What would Abbey think???

I suspect Abbey would think they should blow up the roads and make people walk (crawl?) in if they want to see the park. I think it depends on your POV of the parks though...if you're a Moab businessman I imagine your preference would be different than a backpacker's would be.

Forcing people to get a reservation just to enter the park seems ludicrous, and I feel like it has to be the worst possible solution to this problem. After seeing how well the shuttle system at Zion worked, that seems to be a reasonable alternative, and one that personally sounds better than adding more infrastructure.
 
mak1277 said:
I suspect Abbey would think they should blow up the roads and make people walk (crawl?) in if they want to see the park. I think it depends on your POV of the parks though...if you're a Moab businessman I imagine your preference would be different than a backpacker's would be.

Forcing people to get a reservation just to enter the park seems ludicrous, and I feel like it has to be the worst possible solution to this problem. After seeing how well the shuttle system at Zion worked, that seems to be a reasonable alternative, and one that personally sounds better than adding more infrastructure.
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If I remember correctly I actually think he advocated for a giant parking lot full of free to use bicycles. It would be kind of cool, but the shuttle option is probably better.

Oh and can you imagine if 500 pound barrels of human waste broke free of the chopper???
 
500 pound barrels of year-old, baking-in-the-sun human waste. :eek:

It's really a tough thing to figure out. More and more people are out there making a connection with the landscape. I can see an arches shuttle like Zion being a reasonable idea if they can do it right. And who doesn't love just being able to stare out the window?
 
This whole topic reminds me of the Yogi Berra quote: "nobody goes there anymore, it's too crowded."

I think a lot about the conundrum of backcountry "crowding". Personally, I hate waiting in lines, getting permits, dealing with people....but I understand that *someone* (many, many someones) needs to be passionate about our wild(er) places in order to keep them wild. Where does the line get drawn?

I suppose there are plenty of places outside of Nat'l Parks that are beautiful and relatively uncrowded, so I shouldn't complain and begrudge others the ability to see our Parks by car or shuttle if they so choose.
 
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Buses seem like the best alternative. The "Mighty Five" NP's in Utah make up less than 900,000 acres, and the 1.2 million acres of Glen Canyon NRA is managed by the NPS but is lightly traveled outside of the Lake Powell. There are 31 million acres of public land in Utah.

Get out and explore, read between the lines and crowds will rarely be an issue. This is why I love southern Utah so much. Many lifetimes worth of wild and remote places to explore, most worthy of a National Park designation but without that title they are much more lightly traveled.
 
Nick said:
Because of motion sickness?
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I don't like it either...but you know my feelings about crowds!

I think I've only ridden the Zion shuttle once...out of necessity when we did the Narrows.

It frustrates me that the businesses think the solution is to pave more. They'll be happy to pave away the very nature that brings their customers to town. I'm not sure reservations are a good idea...I like the idea of biking in to the park.
 
Ha! Yeah, I'm not endorsing the crowds on the bus, just one possible plus of being able to look out at the scenery instead of trying not to run over tourists. :)
 
Does this really surprise anyone that it would be crowded at Arches on Memorial Day weekend? Hello!
It has always been crowded, now people are noticing it more.
Raising the admission fee to keep people away? It should be free IMO.......
 
gnwatts said:
Does this really surprise anyone that it would be crowded at Arches on Memorial Day weekend? Hello!
It has always been crowded, now people are noticing it more.
Raising the admission fee to keep people away? It should be free IMO.......
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True, but visitation is steadily increasing year after year. It's not just noticing it more, it's actually way more people.

Check out the rate of annual visitation growth over the years. I don't know why they don't have '13 or '14 there, but in 10 years between '02 and '12, that's an increase of 39%. If it kept that rate for the next 10 years from 2012 to 2022, it would be up to nearly 1.5 million per year by then. I don't know what the answer is, but that's a ton of people to accommodate.

http://www.nps.gov/arch/learn/management/visitation.htm

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"What would Abbey think?"

"Why are these people spending so much time on this 'internet' when they could be outside..."
 
ben cowan said:
"What would Abbey think?"

"Why are these people spending so much time on this 'internet' when they could be outside..."
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My god dammed thoughts as well-for myself that is- most of the time.
 
The buses are great for handling the majority of the people. Most of us know how and where to get away where there are very few people. The greatest protection a wilderness has is the amount of effort (physically) it takes to get to it.
 
I tried to stay in Moab as I was passing through that weekend. My wife and I literally just parked, ate lunch, and stared at all of the people.

We were looking for a room so we could shower and sleep in a soft bed, the cheapest we could find was the Motel 6 at around $150. It seemed to me to be much busier then I have ever seen it, even on jeep weekend. I could imagine the lines of people on the slickrock as well as the groups walking their bikes along the trail because they underestimated the terrain.

It is a tough issue. It is really nice to see the businesses doing so well and so many people enjoying that area. On the other hand, it sucks that everything is so crowded. I say let them have Arches, Zion, Moab, Bryce, Deadhorse and Island in the Sky. I'll keep the Maze, the Swells, the Waterpocket Fold.
 
Or even just Capitol Reef. On Saturday of Memorial Day weekend we hiked up to the Fremont Gorge overlook and saw only one other group of two. The next day we went up Cooks/Meeks Mesa and again saw just one other group. On Monday we drove down to Boulder and walked around the top of Durffey Mesa and nobody else was there (very few signs of people at all up there, really).

It's the same thing in the Wasatch -- avoid Donut Falls and Lake Blanche, walk about a mile, and you can be alone all day within a couple miles of a million people.
 
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