Out of the Wilderness

There's an article in The Economist about the decline in visitors to US National Parks. They give several reasons including competition from cities for tourism and conservationists attempts to reduce impacts on local ecology. The point of the article seems to be that if conservationist manage to thwart all efforts to upgrade park infrastructure (e.g. nicer hotel accomodations and new campsites), Americans will stop going and eventually stop supporting the parks through taxes.

I'm not sure where the right balance lies between protecting the parks and providing access and amenities that make them more enjoyable for more people. I recently noticed for the first time on a hike up Card Canyon that fire roads provide pretty good access for ATVs and 4WD vehicles in the Cache National Forest. One the one hand, it kind of takes away from the hike when you're left in the dust of a dirt bike and realize you aren't as remote as you thought you were. On the other hand, I realized that if my dad made it out in June/July, I would be able to take him into meadows of wildflowers.

BTW, the Card Canyon Hike was on in late June. The Mountain Bluebells were at their peak. On the east side of the loop, we walked through waist high stands of them. The east side trail was also a bit overgrown, but still easy to follow. At the pond (misquito pool), just make sure to walk left toward a dead tree that currently has a pink marker flag.