Why the declining interest in backcountry travel in the National Park System?/Bob Mishak
Glance through National Park System visitation statistics for a few years, and some puzzling numbers surface. For example: Doesn't anyone like to backpack anymore.
Ok, that was a little hyperbole. There are still a lot of backpackers in the National Park System. Just not as many as there were when Baby Boomers were coming of age.
Overall visitation to the parks in 2014 reached a record 292.8 million. But surprisingly few of those visitors spent a night -- whether in tent, on a boat, or in a lodge -- in the parks.
According to National Park Service statisticians, of those nearly 293 million who came to the parks last year, just 14.1 million stayed overnight. While that's up from the 13.5 million who spent at a night in 2013 -- that year visitation was significantly depressed by the partial government shutdown that closed most park units for 16 days -- it's slightly down from 2012 levels, when 14.3 million visitors stayed the night.
As for backcountry use, in 2014 the Park Service tallied 1.9 million overnight stays, while in 2013 there were 1.7 million, and in 2012 1.8 million. While those numbers seem bullish, they are quite a bit down from the late '70s and early '80s, when a good number of the Baby Boom generation was fit, able, and determined to see -- and sleep in -- the outdoors.
According to the Park Service, in 1979 there were almost 2.4 million backcountry travelers in the parks, or roughly 500,000 more than last year. In 1980, the number again approached 2.4 million.
Why the drop in backcountry camping, at a time when individualism is still going strong, when The North Face is seen on Broadway about as often as it is on the North Rim? That's the $64 million question.
"The NPS stats system just collects the 'how many' part of the equation - we have very little on 'why' except when there are major events, such as closings, re-openings, etc.," says Pam Ziesler, who works with the Park Service's Visitor Use Statistics Program.
Could it be related to fees charged at some national parks for backcountry access? While the small fees charged by some parks might not seem to be an impediment, access to U.S. Forest Service backcountry sites is free, says Kitty Benzar of the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition, and that might be draining some backpackers away from the parks.
Unfortunately, the Forest Service doesn't track backcountry usage like the Park Service does, and so has no easily obtained data that might indicate whether there has been an exodus of backpackers from park lands to forest lands.
Have those fees led you to vistas outside the National Park System?
Comments
It is not just demographics. Rather, it is what young people today are taught. In the 1970s, the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara was going gangbusters under the direction of Roderick Nash, et al. The most popular cross-over course was American Environmental History. Professor Nash taught wilderness and the students loved it. After all, it was his book. Hundreds of students annually were inspired by WILDERNESS AND THE AMERICAN MIND, backpacking anything within a day's drive of Santa Barbara, especially Sequoia and Yosemite National Parks.
Who is teaching wilderness that way today? Very few in the academic scene. Add to that the cost of college education. In 1971, the UC system was FREE. I had a teaching assistantship that paid ALL of the bills. Try that today with 10 administrators for every member of the teaching faculty--and two-thirds of the faculy teaching part-time without retirement or medical benefits.
You want to know where the backpackers have gone? To the poorhouse. You want to know where wilderness has gone on college campuses? To the guilt house. American exceptionalism is forever questioned, and it takes the teaching of exceptionalism to believe in wilderness--to believe in parks.
The 1970s were a heady time in American higher education--and it was reflected in the parks. I run out of fingers and toes listing all of my students who went into the Park Service, Forest Service, California State Parks, and related agencies.
Now, it's all about the "front-country" again. You saw what the concessionaires said the other day. Give us more "opportunities," i.e., profit centers. That means more roads and development.
Protected wilderness has always meant an active citizenry willing to stay informed. Ask then how young people are being informed--not how "many" in each group there are. In the 1970s, wilderness was a riveting subject on college campuses, and so the backcountry filled. Substitute that for a "new" curriculum and today's cost of a college education, and you see what is missing--opportunity, and with opportunity the idealism to believe in wilderness as a common good.
I think the backpacking bug gets imbedded well before college. Certainly was for me. I have to wonder whether the decline in the participation in the Boy Scouts hasn't had some influence.
The statute of limitations for ad hominem comments by King George calling the colonists a ' rabble' has likely expired.
One major item is the not just the absence of income, but also the absence of free time. Yet, the numbers of through hikers on the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail are increasing.
I contend that if the US citizen were to be alllowed the same amount of vacation time as is enjoyed by most citizens of the countries of Europe, we'd see a lot more people using backpacking as a form of personal recreation.
One major item is the not just the absence of income, but also the absence of free time. Yet, the numbers of through hikers on the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail are increasing.
I contend that if the US citizen were to be alllowed the same amount of vacation time as is enjoyed by most citizens of the countries of Europe, we'd see a lot more people using backpacking as a form of personal recreation.
A very good point, EC. Scouting is also down. And family vacations lasting more than two weeks. Today, the average American vacation is 4.1 nights, which, 20 years ago, led to a blistering editorial in Conde Nast Traveler that we Americans were out of our minds. I use one of the quotes in Trains of Discovery:
The decimalization of the American vacation into 4.1 nights will be regarded by Europeans as further evidence of cultural collapse. . . Americans have tragically deserted the most heroic dimension of their own continent: size. With many other Europeans, I feel that Americans are strangers to their own country in a way that no European can be. One reason is the demise of the American railroad.
Clive Irving, Condé Nast Traveler, September 1992
Nor is it just the demise of the railroad. It is also the demise of TIME. You need it to see wilderness properly; now everyone is watching a clock.
I see that we're on the same page, Owen. You bet. Americans may play hard, but we don't play long enough. Those taking the Pacific Crest and Appalachian Trails are in the pursuit of life-changing experiences. We should all do that at least once. . .
There is as much time as ever. It is just a matter of how chooses to use it. I certainly am not one that is going to take away that choice.