The books for the trip arrived. I had planned on putting off booking/planning most of the camping until I received National Geographic’s “Guide to the National Parks”. All of the reviews on Amazon said that this book was incredibly helpful, so perhaps my expectations were a bit inflated. This book would be better named “A Guide to Driving Through the National Parks”. Seriously. It lists, in loving detail, the best DRIVES through each park, including such snippets as “If you have time, the 0.8 mi trail to Asymmetric Poop Spire is lovely”, but mostly ignores even the most popular hikes. Of the campgrounds, it has merely a passing mention (as in “oh yeah, there are a few campgrounds here, but seriously? You need to get a hotel room or something, Missy Penny-Pinches O’lot. Can’t have you stinking up all of nature, now go take a shower.”)
I know, perhaps I was expecting too much. In his fabulously entertaining book A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson(incidentally, one of my favorite authors) mentions that only 3% of visitors to Shenandoah National Park go more than a few yards into the “backcountry”. If you were a writer, why on earth would you pitch a book for that measly 3% when there is that lovely 97% with their lovely discretionary income? Clearly, this calls for investigation.
The two most visited parks last year were Blue Ridge Parkway (which you drive along) in North Carolina and Virginia and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (in which you drive over a large bridge) in California with each hosting more than 15 million visitors. Overall, national parks attendance increased from 200 million in 1979 to almost 300 million at a high in 1999. Last year, that number was 285 million people.
However, finding actual stats on the number of visitors who drive up, have a look around, take a pee in the Visitors Center and drive off again versus those that actually go somewhere (on foot, gasp!) is very difficult. One article assessing leisure activities in national parks cites: “The 10% of respondents (to the study) who said that they did not go outdoors for recreation generally were poor, unmarried, old, or physically or mentally disabled.” Glad to know I’m in such good company. So where does one draw the line for “backcountry” use? Does the person who completes an immensely popular 0.5 mile loop count? What if you do 7 miles, but also on a very popular, maintained trail? Does that count?
One of the best articles I found, on linear regression models of attendance related to weather in Austrian National Parks stated this: “The regression trees based on meteorological data and the day of the week also work well for daily totals and bikers, slightly less so for hikers. The model quality was again much worse for smaller visitor groups as dog walkers and joggers. The most elaborate relationship between meteorological data and visitor numbers was found for hikers, whereas joggers appear to be completely oblivious to weather.” I know this has nothing to do with the matter at hand, but I found it amusing that the word “oblivious” would show up in the abstract. And this post is risking become thought-provoking and preachy, so I’ll just stop here.
In any case, it looks as if I’ll be using my gift certificate to Barnes and Noble (thanks, SVECCS!) to buy some books on day hikes.
