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So what is the relevance of the National Park backcountry figures? Is it just to prove that the number of people who are able and willing to hike to campsites is a small fraction of the population? Is the whole purpose of Wilderness designations to give this group more play area, and to limit...

Which 'closure list' are you talking about? Pictures like this are an appeal to emotions, without providing information that helps us understand the details. Maps and links to the relevant legislation are more useful. There was a post earlier in this thread about getting in a visit to the...

Sounds like your real beef is with the California Desert Protection Act of 1994, not with Wilderness legislation in general. Apart from the issue of backroads access, how have these areas fared in the past 15 years? Some articles (from a fews ago) mention ongoing development pressures around...

Of that 274 M visits, only 61M are in NParks (as opposed to parkways, memorials, rec areas, etc) How would these figures change if the park service changed the backcountry access rules? For one thing, how much backcountry area is closed to wheeled transport purely on administrative grounds, as...

Maybe they'll keep both on hand; tracks for the ice and snow; tires for summer. If they are trying to simulate Mars, they may have chosen an area that was dry and gravelly, rather than soft tundra. Is that picture of the old one taken at the northern site?

Update on this http://www.marsonearth.org/2009/04/northwest_passage_drive_expedi.html The crew and the truck will be flown by C130 to the Arctic coast within the next few days. Just like the skiing team on another thread, they will be measuring ice thickness. Regarding the tires, they are...

http://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?parkId=297&projectId=23311 Elsewhere they break it down: More on Death Valley drives http://www.desertusa.com/dv/du_dvptodo.html#Anchor%20back This is what affects me more - in nearly all National Parks, and even California State Parks (my emphasis):

According to the Oregon BLM web site, one of the new Wilderness areas is a Badlands area east of Bend. It turns out they have a brochure on a Badlands Wilderness Study Area http://www.blm.gov/or/districts/prineville/files/pdo_badlands_brochure_03_01_2007.pdf The brochure says a study area is an...

In the west there has been little, if any, increase in public land area since the individual states were formed. I'm pretty sure that any land that has been designated as Wilderness by Congress was already Federal land. Probably the last significant increase in Federal landownership occurred...

In mountains like the Cascades the logging roads have more of a branching structure - a main along a valley, with a zig zag of branches up the slopes. (e.g. between Randle and Ashford) The pine plantations of eastern Oregon (east of Bend) might be candidates for something closer to a grid...

I have no objection to better funding for road and trail repair. Earlier in this thread I pointed out some long overdue funding for both in the district closest to Seattle (roads and trails that I have used). I noticed yesterday that Los Padres NF has a request in for state Green Sticker funds...

The largest chunk of those additions appear to come in 1992 with the Condor Act. It would be interesting to look that up. Here's the signing statement for that Act by Pres. George Bush http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=21118 The Forest district claims

Much has been made of the area set aside ('locked up') in Wilderness. How meaningful are the numbers, whether stated in acres or percentages of area? Apart from open areas like desert or dunes, area is at best a poor proxy for linear miles of usable road, track and trail. Some states like...

One of things that triggered the Owyhee bill was a proposal by Mountain Home Air Force Base to expand its testing grounds.

Out of curiosity I was looking at BLM lands near Las Vegas. They appear to be the biggest 'land owner' in Clark Country. While there are something like 17 Wilderness areas in the district, and more 'wilderness study areas', the largest area of OHV closure is close to LV itself. According to a...

On the Angeles NF (near LA) web site they have announced that they have applied to the state for funds to operate (or develop) their OHV area(s). Apparently the state charges a fee to users or buyers, and then uses the funds for this type of recreational area. In that regard, California may...

Earlier in this thread I quoted a FAQ from wilderness.net which puts the area at about 5% of total US area, and about 2.5% of the area in the lower 48. The two states with the highest proportion (after Alaska) are California with something like 15%, and 10% in Washington. And, apart from some...

The Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Heritage Act should take you to the text fo S.3069, the Eastern Sierra and Northern San Gabriel Wild Heritage Act. The Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest is discussed in detail toward the end (Sec 9). Sec. 3 is about designation of wilderness areas...

I have a Kavu Chillba (conical 'coolie hat'). Frankly it's not very practical. It does provide a lot of sun shade, and is cool, but it is also quite floppy, and hits backpack or seat back. And it does not store compactly. Their fisherman's chillba...

Perjam's hedging is typical of what one finds in academic writing. I agree that correlation does not prove cause. In one of his paper he notes that capacity of National Parks (I'm not sure that is in space or camping spots) peaked in the 1990s. He did not find a correlation between capacity...