[at-l] The National Parks: limited vehicle access

[bluetrail at aol.com]

Having seen what private ownership of some site can do to a place, I'm glad that National Parks are public.  But that brings

to mind nother problem:  We're loving some of the parks to death.

I'm not sure what the real solution is to just plain overuse, but I was surprised how much I liked the way things work

in the summer (high season) in Zion NP.  Unless you are staying at the lodge, you park your vehicle outside the park and 

take the park bus along the roads.

Inside the park, there was VERY little parking space, so parking would have been a nightmare.  We're talking road rage

nightmare.

The buses came by about every 15 minutes.  They were clean and busy but never packed.  Most of the drivers would point 

out interesting things

along the way--an ancient grainery high overhead, climbers on the opposite mountain, etc.  The buses stopped at every

possible point on the short road, so it was easy to access trails, interesting sites, ranger talks, etc.

Frankly, after my experience at Zion and at Yosemite, I'm thinking that the Yosemite valley could use a similar system.

YMMV, obviously.

Joan



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