope with the increasing pressures for greater use without destroying the resources and without lowering the quality of the visit.
In 1916 with only 350,000 people visiting the then 13 national parks, the object was to attract enough additional visitors to convince Congress that the areas were worth preserving or developing. A half-century later: 40 million people visit 32 operating national parks. Both population and use of parks continue to escalate. The options are: to create more national parks; provide more federal and state recreation areas to ease pressure on the national park system; expand facilities such as campgrounds and lodges at the expense of certain natural values; place restrictions on use; or a combination of these solutions.
NEW FACILITIES TO BE BASIC
Director Hartzog says that park service plans contain no increase in capacity of overnight lodging in the major crowded parks. The emphasis on whatever new facilities are needed will be on the basic side – cafeterias, snack bars, and mountain-type chalets with primitive facilities. Mr. Hartzog also hopes to start a system of youth hostels in national parks.
One of the great needs of the future is for development by the private sector of campgrounds, lodges, and motels on the fringes of national parks. At present, one of the obstacles to private development is government competition. A family can visit a national park for $1 a day; or it can spend an entire summer touring national parks at a total outlay of $7 for a "Golden Eagle" permit – less than the cost of one night at a motel. The park service is experimenting with fees for public campgrounds (to be run by concessionaires), in addition to entrance fees or a Golden Eagle passport.
Lumber and mining companies with big holdings near western national parks may in the future enter the recreation business on a large scale.
CITY ACCENT EXPECTED
Regional planning for recreation also will have to include more extensive state and city development of parks and recreation, especially in making more recreation areas available close to cities. Money now is available from the Land and Water Conservation Fund to aid states. A diversified nationwide recreation capability is needed to give people more choices of places to go for the specific type of outdoor activity they desire.
Most criticism of the National Park Service comes from conservationists who desire greater restrictions on mass access to the parks to ensure preservation of the resources. Some critics, however, think that more should be done to help the average park user.
"A balance has to be achieved between preservation and use," says Deputy Budget Director Hughes. "It wouldn't be good if the park service concentrates just on preservation. The system has to accommodate a large number of people who just want to see parks from the roads."
WIDER PENETRATION URGED
Laurance Rockefeller maintains that no harm would be done by opening up a little more of some of the large parks to access by the average tourist. "People are trapped in the same areas of Yellowstone that were available almost a century ago," he says.
Rep. Wayne N. Aspinall (D) of Colorado, chairman of the House Interior Committee, points out another need: to curb the taking over of choice national park camping spots weekend after weekend by people living nearby.
"These parks belong to the people," Mr. Aspinall told me. "They don't belong only to the people who live closest to them."
In my visits to park areas it became obvious that many of the people most in need of the values that can be obtained from a national park visit – such as big-city ghetto residents and other low-income families – appeared to be absent.
QUESTION POSED
The question came to mind:
Is affluent America doing as much as it should to make the inspirational values of parks more available to those now left out? The answer to such a question may also help decide the kind of national park system America has by the year 2000.
The ultimate answer rests not with Congress or the National Park Service, but with all the people.
Their national parks – a unique American contribution – have played a relevant role in developing the kind of nation that exists today. By the way they live, the values they cherish, and the way they treat each other as well as their great resources – in all these ways Americans will decide the kinds of parks they will have tomorrow.
HOW WOULD YOU RUN THE NATIONAL PARKS? – XV
WASHINGTON, August 7, 1968.– "We hear plenty from the conservation groups about what is wrong with our policies," said a National Park Service official. "But we rarely hear from the general public, the average park users, except when they've received bad service at a concession restaurant in a park, or been bothered by a noisy campground neighbor."
The park service has been unable to conduct public-opinion surveys of those who use national parks. Thus officials often have less information than needed to do the necessary long-range planning.
[To help fill this need, and to give readers of this series an opportunity to express their views, key topics were presented in a full page questionnaire.
[Readers could mark a √ in the squares that most nearly conformed to their ideas of how the park service should handle a particular situation. If no single statement fully expressed their view on a subject, they could mark more than one square in each category. The questionnaire also provided space for additional comments. A summary and analysis of reader opinions concluded the series.]
The following categories were included in the questionnaire:
1.Overcrowding. Although less than 5 percent of each park is used for tourist conveniences, some national parks, such as Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and the Everglades, are jammed with visitors in developed areas during most of the tourist season. To relieve overcrowding, the park service should:
A. Build more campgrounds, lodges, and roads to take care of more people. O
B. Start a reservation system for campgrounds. O
C. Limit the stay in a campground to the number of days it takes to see the major attractions, with a maximum of 3 days. O
D. Reserve most of the campground space and visitor facilities for those who live more than 200 miles away. O
E. Take all campgrounds out of the parks and encourage development of private areas or use of national forests on the park fringes. O
F. Establish a limit for entrance to each park, much as you would for a theater. When a certain capacity is reached, a park would be closed and reopened only to fill vacancies. O
G. Increase camping fees and entrance fees. O
H. Leave things as they are. O
2. Services and attractions. Park users, planners and some conservation groups disagree over what kind of accommodations, services, and recreation attractions should be provided in national parks. The park service should:
A. Provide for additional low-cost overnight lodging facilities with the help of government subsidies if necessary. O
B. Provide for more visitor services such as stores, restaurants, coin laundries, etc. O
C. Allow more entertainment such as concerts, movies, organized recreation, conventions, and special events. O
D. Reinstate the nightly firefall at Yosemite Valley that was stopped this year. O
E. Limit expansion of park or concession services to the basic needs of those who can be accommodated without overcrowding. O
F. Prohibit any entertainment that would tend to attract visitors to a central location. O
3. Roads. The present road system in many national parks is not capable of taking care of increasing numbers of visitors, and some roads are not wide enough for trailers. Also, some U.S. highways go through sections of national parks. I believe:
A. Absolutely no more new roads should be built in national parks. O
B. Any roads built should be of the primitive scenic type-narrow, low speed, and following rivers and the natural terrain. O
C. Interstate and other U.S. highways should be allowed to pass through national parks, with turnouts provided so that cross country travelers can have easy access to parks. O
D. All U.S. highways should be removed from parks. Until this can be accomplished, fees should be charged on these roads to discourage through traffic. O
E. New transportation techniques, such as aerial tramways, rapid-transit systems, helicopters, monorails, and air-cushion systems, should be adopted for travel inside national parks. O
F. All automobiles should be left out of crowded parks, and minibuses or other types of public transportation be provided. O
G. A maximum speed limit of 35 m.p.h. should be the law in national parks, with lower limits on narrower roads. O
4. Roadside bears. Some people say it is disgraceful to make beggars of the black bears that roam the roadsides at Yellowstone National Park waiting for handouts from tourists. Others say that seeing these bears and their cute cubs along the highways is one of the highlights of a park visit. Feeding bears is against park regulations and also dangerous. The park service should:
A. Leave the situation as it is. The visitors enjoy seeing the bears. O
B. Trap bears that have taken up residence in unnatural environments of highways and campgrounds and restore them to their natural habitats (even though this would mean many visitors might not see a bear); take away unnatural food sources by enforcing rules against feeding bears and by more frequent garbage pickups. O
C. Provide access points and lookouts where bears and other wildlife might be seen. Conduct pre-breakfast and dinnertime ranger-guided tours to see wildlife at the best viewing hours. O
5. Grizzly bears. Two young women were fatally mauled by grizzly bears at Glacier National Park last year. The park service should
A. Eliminate grizzlies from all national parks. O
B. Leave things as they are. Grizzlies have as much right to be in Glacier as do humans. O
C. Prohibit hikers from using parts of the park known to be inhabited by grizzlies. O
D. Eliminate all refuse dumps (which attract bears) from chalets, lodges, and back country campsites. O
6. Wilderness. Large portions of most national parks will soon be designated by Congress as wilderness areas, to be preserved for all time from building of roads, lodges, or permanent structures and from mechanical intrusions. But there is disagreement over how much of a park should be set aside and what should be allowed in wilderness areas. I believe:
A. All of the present wilderness-type area in a park should be preserved; there should be no additional development at all on these lands; and wilderness should extend to the edge of roads. O
B. There should be a buffer area of at least one-quarter of a mile between roads or permanent buildings and the wilderness areas. O
C. When designating wilderness areas, the park service should set aside sufficient land to provide for future developments such as new campgrounds, motor-nature trails, or self-guided nature trails. O
D. In places of exceptional scenic beauty which are inaccessible except to experienced mountaineers or by several-day hikes, aerial tramways should be built to allow more people to share these vistas, or to be used as starting points for hikes in the midst of wilderness country. O
E. Sufficient area should be left out of wilderness designation in order to permit a few small, primitive chalet-type lodges and youth hostels. O
7. Government and private sector. Some people feel that the federal government is in unfair competition with private individuals in the field of recreation because such low fees are charged at campgrounds. Most parks have only $1 a day entry fee, and a $7 annual Golden Eagle permit allows visitors to spend an entire summer camping in parks.) The government should:
A: Raise the Golden Eagle fee to $25. O
B. Charge nightly rates for use of public campgrounds in parks, in addition to the Golden Eagle fee. O
C. Turn campgrounds over to concessionaires for management and allow them to charge appropriate camping fee. O
D. Enter into partnership agreements with private companies and/or individuals to build public campgrounds and motels on the fringe of park areas. O
8. Balances of nature. Among the traditional purposes of national parks are providing habitats for all native animals and maintaining the animals in a completely wild state for public enjoyment. Parks are not large enough, however, to provide all the necessities of life for some wildlife species such as elk, deer, and the large predators such as wolves and mountain lions. Some animal populations have become too large; others have disappeared. The National Park Service should:
A. Let nature take its course. If a species cannot adapt to modern conditions, there is very little man can do to save it. O
B. Remove excess elk (by trapping or shooting) when they exceed the capacity of the range. O
C. Provide food for the important species of wildlife, such as elk, moose, bison, and bighorn sheep, so that these populations can be maintained at the highest levels possible. O
D. Determine what human influences are causing wildlife problems, and develop park management programs designed to offset man's adverse impact. O
E. Eliminate nonnative plants and animals from park areas. O
F. Restore wolves, cougars, bears, and coyotes to park areas where they once were native. O
9. Visitor-use information.
A. Within the last year our family has visited one O two O three or more O national parks.
B. We stayed one day O two days O three or more days. O
C. We camped overnight in public campgrounds accessible by road O; packed into primitive back-country camps O; stayed at lodges O; stayed outside the park. O
D. We traveled by automobile O; camper vehicle O; trailer O; public transportation. O
E. We visited no national parks. O
10. Other comments: --------------------.
THE PARK SERVICE SHOULD – XVI
(NOTE.– On Aug. 7, 1968, the Monitor invited readers to comment on key issues confronting the U.S. national parks. More than 2,000 replied. Here is a summary of the results.)
WASHINGTON, September 16, 1968.– "How would you run the national parks?"
[The Christian Science Monitor posed this question to its readers at the close of its comprehensive series on the national parks. Within a month after the installment (chapter 15 of this booklet) appeared, the Monitor had received more than 2,000 completed questionnaires,]
Answers and comments poured in from all parts of the United States, from Europe, even from five GIs in Vietnam. Those responding ranged in age from a 16-year-old to a Neenah (Wis.) octogenarian who said he still enjoys going into the national parks "with sleeping bag and tent."
These and other readers – 2,192 in all – made it clear that they want their national parks preserved, even at the cost of personal sacrifice or limitations on park use. And they want the quality of a park experience improved for all visitors. They expressed strong support for measures that would:
Drastically limit stays in park campgrounds, and charge for their use (in addition to entrance fees).
Provide only narrow, scenic-type roads with a maximum speed limit of 35 miles per hour.
Ban automobiles from the parks entirely, and provide forms of public transportation. Some questionnaires had answer boxes checked in red and black: Husbands and wives who could not agree used ink of different colors. A reader in Mansfield, Pa., noted that answers on his questionnaire represented views of 18 families who reached a consensus after a three-hour campfire discussion while on a National Campers and Hikers Association outing.
The questionnaire was not designed as a balanced statistical sample. Yet National Park Service officials and several private conservation leaders who have seen the results agree that the answers and suggestions of Monitor readers contain a wealth of material for careful study and analysis in considering future park policies.
A total of 1,548 of those submitting questionnaires said they had visited at least one national park during the past year. Most others said they had visited parks in previous years, and planned more visits.
While the vast majority appeared to be advocates of wilderness preservation, they did not seek to exclude those who see the parks via roads, campgrounds, or lodges.
Park service officials and conservation leaders said the replies seemed to represent a wide variety of park users and potential users. Some readers urged providing for those not able to take long hikes into wilderness areas. Others suggested finding ways to aid urban minority groups, especially those who might not have financial means or transportation to visit the parks.
"We do not yet need a single inflexible policy for all parks and recreation areas, but one that adjusts to demands," commented A. H. Gibson of Midland, Mich.
A number of readers suggested greater orientation and education for park users. "Require campers and backpackers to pass a test to obtain a license for camping without despoiling the scenery," commented Mrs. Charles A. Eldon, of Los Altos, Calf.
"Government itself should devote more time to informing the public about problems of the parks while people are at the parks – people will understand these problems if shown while they are there," wrote Miss Vera K. Kuehne, of Manchester, Mo.
"Something similar to the colonial Williamsburg orientation film could be done in each national park to put a person in the right frame of mind for what he is to see," stated Mrs. Colson E. Carr of Alexandria Bay, N.Y. "And it should be run not once a night, but continuously."
According to National Park Service Director George B. Hartzog Jr., the number of questionnaires received made it the largest public survey conducted on national park policy.
"The answers show a sensitivity to the values that are preserved in the national park system, and that visitors are looking for a quality park experience," Mr. Hartzog said.
"And the results are evidence the people know that in order to experience it they may have to accept some regulation of their freedom to use it."
Survey results "indicate strong support for a park-management policy highly protective of the wild areas and the native wildlife," commented Anthony Wayne Smith, president of the National Parks Association.
"The readers also approve of the solution of the problem of overcrowding through dispersing facilities into the surrounding public lands and even farther out into privately owned lands in the general region of parks."
Stewart M. Brandborg, executive director of the Wilderness Society, believes the results show that "the people, given decisions among alternatives, are far out in front of the average government land manager who resigns himself to the invasion by a flood of humanity that could destroy the natural areas."
Readers had been encouraged in the instructions to mark more than one square in each category if no single statement fully expressed their views on a subject. Most took advantage of the suggestion. Many went even further and amended our statements to reflect their own opinions more exactly.
The column for comments frequently overflowed onto additional sheets or letters. One reader, Mrs. George E. Lien of Port Washington, N.Y., sent a five-page, single-spaced typewritten letter brimming with useful ideas gained from her family's recent 9,000-mile tour of national parks.
Following is a subject-by-subject resume of survey results and selected comments. Numbers represent the total of options checked by readers (many of whom chose several options).
1. OVERCROWDING
The park service should:
A. Build more campgrounds, lodges, and roads to take care of more people, 402.
B. Start a reservation system for campgrounds, 823.
C. Limit the stay in a campground to the number of days it takes to see the major attractions, with a maximum of three days, 950.
D. Reserve most of the campground space and visitor facilities for those who live more than 200 miles away, 387.
E. Take all campgrounds out of the parks and encourage development of private areas or use of national forests on the park fringes, 759.
F. Establish a limit for entrance to each park, much as you would for a theater. When a certain capacity is reached, a park would be closed and reopened only to fill vacancies, 801.
G. Increase camping fees and entrance fees, 404.
H. Leave things as they are, 42.
Readers were especially selective on this subject. In Part A, many agreed on the need to build more campgrounds but crossed out "lodges" and "roads." In Part C, many suggested a limit on stays of 1, 5, or 10 days. Some readers, in checking Part E, deleted the first clause about campgrounds.
Four of the five choices involving restrictions received heavy votes. Readers' endorsement of a reservation system surprised some park officials who have been hesitant about starting such a system in crowded campgrounds.
Several readers noted that the best solution to overcrowding of parks was population control.
Mrs. Bradley Folsom of Hingham, Mass., suggested that "it might be feasible in the future to try a staggered method of vacations so that everyone would not be visiting the areas in July and August, especially if schools were to extend the school year."
Mrs. Florence Radzinski of Montecito, Calif., criticized the park service for mistakenly posting "Valley Camp Sites Full" Signs at the Yosemite Park entrance. She added: "My husband and I, much to our delight, found many empty camp sites. We felt sorry for those who might have turned away at the main gate because of the sign. Better communication within the park system is needed."
One advocate of more campground and lodge development stated the park service should be ashamed of "boasting that 98 percent of Yellowstone is undeveloped"
A reader in Arlington Heights, Ill., was very much against having reservations systems in national or state parks. "The parks belong to all the people and should be on a first-come, first-served basis," the reader stated.
Dr. G. B. Moment of Goucher College in Baltimore pointed out the problem of a reservation system: Cancellations and the vicissitudes of travel often delay arrivals.
A California man offered an example of why stricter limitations are needed for campground use:
"The campers next to us were set up for a six-week stay with three tents and a large 'lounging' area. They lived in a town 50 miles away and were enjoying a practically 'free' vacation – and had been doing so for years!"
2. SERVICES AND ATTRACTION
The park service should:
A. Provide for additional low-cost overnight lodging facilities with the help of government subsidies if necessary, 304.
B. Provide for more visitor services such as stores, restaurants, coin laundries, etc., 132.
C. Allow more entertainment such as concerts, movies, organized recreation, conventions, and special events, 49.
D. Reinstate the nightly firefall at Yosemite Valley that was stopped this year, 399.
E. Limit expansion of park or concession services to the basic needs of those who can be accommodated without overcrowding, 1,844.
F. Prohibit any entertainment that would tend to attract visitors to a central location, 1,005.
The views expressed on this subject contradict the common assumption that American travelers insist on "creature comforts" above all else. Only 6 percent of all those replying wanted more visitor services inside parks, and 84 percent would accept limiting the expansion of services to cover "basic needs." A number of readers favored low-cost lodging, but did not approve of government subsidies.
Some readers reacted vigorously against Part C, writing in "No! No! No !" to the idea of more organized recreation in the parks.
"Entertainment is not necessary – the park itself is the purpose of its being," commented E. E. Parsons, of Winslow, Ariz.
A reader in Playa Del Rey, Calif., noted at the end of Part F, ". . . but nature talks are O.K."
Several others commended the park service interpretive program.
3. ROADS
I believe:
A. Absolutely no more new roads should be built in national parks, 486.
B. Any roads built should be of the primitive scenic type narrow, low speed, and following rivers and the natural terrain, 1,407.
C. Interstate and other U.S. highways should be allowed to pass through national parks, with turnouts provided so that crosscountry travelers can have easy access to parks, 233.
D. All U.S. highways should be removed from parks. Until this can be accomplished, fees should be charged on these roads to discourage through traffic, 946.
E. New transportation techniques, such as aerial tramways, rapid-transit systems, helicopters, monorails, and air-cushion systems, should be adopted for travel inside national parks, 292.
F. All automobiles should be left out of crowded parks, and minibuses or other types of public transportation be provided, 642.
G. A maximum speed limit of 35 m.p.h. should be the law in national parks, with lower limits on narrower roads, 1,204.
Park service officials expressed satisfaction with the evidence of support for scenic roads and low speed limits in parks. The park service advocates this position, but it is opposed by the Bureau of Public Roads, which wants, for safety factors, to build wide, highspeed highways in parks.
"Visitors can't enjoy the parks if they can't see them, so they should slow down to the point where they can see them," said park director Hartzog. "If people are in too big a hurry, they should take some other route and come back to the parks when they have sufficient time."
Mr. Hartzog was encouraged by the large number of readers who voted to leave all automobiles out of crowded parks. Plans are being considered to carry out such a system at some parks.
"More people are traveling in camp trailers, so the parks should provide more connections for electricity, water, and sewage," commented Lt. Col. and Mrs. E. L. Massie, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. A man on Bainbridge Island, Wash., suggested widening current roads for trailers and more traffic.
But Mr. and Mrs. Channing P. Newell of Grossmont, Calif., had a different view. "Visitors to the parks should expect to leave their mobile houses, so-called 'campers,' and house trailers outside the parks," wrote the Newells. "The National Park Service could not and should not be expected to supply space, sanctuary, and facilities for such cumbersome personal paraphernalia.”
A New Yorker suggested that when there are U.S. highways within parks, the toll should be so high that one would think twice before using the highway just to get somewhere fast."
Some readers urged a total banning of motorcycles, "tote-goats," and trail bikes from all trails in parks.
Mrs. Sydney H. Baylor of Johnson, Vt., noted that "it is evident the vandalism in parks is restricted to those areas where automobiles are permitted. Very seldom is anything destroyed along the foot trails."
4. ROADSIDE BEARS
The park service should:
A. Leave the situation as it is. The visitors enjoy seeing the bears, 272.
B. Trap bears that have taken up residence in unnatural environments of highways and campgrounds and restore them to their natural habitats (even though this would mean many visitors might not see a bear); take away unnatural food sources by enforcing rules against feeding bears and by more frequent garbage pickups, 1,003.
C. Provide access points and lookouts where bears and other wildlife might be seen. Conduct prebreakfast and dinnertime ranger-guided tours to see wildlife at the best viewing hours, 1,570.
Another statistic that went contrary to many officials' previous theories was the one showing large support for eliminating the roadside food-begging bears at Yellowstone. Park officials always have assumed that visitors' desire to see bears along the roads was greater than any opposition to the practice.
A number of readers wanted stricter penalties for disturbing wildlife at Yellowstone and in other parks. They also urged giving more publicity to the dangers from bear feeding and to the fact that it is illegal. Fines would be levied against offenders.
Commented Miss La Verne Joiner Jackson of Palo Alto, Calif.: "It is the observing of the animals in their natural environment which brings the thrill, not disobeying the law."
Equally cogent was the terse statement of Mrs. Mary Carr Scales of Orinda, Calif.: "Teach people, not bears."
5. GRIZZLY BEARS
The park service should:
A. Eliminate grizzlies from all national parks. 104.
B. Leave things as they are. Grizzlies have as much right to be in Glacier as do humans, 873.
C. Prohibit hikers from using parts of the park known to be inhabited by grizzlies, 935.
D. Eliminate all refuse dumps (which attract bears) from chalets, lodges, and backcountry campsites, 1,558.
Despite two fatal attacks on campers by grizzly bears last year at Glacier National Park. few survey participants suggested elimination of bears from the parks.
A resident of Ann Arbor, Mich., stated that although he once had been mauled by a grizzly bear, he still believes that grizzlies have the right to be in parks.
A Harvard University student commented that part of a park might be set aside for camping and part for the original animals, "perhaps closed off to people for safety and welfare of both."
The grizzly presents one of the most difficult of all problems for park officials. Elimination of refuse dumps used by bears and complete incineration of garbage might drive some bears into campgrounds. At Glacier, certain back-country trails frequented by grizzlies have been closed this summer for short periods of time. Much research on grizzly habits is needed, say park officials.
6. WILDERNESS
A. All of the present wilderness-type area in a park should be preserved; there should be no additional development at all on these lands; and wilderness should extend to the edge of roads, 1,033.
B. There should be a buffer area of at least one-quarter of a mile between roads or permanent buildings and the wilderness areas, 531.
C. When designating wilderness areas, the park service should set aside sufficient land to provide for future developments Such as new campgrounds, motor nature trails, or self-guided nature trails, 727.
D. In places of exceptional scenic beauty which are inaccessible except to experienced mountaineers or by several-day hikes, aerial tramways should be built to allow more people to share these vistas, or to be used as starting points for hikes in the midst of wilderness country, 540.
E. Sufficient area should be left out of wilderness designation in order to permit a few small, primitive chalet-type lodges and youth hostels, 840.
Replies on this subject provided a wide range of opinion, although most readers desired preservation of all the present wilderness-type area in a park.
The question of extending the wilderness provoked conflicting replies.
"The theory of saving millions of acres for a few hardy hikers is wrong," said a correspondent from Florence, Ore.
Commented David Lassiter, Isle of Palms, S.C.: "The parks are practically 'sacred' areas, and Should be preserved 'as is' as much as possible. Leave the wilderness areas 'wild.' Let private enterprise provide the necessary concessions, entertainment, and other public facilities outside the parks."
The subject of aerial tramways or other mechanized means of access into inaccessible areas also evoked spirited comment. Advocates, however, usually added an "if ."
"I favor 6 D only if it can be shown that such tramways would not disturb the surroundings," footnoted D. M. Weible of Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Miss Rita E. Owen of Washington Commented: "I would personally like to travel over parks by monorail; but only if a magic wand could be waved, and the monorail dismantled, or disintegrated, immediately afterward."
Several readers suggested that elderly people should have the benefit of lodges and tramways.
"We should not be afraid of them, but resort more to aerial lifts, etc., where rugged terrain makes road-building expensive," said Perry J. Brown of St. Paul, Minn.
The idea of providing small, primitive chalet-type lodges and youth hostels in wild areas draw many favorable comments.
7. CHARGES
The government should:
A. Raise the Golden Eagle fee to $25, 533.
B. Charge nightly rates for use of public campgrounds in parks, in addition to the Golden Eagle fee, 897.
C. Turn campgrounds over to concessionaires for management and allow them to charge appropriate camping fees, 81.
D. Enter into partnership agreements with private companies and/or individuals to build public campgrounds and motels on the fringe of park areas, 946.
A theme running through many comments and substantiated by the results of the questionnaire is the large number of visitors willing to pay fees higher than the present $7 Golden Eagle permit, which covers a full year's visits to the national parks. Some people felt the Golden Eagle permit should cost more than $7, but not as high as $25.
On the other hand many opposed fees that were too high for the average individual. "Relatively low cost makes national park camping very desirable for large families on low budgets," wrote a Claremont, Calif., reader.
A comment from Alamogordo, N.M., read: "During our stays in the parks we met many students, teachers, foreign students, etc., who were truly enjoying the parks and probably could not afford higher fees."
"We cannot now afford travel to national parks," commented a man in Lansing, Mich. "But it's nice to think that they will be there if ever we can."
Concern was expressed for the urban poor. Henry Abarbanel of Princeton University commented: "Visiting national parks and monuments is primarily a white persons' adventure. The park service should bring the parks to the attention of poor people and ghetto dwellers and, if possible, organize and help fund visits of these citizens to their parks."
"The outdoors does not belong to the middle class," added a man from New York City.
Mr. and Mrs. Ralph C. Morse of Rockton, Ill., suggested there be a minimum fee for a three-night campground stay, together with a limitation on the Golden Eagle permit allowing no more than a 10-day stay in each park.
"A visitor would be both encouraged to stay at a campsite long enough to fully appreciate the glories all around him, and yet be forced to move on after a reasonable length of time to provide room for others," wrote the Morses.
Another version of this idea came from a Hagerstown, Md., reader: "Entrance fees should be high. If a person hurries through the park using its roads only as a scenic highway, no refund. If he stays a sufficient time to enjoy the park, most of the entrance fee is refunded on exit. If he overstays – no refund."
Many readers opposed turning over campgrounds to concessionaires for management and charging of fees. Readers felt this would result in crowded, dirty, and overpriced campgrounds.
Park director Hartzog said that, because of a shortage of personnel, the park service is planning to turn some campgrounds over to concessionaires to "operate" and to perform the actual maintenance work. But the park service will continue to set high maintenance standards, determine the rates, design the campgrounds, and rehabilitate them every few years. Rangers and naturalists also will remain to help visitors.
8. BALANCES OF NATURE
The park service should:
A. Let nature take its course. If a species cannot adapt to modern conditions, there is very little man can do to save it, 119.
B. Remove excess elk (by trapping or shooting) when they exceed the capacity of the range, 807.
C. Provide food for the important species of wildlife, such as elk, moose, bison, and bighorn sheep, so that these populations can be maintained at the highest levels possible, 670.
D. Determine what human influences are causing wildlife problems, and develop park management programs designed to offset man's adverse impact, 1,878.
E. Eliminate nonnative plants and animals from park areas, 356.
F. Restore wolves, cougars, bears, and coyotes to park areas where they once were native, 708.
Park officials and conservation leaders expressed surprise at most readers' evident awareness of the complicated problems of maintaining wildlife in the parks. Eighty-six percent of those responding wanted the park service to develop management programs designed to offset man's adverse impact. Also unexpected was the large number choosing the option of restoring predators to parks where they once were native. However, some readers objected specifically to reinstating wolves.
Doug Roberts of Pullman, Wash., advocated that the park service purchase more winter range to help with the wildlife food problem.
9. VISITOR INFORMATION
A. Within the past year 497 families reported visiting one park; 413 visited two parks; 638 visited three or more.
B. Replies showed that 392 families stayed one day; 317 stayed two days; 762 stayed three or more days.
C. For accommodations, 698 families camped overnight in public campgrounds accessible by road; 333 packed into primitive back-country camps; 372 stayed at lodges; 443 stayed outside the park.
D. For transportation to parks, 1,235 families traveled by automobile; 130 by camper vehicle; 155 by trailer; 77 by public tranpsortation.
E. Of those answering the questionnaire, 541 said they had visited no national park in the past year.
That 60 percent of readers taking part in the survey had camped either in public campgrounds or the back-country was of great interest to park officials and conservation leaders as possibly indicating a trend away from use of lodges and motel accommodations inside the parks.
Another result of significance is that 638 of the 1,548 readers whose families had visited the parks stayed three or more days. This will be helpful to the park service in making planning decisions.
"I am single, in the Army, and in Vietnam, so I can't answer No. 9," wrote 1st Lt. L. J. Pryor. "However," he added, "I hope some day to use the parks a great deal."
Many reader comments showed acute awareness that preservation of parks and conservation values requires continued citizen participation in making policy.
"We need a land ethic," wrote Joseph Papa of Los Gatos, Calif. "We need more leadership in government. I notice none of the candidates seem to be addressing the issue."
"I saved all the national parks articles in the series and wrote to my congressman, giving my sentiments," said Guy W. Griffith of Richmond, Va.
"The National Pack Service is doing a good job but can do better if it is better informed on what people want," commented Emanuel Fritz of Berkeley, Calif.
Other comments pointed to the need for citizens to treat the parks and wildlife, as well as other visitors, with respect and consideration.
Mrs. Lewis F. Smith of Cheshire. Conn., wrote that "there are few places left where we can enjoy nature's beauty without man's ruining it with his noise and refuse. I guess we will have to change the people to make the parks better."
A reader in Salt Lake City noted: "Educate the public as to: (1) what to expect in the park; (2) how to conduct themselves regarding their fellow man, the wildlife, and premises; (3) obey the golden rule of life."
Roy H. Hessen, director of People for Conservation, a citizen organization in Merrick, N.Y., said that the Monitor park series had prompted his group to draft a series of policy proposals for improvement of national parks, and to send the proposals to the National Park Service.
Summed up Mrs. Edward E. Eschenroeder of Largo, Fla.: "The most important thing is the realization that we the people have a responsibility if the privilege of using our parks is to be continued."