Do we need wi-fi in the National Parks?

[Drew Wiley]

The fact is, that exactly three Parks in the West are the cash cows that finance much of the entire system, namely, Yosemite Valley, Jellystone, and the south rim
of the Grand. Therefore they encourage a LOT of tourism to these three destinations, and want all the amenities of what these places represent in peak season.
Yos Valley is in fact a city of up to 30,000 people on a typical summer weekend. Which is why I avoid it. Why wouldn't I, when there are entire chunks of backcounty even within that same Park jurisdiction where one might hike for a week with only 50/50 odds of even seeing another person? I spent two week last
months in the Wind Rivers, where I had a stunning campsite right beside the river on a meadow at big as Tuolumne Mdws, with no one in the entire thing other
than us. Why the hell would I want to drive into Yellowstone stuck behind 500 cars? I did stock briefly at Jackson on the way home, then headed the OPPOSITE
direction. No traffic, fabulous scenery. When I deliberately go to Jellystone, it's on the edge of off-season, just like Zion, or Yos, or GC.... which also seems to
be when things are the most beautiful anyway. But there is this tension in the highly popular parks to compromise between an outdoor experience and something
more akin to a full-featured theme park. As kids we appropriately nicknamed Yosemite as "Curry National Park" for the concessionaire that seemed to dictate
policy there. The Ken Burns NP documentary series on the NP's is really informative for the history behind all this tension. Fortunately, there are still lots of
Parks where solitude is abundant, even close to the road. One of the most heavily visited NP areas in the nation is right across the bridge - Pt Reyes and the
Golden Gate area ... and even there I can find solitude any day of the year. 95% of the people always go to only 5% of the places, no matter which area is in
consideration. But I was annoyed last Saturday on one of the local trails when some jogger trotted past my Norma & Ries not only wearing one of those idiotic
wristbands that allegedly tells you how many calories you are burning, but audibly broadcast it. Never encountered it before. If he's too stupid to know whether
he is getting exercise of not that's his problem. But I don't need to hear from his silly techie toy.

[Jac@stafford.net]

My vision of a sustainable future is huge dome cities, keeping everybody inside, unless they want to walk anywhere else. Underground gravity trains between 'igloos' and only farms, woods and raw nature everywhere else.

Arcosanti? https://arcosanti.org/sites/default/...IM-62-J300.jpg

[Vaughn]

Well, following someone else's wording somewhere back in the past, these major National Sacraficial Areas are there to attract the masses, generate income and bigger budgets so that the rest of the wilderness is left alone. And perhaps a chance to do a little propaganda stuff for the environment in general. And talk about propaganda, I mean park interpretation opportunties! Educational content available tailored to specific locations on the nature trails and vehicle tours. Just put in fiber optics under the roadway...no extra visible infrastructure -- and it slows down traffic so people can enjoy the park scenery even more!

But actually, I think this whole thing is just so that Park and concessioneer employees can download porn, I mean games, I mean data faster.

(some satire died for this post)

[Tin Can]

I like the North woods about this time. Nobody there and since it is heavily wooded, it is easy to get lost in very little time. I get pissed if I see an airplane.

Summer madness is over, snowmobile Hell has not started, not gun hunting season, however bow is on now, no problem. Leaves have dropped. Nobody home.

I have often felt more isolated camping in empty parks in the North than the middle of the Mojave, where you can see them coming for 10 miles. I suppose mountains can be great, but I never could climb for long. Solo Free climb 300 feet in my youth was it. Still proud of that. Nobody had done it on that face in 1970. I wasn't a climber. I saw the route and went, my buddy froze way below me and I had to go back down which wasn't fun and then talk him up. I was real worried about him. Another friend was found dead on the bottom...

A lot of my male friends died before 21, I never thought I would live to 21. I am on borrowed time.

[Vaughn]

Working on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, it was easy enough to find ways to get away from tourists. And having spending a lot of time in Yosemite Valley ('off' season), it is easy to get away from people there, too...even without the Pass or Glacier Point being open.

I have a National Park (and its adjacent State Redwood Parks) almost in my backyard, so I am a bit spoiled. Easy enough to find solitude within minutes from one's car (a 50 mile drive north from home). Took a couple senior portraits of my boys (5x7, TMax400) this past Sunday up there. There are no park entry stations, no day-use fees except the Gold Bluff Beach/Fern Canyon area (State), and no wi-fi for sure.

[Tin Can]

Arcosanti? https://arcosanti.org/sites/default/...IM-62-J300.jpg

Been there. A failed materialization. I couldn't believe how poorly it was designed and constructed.

We don't have dome tech yet, nor gravity train tech.

Maybe in 500 years, but we need it sooner.

[Preston]

People are already more in the net than in the real world if you give them internet access in the parks they won't look at Nature but at an image of nature on a screen and that right next to the real deal.

I think it was Steve Roper, a long-time Yosemite climber, who said, "People would sit at the amphitheater at Yosemite Lodge and watch movies of Yosemite Falls, rather than walk the 1/2 mile to experience directly the spray from the second highest waterfall on Earth."

So, society hasn't changed much since the 60's; only the means by which they choose to connect to the world. Personally, I prefer spray in my face on a Spring morning.

--P

[Drew Wiley]

Literally one yard outside the fence to the main official entrance to Zion NP in Springdale there's an IMax theater where you can "see the park". I wouldn't mind
that kind of thing if it were forty miles out of town.... Anyway, drive past it five minutes, ignore all the signs to the favorite sights, and there's a lovely highly photogenic little side canyon with exactly zero people in it. Popular trails, along with tour guides and trail guides have a useful purpose: they inform you where not to go. Otherwise, let nature take its course. My favorite time ever in Yos Valley was one Jan when it snowed so hard cars could get neither in or out for three days.

[Drew Wiley]

Vaughn - you'd get a kick out of this. When "TARP" money was getting spread around, the city decided to resurface several main streets leading toward City Hall etc. Having accomplished that, they decided to use the next installment to modernize things with fiber optics to the same hub. So the brand new streets get all chewed up all over again, but in a linear gopher-hole pattern, which naturally settled into a regular pattern of giant chuckholes all up and down the new boulevards. Given the choice between what badgers and ground squirrels do to topography and what humans engineers do, I have come to the opinion that rodents and furry carnivores are a lot smarter than we are.

[Jmarmck]

Well they can "dome" this #%^@hole. If only to keep the bad in.

Just let me escape first.