
Tourists Heeding Utah’s ‘Mighty 5’ Campaign Overpower Moab - mudil
https://www.wsj.com/articles/tourists-heeding-utahs-mighty-5-campaign-overpower-moab-11568638923?mod=rsswn
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unzadunza
“No more cars in national parks. Let the people walk. Or ride horses,
bicycles, mules, wild pigs--anything--but keep the automobiles and the
motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. We have agreed not to drive
our automobiles into cathedrals, concert halls, art museums, legislative
assemblies, private bedrooms and the other sanctums of our culture; we should
treat our national parks with the same deference, for they, too, are holy
places. An increasingly pagan and hedonistic people (thank God!), we are
learning finally that the forests and mountains and desert canyons are holier
than our churches. Therefore let us behave accordingly.” ― Edward Abbey,
Desert Solitaire

~~~
DavidAdams
They banned cars in Zion National Park about ten years ago, and it was a good
idea. Arches could definitely do the same, but the problem with the Moab area
isn't so much overcrowding of the parks as it is overcrowding of the town,
because one small town serves as the launch pad for so many surrounding areas.

In this case, the solution is to try to develop other areas and spread the
tourists out to other towns, many of which are desperate for economic
development and tourist dollars.

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prawn
I'm a reasonably well travelled Australian (30+ countries, 40ish US states)
and think that Southern Utah has one of the best concentrations of natural
attractions on the planet. I've visited a number of times and would love to
visit at least yearly if I could. I can appreciate that locals detest being
swamped, but should everyone have a chance to visit such unique features for
themselves?

National parks in the US have incredible brand recognition and cachet and I
imagine that this campaign is only part of the story. The big name parks
across most of the country are swamped - Yellowstone, Yosemite, Rocky
Mountain, etc.

I don't know that there's a brilliant solution short of virtual tourism.
Raising prices deters anyone but the rich. Adding carparks just reduces the
magic of the wild. Increasing awareness of the second-tier features or
developing more is an option. Naturally, the crowded experience will push
people to visit outside primetime or peak season.

Absolutely do not be deterred though. As the article suggests, avoid peak
times for the best experience. Get up early. Stay late. You can sleep in at
home. In Moab specifically, loads of people start later than they'd hoped or
concentrate in particular places for sunset or return to the town for dinner.
If you want a meal in town, make it lunch when the light is most stark and the
park is packed. See Delicate Arch at sunrise instead of sunset, as one
example. On this year's trip, we started Devils Garden at 6-7pm and came back
in the dark with headlamps - had an amazing sunset and only saw a handful of
people out there (I wouldn't recommend this to first-time visitors as the
primitive trail can be adventurous to follow).

Outside of the big five, there are outstanding places nearby that are popular
but not completely overrun. Byway 12 is superb, Buckskin Gulch is fantastic,
the slot canyons near Escalante, Coyote Gulch, Goblin Valley, Horseshoe
Canyon, Cedar Breaks, Snow Canyon State Park, Kodachrome Basin, etc. Even in
the big parks, there are top-shelf experiences that most people don't see -
hiking into Canyonlands' The Maze is one of the best things I've ever done,
hiking Trans-Zion is full of premium scenery without huge crowds, Fiery
Furnace in Arches sans-guide is good fun, at Bryce you can get some great
early/late viewing without hordes just by skipping the two main viewpoints.

If you need help with an itinerary, ask away or my email is in my profile.

~~~
arethuza
Why not have a lottery and give non-transferable tickets to US nationals and
have a fixed number of tickets for non-US nationals that are charged for?

[NB I'm not from the US but have been to a few US national parks].

~~~
rjtavares
This should be done more. I was absolutely bummed for not being able to the
see Da Vinci's "The Last Supper", but in hindsight I understand and feel that
is the way to deal with precious places.

At the time, you were required to book ahead, could only stay for 15 minutes,
and the number os visitors was limited (so even in November you had to book
weeks ahead).

~~~
KineticLensman
The Tower of London which houses the Crown Jewels [0] has a conveyor belt /
moving walkway that you have to stand on to see some of the exhibits. It thus
controls access and limits the time you can spend in one of the rooms (I can't
remember if it possible to get back to its start to go round again)

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Jewels_of_the_United_Kin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Jewels_of_the_United_Kingdom)

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grubb
I grew up in Utah and was able to visit Moab many times over the years. It is
a great little town and the sites and things you can reach from it are
awesome. One of my favorite hikes at Arches NP is the Fiery Furnace, which is
permit-controlled. I wonder if requiring permits for more of the sites would
help address these issues?

Of course, I'm also a big supporter of efforts to increase the size of
national parks and monuments in the state as well (despite this
administration's recent efforts). Preserving and regulating more wilderness
would go a long way to hopefully mitigating this overcrowding issue.

~~~
skohan
Fiery furnace is great! I used to drive to Moab every year for Spring Break to
do outdoor sports with some friends from University, and it's a total paradise
for people who want to do anything outdoors.

It's selfish and elitist to say, but I almost feel like it's better if places
like Moab aren't publicized at all, and people just find out about it through
word-of-mouth like I did. It takes some education to properly "leave no trace"
in the back country, and I feel like that sort of works itself out when people
discover the parks largely by being invited by someone who's already in the
fold.

If the parks are going to be a more popular destination for the general
public, then I think it is probably better to have a permit system both to
regulate absolute numbers, and to require people to pass some kind of test or
course about how to be a good citizen inside the park.

~~~
prawn
"It takes some education to properly "leave no trace" in the back country"

This kinda baffles me because it really should take a bare minimum of
consideration. The basic rules are not overly difficult, right? Don't trample
stuff. Dig a hole if shitting in the backcountry. Don't feed animals. Minimise
your impact. Don't walk around playing music at everyone.

Parks have signs everywhere. Clear brochures with obvious info. What makes it
so hard for people to understand and make that tiny amount of effort?

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mirimir
> The tourism onslaught has caused problems all around. On adjoining state
> desert land, Michael Grindstaff recently drove an all-wheel-drive vehicle
> past juniper and pinyon trees that were littered with scraps of toilet
> paper, windblown remnants of unpermitted campers having done their business.

Hey, a use for a national DNA database.

/s

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DavidAdams
Interestingly enough, there's a parallel to the San Francisco housing
shortage.

There are actually many, many more amazing places to see in Southern Utah and
the rest of the Southwest. Only a small number of these places are in national
parks. Like SF housing, an increase in supply would ease overcrowding, but
instead of restrictions on new building because of NIMBYs and misguided
governmental action restricting the supply, it's actually ideological myopia
that's at the root of it.

Utah's largely conservative Republican congressional delegation and state
government pushed to roll back two new national monuments, and vehemently
oppose the development of federal lands for tourism and recreation uses, while
on the other hand are rabid about subsidizing extractive industries that
aren't nearly as important to the local economy.

In both cases, the problem is made worse by ideology. San Francisco housing is
expensive partially because local lawmakers are blind to free market
solutions, and Utah tourism is harmed because local lawmakers are blind to the
idea that public lands being preserved in parks may be the best way to bring
economic development to the state.

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Apocryphon
A preview of the Area 51 flash mob, perhaps.

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rblion
Lived in Utah for a year and saw most everything I wanted to see in that time.
I will go back one day but in the off-season and will alternate between
vandwelling in a van conversion and pay a premium for nice accommodations when
I need it.

A year ago my friend and I drove from SLC to the Tetons to Yellowstone to
Glacier, then over to the PNW and down the coast to the Bay Area. This was
honestly two of the best months in my life, I grew so much as a human being
and expanded my horizons quite a bit just realizing how little I needed to be
happy.

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diebir
There's little evidence that this is due to a campaign. RMNP in Colorado had a
similar jump in number of visits, as well as Yellowstone and the Grand.

The problem is simply too many people, too little wilderness. Unless we stop
growing and put some wild lands off limits (as wilderness), in a few short
years there will be nothing left.

~~~
creato
> The problem is simply too many people, too little wilderness. Unless we stop
> growing and put some wild lands off limits (as wilderness), in a few short
> years there will be nothing left.

National Parks are overcrowded, but they are a tiny, tiny part of all the
public lands. Your complaint is that there are too few places with nice paved
roads and visitor centers and such for people to go, not that there is too
little wilderness.

"in a few short years there will be nothing left" is so comically wrong it's
ridiculous. You're looking at literally the top 5-10 most popular outdoor
areas to go, of course they're crowded.

Even within national parks, as soon as you go more than 1-2 miles away from a
road, you'll see very, very few people.

~~~
ptah
yes! they should fix up infrastructure and steer people to lesser visited
sites

~~~
newnewpdro
This is essentially an argument for more national parks.

I've lived someplace embroiled in controversy over pursuing national park
status. Most the residents are vehemently against it because it would trash
the place and overwhelm it with tourist traffic and all the problems that
brings. The supporters consist a small contingent of profiteering area land
owners that don't even spend any significant time living there. They couldn't
care less about what impact becoming a national park would have on the
environment or the area residents' quality of life. They just saw dollars.

National parks are a double-edged sword. They bring often much-needed tourism
dollars to typicaly economically distressed remote regions. But they do not
improve the environment. They stimulate travel (often by air), pollute the
park area, and damage the natural habitats.

If the goal is to preserve and protect, the last thing you do is classify a
place as a national park and make it easily accessed and comfortable with
infrastructure. You leave the place lacking roads, running water, campgrounds,
and toilets, and certainly don't advertise it as a nationally-recognized place
of beauty.

National parks are more about stimulating the economy than preserving nature,
at least as implemented today.

~~~
overkalix
Commodification of nature. Get in the car, drive for a while, do something for
2 to 4 hours, get back in the car and drive back. In this case the activity
consists of walking, but the summit/lookout/whatever can't be more than 6-7km
away from the road. It has nothing to do with preservation.

Let me share a case I am familiar with. One of my favorite short walks in my
grandparents' town used to be one where you had to walk ~2km through fields,
then a steep ascend of ~4km on a difficult rocky trail, then another ~2km
through a nice pine forest to finally reach a beautiful lookout.

Then someone somewhere decided that it was a good idea to build a paved road
so people didn't have to walk the first 6km.

To the benefit of who? Certainly not the environment: the construction of the
road, polluting cars, garbage, soil erosion at the sides of the road from cars
parking there...

It didn't provide any benefit for the people that walked there. Now you can
hear cars going up and down while you walk. Some places are littered with
waste material from the road's construction, and at some points you actually
have to cross the road.

The people that drive up there also admit that while the place is ideal to go
with kids, it is so crowded that it makes the experience miserable.

Finally, it didn't create a continuous economic revenue for anyone, since the
lands are public and the town doesn't charge any fee. There are only a handful
of shops in town and they have not seen an increase in consumption.

So what was the point of all it? Did we wreck a beautiful mountain and forest
so that a construction company could pocket a few million euros?

~~~
prawn
This might not be the ultimate answer because I think a world with a variety
of experiences is reasonable, but making locations accessible may mean a lot
to those in a wheelchair or unable to walk 6km. Let's say you work yourself to
the bone, retire and then every natural wonder of the world has a lengthy walk
to see it and you have bad knees - that's brutal. Or you have a teenage
daughter unable to walk and you'd love to show her the view you grew up
enjoying yourself. In your example, did the outlook itself change
dramatically?

A lot of national parks have this mix already. You can drive a scenic route.
you can do a short interpretive walk or an accessible trail, or you can do a
half- or full-day hike, or you can get out away from the main trails hiking
100 miles across the park. You can stay in a nearby town, or in the in-park
campground, or hike 5 miles to a backcountry spot with no one around.

But I think accessibility would be one 'point of it all.'

