The Grand Tetons

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Then again—-after talking with the rangers in the Grand Tetons—we are also aware of the sheer futility of trying to maintain our National Park System in the old ways. Thanks to population pressure and our society's increased mobility, it just can't be done. When we visited the Grand Tetons in late June, use of the park was already running 50% higher than it had the year before . . . and the use-rate was still climbing.

The problem, it seems to us, is the very language with which the National Park System was established. Something about "preserving the parks for the use of all the people". That was a noble sentiment 100 years ago when the first National Park (Yellowstone) was established . . . but living up to that single phrase has become an impossible task today. There's just too many of us now: if we let all the people in, there's no such thing as preserving and—conversely—preserving the beauty of the land automatically means excluding all the people and their trail bikes, campers, pup tents, dogs, kids and cotton candy. And those people (including you and me) must be excluded to some extent or their very pressure will shortly destroy our priceless wilderness heritage for all time.

To sum up, then, while we cannot agree with the decisions (pressure over preservation) that Mr. Hartzog seems to be making, we can sympathize with the man. Thanks to our national lack of planning, in the areas of population and land use . . . and our insane idea that a constantly increasing consumption of natural resources is somehow "good", we've forced Mr. Hartzog and the NPS to come up with answers to questions that should never have been asked in the first place. To a large extent, Hartzog is in the same bind that we're all now in . . . and trying to work our way out of. The question is: will he—and we—make it in time?

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