Dear god, pie holes are everywhere....sigh

[Drew Wiley]

Those aren't Californians, Garrett, but probably LA people. We don't like them up here either. As you might have already noticed, they all have little empty flasks
so that they can steal the last drops of water out of the Colorado River. Even a big TV star got caught stealing water. But how many people living in Arizona came
from Arizona? I got cussed at by some jerk at a gas station in our mountains one day telling me to go back to the city. Well, I actually came from there, while he
still had a Brooklyn accent. That's when I started talking fluent redneck to him. He got the point and moved on.

[Jmarmck]

Perhaps we can pray for rain to erase the tracks. It will take a lot of prayer. Now that bit of poor humor is now past (sorry) with any luck the idiots will be found and punished. There seems to be a rash of this lately or at least well publicized. But what I don't understand is how people can get so riled up over this yet remain silent about proposed mining and logging in many areas of our treasured lands, Grand Canyon region comes to mind.

[Drew Wiley]

It's become a fad, even fashionable. An extension of the "street art" mentality. You should see what's happened all over the GGNRA, everything in sight spray painted, even back on the trails. It used to be just a couple of spots that had a problem. But Marty, what's the difference - the K. Brothers want to run roads in and
potentially trash things way, while the idiots break off delicate rock formations or paint them - destroyed either way. This is public land, protected for the sake of
certain distinct features, so the only logical policy is one of zero tolerance for vandalism, regardless of who is doing it or why.

[Drew Wiley]

... or let me phrase it another way. A number of years ago there was a particularly lovely riparian canyon outside Moab Utah which was a bone of contention between roadless preservation status and local miners, who then tried to bulldoze a road into to deliberately disqualify it for wilderness status. That was stopped
a ways in by public protest. But the strange thing is that numerous canyons around there have suffered far more damage by being loved to death by trail bikers
and careless hikers. The more popular a spot is, and the more people you get, the more cumulative damage if rules aren't in place and enforced. Then eventually you outright attract a ruin-it for fun culture, just like has happened in much of our Calif deserts and right outside Capitol Reef NP in Utah from ATV's. These are delicate places which will bear the scars for centuries.

[Bruce Watson]

...what I don't understand is how people can get so riled up over this yet remain silent about proposed mining and logging in many areas of our treasured lands, Grand Canyon region comes to mind.

That, and global warming. Global warming is currently reshaping the planet while we do next to nothing. Do we really have to wait until the last coastal redwoods die before we act? Do the Everglades have to be completely subsumed by the ocean before we get a clue?

How can landscape photographers not have global warming as a major priority? How can anyone who supports the National Parks not see the dire consequences of our current lack of action?

[Tin Can]

Everything west of Denver should be depopulated, ban all transport of any kind. Including airplanes, trains and automobiles. Walk in camping only.

No mining, farming or domestic animals.

We in the East need you all to come back and pay taxes.

Free the West!


From themselves.


Almost kidding!

I am glad I traveled when I was young as it sounds terrible now. I almost wanted to get a camper this year and wander until I looked on online at all the people doing it now. There are many living in Sprinters! And complaining about parking.

[Jmarmck]

Capitol Reef NP and Grand Staircase-Escalante NM are next on my bucket list. As well as a return trip to Kodachrome Valley and Bryce. I've been doing some research on this region. It is sad to think that these places are at danger. I think it is time for the NP and FS to develop new policies. Much as I would hate the restricted access, perhaps that is what is needed.

As for the K bros. well I really really really (did I not say really) am upset about their plans.....as well as the recent changes to the GCNP endorsed by the NPS. I would say it would be nice if the Navajo would take ownership of these lands. They seem to have a greater respect for the land but have the least capability to manage it. Perhaps there is an answer in there somewhere. The Monument Valley region does have uranium mines in the vicinity on Navajo lands (Oljato and Yazzie Mesas to name just two of many). The feds stepped into clean up these old sites.

There are differences between some idiot wanting to leave a mark and a greed ridden industry. The results are the same. The degree of damage is different by orders of magnitude.

[Drew Wiley]

Randy, there are still endless nice places to travel to and see in the West. 95% of the people crowd into just 5% of Park places, or maybe way less than that amount of area. What I recommend is studying up on all the "must see" tour bus and photography locations, look at all the postcards and websites, then go the opposite direction, to somewhere else. Works every time. Preservation of public lands is working, but this has always been an uphill fight every step of the way. Climate change is a different issue. It's probably way too late to stop that train from colliding. It's happening before our eyes. The canary in the coal mine has been dead for awhile already, and the world is unquestionably going to look and feel very different to following generations.

[Two23]

1. Randy, there are still endless nice places to travel to and see in the West. 95% of the people crowd into just 5% of Park places, or maybe way less than that amount of area.

2. Climate change is a different issue.

1. I don't spend a lot of time in big parks--there's so much BLM and even private land around that I can have all to myself. Last year I wanted to go photo the chaos of the motorcycle rally in Sturgis and decided to just sleep in my van. Plan was to park in a Walmart parking lot for free. All along the Interstate it was very crowded for many miles. The Walmart parking lot I had in mind was jammed with noisy drunken people. So, I simply drove north into Butte County, a desolate area I knew well from previous antelope hunting. I drove into a huge state hunting area and had several square miles all to myself. A bonus was a beautiful sunrise I enjoyed while cooking myself a little breakfast on a backpacking stove.

2. Pretty much my thinking, and I partly blame overzealous/emotional "environmentalists." In the early 1980s we had a chance to build zero carbon emissions power plants and replace all the coal plants, but we didn't. Stopped by uneducated "environmentalists*" that really didn't understand the engineering or science, or the ultimate stakes.


Kent in SD
*certainly not all of
them in that category.

[Drew Wiley]

I already mentioned this on another thread. But I recently spent two weeks in Yosemite Natl Park. People instantly assume what that implies because they don't
actually know much of the Park at all. I was even on upper branches of the Merced River, the same river that flows right through Yosemite Valley. We encountered
people only once the first week, and that was a small CC trail crew trying to make a steep section of trail horse accessible. After that, nobody else for another week, until we finally ran into a few coming over the pass. At one gorgeous lake it was over an hour before I spotted any evidence that human beings had ever
been there before, and that was about an inch-long piece of rotting string in the grass. That was it the next two lakes too, except for obsidian chips left behind by ancient bighorn sheep hunters. Of course people get through these places time to time. No secret. It's just not enough of them to leave traces. Vandalism simply spoils that sense of solitude entirely. You're no longer "discovering" something new. It's not the same kind of break from day to day insanity. I've gotten the same kind of refreshment in crowded spots like Arches NP simply by heading down some draw the opposite direction from all the tourist. No one in sight, no noise, complete solitude, not even any footprints, and no lack of wonderful picture opportunities. Last time I was backpacking in Sequoia high country, the wilderness ranger who issued the permit requested that we remember to pick up our "micro-trash" whenever we moved camp. I'd never heard that expression
before, but certainly agree with it. Not a trace, if possible.