General Discussion

It's fun but dangerous.

I've seen reports over the years that "the" national parks (or "that national parks&quot are overcrowded and that the ecosystem can't take the sheer number of vehicles/people there at times. The park rangers can't be everywhere all the time and people don't follow orders they think are wrong or don't apply to them.

But that's a quantification error. That "the" is wrong. And making it a bare plural doesn't help--saying "I've heard national parks are" usually defaults to thinking that they're all that way. Fact is, most aren't all that overcrowded. Some may only be moderately busy on weekends or holidays, at best. Some are swamped on a workaday Wednesday in the middle of the 'off' season.

Most of the national parks I've been in with friends ... you can go 20 or 30 minutes between people sightings and in a few cases more than 24 hours. A few were insane and yes, nice pictures if you crop out the other 25 people standing next to you trying to get that nice picture of the picture-taker 'in the wilderness'.

What would happen if you hiked the price on the really high-demand parks and kept the underutilized parks cheap? Perhaps just on peak use weekends or times?

Maybe it would motivate people to go to lesser-noted parks (still glorious) and put less stress on a handful? Yes, those who suddenly can't afford to contribute to the overcrowding have to make a hard choice. But some have to choose now between life's basics versus transportation/entry free vs other 'wants' that aren't 'needs'.

I'd be against having high fees to every park, but using them to "manage" (or "control" or "manipulate&quot when there's a goal I find reasonable and valid I'm not against.