Wilderness
Nature is terrifying. It is especially so if only a few feet from where you’re standing the ground suddenly drops hundreds of feet onto an array of oddly shaped rocks. I can imagine that being a parent and having several rambunctious kids running around a canyon rim with only a slim railing standing between them and a terrifying fall can be a little nerve racking. Considering this, I wonder if the parents of the Bryce Canyon tourists enjoyed themselves as they were visiting since I saw quite a few who may have never taken their eyes off their kids in order to look at the landscape. One mother barely paused to have her picture taken at an overlook, and while she did, the kids immediately began playing in their newly found freedom. The daughter, bored, ran past the son and touched him, initiating a game of tag. When both of them whizzed past the mother, she gasped loudly and immediately began scolding them. “Don’t do that! That scares me!” She then rounded the two up and squatted beside them, “This is not a playground. You do not play here, it’s dangerous. If you don’t behave we won’t go to play putt-putt later.” The kids shuffled their feet around the overlook for a few more minutes and then forced a smile for a family portrait before leaving.
As humans have invented and revolutionized technology, nature has transformed from an interior part of life to an exterior, from an opposition to a vacation.
The mother was right, nature isn’t a playground, and it can be dangerous. Humans afraid of nature is nothing new. In fact, what is new is humans being inspired and seeking out nature as a source of beauty. Humans, with the exception of modern history, have always been involved and competing with nature to survive. American environmental history is one long story about humans attempting to overcome nature, to survive harsh winters and unfavorable environments, and to avoid diseases, storms, and dangerous animals. It is only in recent history that humans have successfully distanced themselves from the dangers of nature. Today we stay inside and gaze out of our locked windows upon a nature that in reality is a “poor apology for a Nature and Art, which I call my front-yard.” Humans view nature as an exteriority, and even refer to it as “outside.” According to Walter Benjamin, the masses desire to get closer to that which is distanced, the other, and so humans are now going in search for wilderness for fun and leisure in the form of nature tourism. As humans have invented and revolutionized technology, nature has transformed from an interior part of life to an exterior, from an opposition to a vacation.
Modernity has simultaneously safeguarded humans from the dangers of nature and has put nature in danger of overproduction and industrialization. Since 1872, National parks have served the greater community by preserving and protecting select areas of exceptional natural beauty. The NPS’ mission statement states:
The National Park Service preserves unimpaired the natural and cultural resources and values of the national park system for the enjoyment, education, and inspiration of this and future generations. The Park Service cooperates with partners to extend the benefits of natural and cultural resource conservation and outdoor recreation throughout this country and the world.
Within their mission statement, the NPS has created a paradox: “to preserve unimpaired the natural and cultural resources … for the enjoyment … of this and future generations.” National parks attempt to preserve the pristine corners of American wilderness while, at the same time, making it accessible to the masses. If only Woodrow Wilson knew when he signed the Act creating the NPS that by 2014 there would be 292,800,082 people stomping their feet, spinning their tires, plucking flowers for souvenirs, and throwing their trash in the places the NPS is trying to preserve. It didn’t take long for the crowds to make an impact on the national park wilderness. By 1926, for example, several newly accessible geysers in Yellowstone National Park had been damaged or destroyed by tourists throwing rocks or trash into their openings. What was once a problem in 1926 is now becoming an escalated problem of proportions through the popularity and accessibility of national parks vis-a-vi automobiles.
In places like Yosemite Valley, automobile traffic has caused major problems such as congestion and pollution that have degraded the natural environment as well as the tourist’s experience. Roads and other constructed influences in national parks are all a part of what Edward Abbey would call “industrial tourism.” The construction of roads and other built influences have a negative effect on the environments that national parks are trying to protect, but they also take their toll on the touristic experience:
Industrial tourism is a threat to the national parks. But the chief victims of the system are the motorized tourists. They are being robbed and robbing themselves. So long as they are unwilling to crawl out of their cars they will not discover the treasures of the national parks and will never escape the stress and turmoil of the urban-suburban complexes which they had hoped, presumably, to leave behind for a while.
Once tourists arrive at national parks that are often in some of the most remote corners of the United States they often remain distanced from the nature that they sought out by remaining in their cars. The majority of Bryce Canyon visitors only participate in a scenic drive through the park. The same is also true for many parks, especially ones with major highways constructed through them. Parks, such as Badlands National Park, have roads constructed in a loop so that the tourist can drive through the park, to encounter what seems like a total experience, the loop, however, leading them back on the road to the comfort of their prepaid hotel reservation.
It is hard to experience natural wonders from inside a moving box with only a few glass rectangles to witness the outside world. On our visits to the parks, I would ask Dad to drive, and he would always drive at least ten miles per hour slower than the posted speed limit. Even at this slower speed, the scenery still passed by too quickly to fully experience. I would occasionally stick my head out of the window in order to get an unobstructed view, which I’m sure looked strange to the growing line of cars behind us. Experiencing a national park from the confines of an automobile is limiting compared to a walking tourist who “will see more, feel more, enjoy more in one mile than the motorized tourist can in a hundred miles.” In contrast, by walking a park instead of driving, a tourist will “multiply the area of our national parks tenfold, or a hundredfold.”
What some saw as a problem of preservation, Stephen Mather, the first director of the NPS, saw as an opportunity. Mather embraced the national park paradox, believing that in order to keep and preserve the parks, the NPS must bring the people there. Mather fully embodied the mission to make the national parks more accessible to this and future generations by taking advantage of the growing automobile culture in the United States in the early 20th century. He instituted a plan that would have at least one highway constructed through each national park, allowing visitors the ease of driving to and through the national parks. Under this plan, the Zion-Mount Carmel Road was designed and implemented, bringing the public into the once inaccessible and treacherous Zion Canyon.
Tourists hope to enjoy nature, but they must respect the parts of nature that are void of humans, the wilderness.
Mather’s plan was an ambitious one as the terrain of the greater Zion area is anything but amenable to human construction. In order to reach the main attraction of Zion Canyon, workers had to blast, drill, and bore their way through ancient sand dunes, canyon walls, and mountainsides. After three years of construction, the Zion-Mount Carmel Road was completed including a mile long tunnel carved through the canyon wall and another mile of switchbacks that dissected the once pristine landscape. Once completed, automobile traffic inside the canyon increased rapidly. Tour buses were quickly replaced by private automobiles which created so much traffic during the summer that the park became a virtual parking lot. Until the NPS implemented a shuttle system and restricted vehicle traffic to many parts of the park, pollution was a serious problem. The canyon walls retained the exhaust from vehicles and along with the stifling summer heat created a hot and muggy atmosphere that had an impact on the environment as well as the tourist experience.
The Zion-Mount Carmel Road was part of a greater scheme to bring Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon National Parks together in what is called the “Grand Circle” by connecting them with a series of highways. As envisioned by Mather, this allowed tourists to easily see multiple national parks. Though engaging in what I am criticizing, Dad and I decided to take advantage of this one morning while we were camping at Bryce Canyon. We left the camper and our gear behind and within an hour we were approaching Zion along the Zion-Mount Carmel Road. Once again, Dad drove as we got closer to the park, and as we did, the landscape became more and more dramatic. I was constantly pointing out features, such as rock formations, telling Dad to look as he tried to navigate a sharp, banked curve. However, by the time he could look, the formation was already out of view. Unfortunately, even driving at this slower pace I had not accomplished looking at the passing views either and around each turn there was a new landscape to observe. We came to the entrance of the mile long tunnel and as we sat waiting in a long line of cars for our turn to enter the canyon wall, we noticed a trail head to the right of the road. We agreed that going on a short hike would be better than sitting in traffic and would give time for the congestion to clear, so Dad worked the car off the road into a small parking lot.
The hike took us up the side of a cliff, and eventually we were looking down on the line of cars where we were only minutes before. The trail took a turn in a few more yards, and the road disappeared. The further we walked, the hum of the car engines became more distant and eventually silent. As a result, we became immersed in nature. We had to duck under cliff hangings where the air was cold and damp. We climbed over tree roots that stretched at least 20 feet away from the trunk of the tree, soaking up any water within its grand reach. There was a family of big horn sheep climbing the adjacent cliff to where we hiked, a few of them jumping from ledge to ledge and some gnawing on the thin leaves of desert shrubs. When we reached the trail’s pinnacle, the narrow walls opened up into a grand view of Zion Canyon.
To the left, we could see the road winding down the canyon wall, tiny cars slowly pacing back and forth. The road was miniscule within the enormous canyon, only a sliver of construction in the vastness of wilderness. From this view the extent of the park was incredible even though we were looking onto only a small portion of the park, the part actually accessible to tourists. Zion National Park consists of 146,597 acres, and in 2009 President Obama employed the Wilderness Act to designate 124,406 of those acres as Wilderness. The Wilderness Act of 1964 claims that such a place “in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.” This means that 85% of Zion’s natural landscape is untouched by human intervention and is only accessible by foot. The infrastructure that makes up the tourist’s built experience is confined to only a small fraction of the park, leaving the rest untouched.
From this view the extent of the park was incredible even though we were looking onto only a small portion of the park, the part actually accessible to tourists.
Mather dealt with the national parks paradox by making the parks accessible through building infrastructure, but limiting human influence to only a small part of the park, preserving the rest and leaving it in pristine condition. Modern citizens still desire to reconnect with nature, nature that is furthest from the norm, immaculate, and unfamiliar. National parks effectively serve the function of allowing tourists the means to experience this nature while keeping the environment intact and safe for the next generation of tourists who will undoubtedly be even further distanced from nature.
To truly experience and appreciate the nature that tourists travel so far to witness, they must leave the comforts of modernity brought along with them, put their feet on the ground, expand their field of view, and make a conscious effort to interact with the beauty that surrounds them. While tourists interact with nature along side roads and down paved paths, national parks must leave the rest unimpaired and allow for wilderness to grow and flourish without human intervention. National parks are cursed with the paradox of allowing tourists the means to experience this nature while keeping the environment intact and safe for the next generation of tourists who will undoubtedly be even further distanced from nature. However, Mather’s grand plan effectively provided tourists the means to experience nature and in addition to the use of the Wilderness Act much of the parks are preserved and free of human intervention. National parks solve the paradox by compromising, making a small portion of the park accessible to the public while allowing the rest of the wilderness to flourish without human interaction. Human immersion in nature is not a bad thing and is even important for humans to reconnect with an important part of who they are, however, intervention in the form of infrastructure must be kept to a minimal. Tourists hope to enjoy nature, but they must respect the parts of nature that are void of humans, the wilderness. Even with human intervention, nature will continue to be the dangerous and destructive force that civilization works to overcome.
The next day back at Bryce Canyon, I joined a predominantly older crowd who was sitting on benches listening to a park ranger recite a “geology talk.” Most of the people weren’t listening but rather just needed a place to sit and rest. However, the ranger’s story grabbed my attention. He spoke of a small peaceful river that flows just west of Bryce Canyon called East Fork Sevier River. The river has no current effect on the canyon, and in fact the scenery does not remotely resemble the canyon that is only a few hundred yards away. Bryce Canyon is continuously eroding, inching further and further west every year towards the river. One day the canyon rim will reach the river’s flow and the water will begin to cascade into the depths of the canyon. The erosion process will eventually be expedited and what took millions of years to be formed will be destroyed in a matter of years. As a result of the erosion, the beautiful landscape of Bryce Canyon will have disappeared. No intervention can stop this process. Humans can build infrastructure to make nature accessible and to share it for other’s “enjoyment, education, and inspiration,” however, national parks must be careful not to manipulate the natural landscape for the sake of the tourist. National parks facilitate the tourist’s ability to immerse themselves within nature by building infrastructure and creating areas in which people observe and experience; however, they must ensure that parts of the national park remain untouched in order to respect the natural environment humans belong to. Experience within intervention is not harmful if it allows nature to continue to flow, like the East Fork Sevier River. Nature is dangerous, even to itself. The erosion of Bryce Canyon is simply an exercise of nature’s destructive force that even humans cannot overcome.
