National Park Exploration & Documentation – Loulou & Claire

This body of work is the product of our exploration of national parks in the United States. The parks we visited were the focus of a cross-country road trip and included: Great Sand Dunes in Colorado, Arches and Zion in Utah, Yosemite and Redwood in California, Crater Lake in Oregon, Grand Teton in Wyoming, and Badlands in South Dakota. For four weeks, we hiked and camped in the parks and studied the importance of their preservation. Along the way, we interviewed park rangers, tourists, and employees from conservation nonprofits; quotes from the interviews accompany the photographs to represent the different perspectives we engaged with. From the breathtaking landscapes captured by the photographs to the compelling ways people describe their connection to the parks, this work exhibits why it is essential to preserve the parks for current and future generations. However, the photographs displaying the damage from the Ferguson Wildfire in Yosemite and the harmful impacts of tourism reveal the modern-day threats to national parks. While we believe the development of the parks for tourism has made them more accessible and, in turn, allowed more people to connect with these spaces, there has been lasting damage done to local ecosystems. Although we feel it is nearly impossible to fully capture the magnitude of these places through photographs, we hope that the work sheds light on the historical, ecological, and spiritual value of the parks. 

The question we chose to explore as the focus of our senior project was . . .

In what ways do different groups of people feel connected to national parks and the outdoors? Why do people spend time in these parks? How do race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and federal government management impact, and potentially limit, these connections? In what ways do natural resource extraction and climate change threaten the parks? What has the impact of development for tourism been on these parks and on people’s experiences?

Here is a map of our route, just to give you an idea of where these parks are, the distance we traveled (which was about 8000 miles), and the areas we explored. Given our interest in nature and public lands, we decided that these questions should be the focus of a cross-country road trip, in which we travel out west to eight different national parks; Great Sand Dunes, Arches, Zion, Yosemite, Redwood, Crater Lake, Grand Teton, and Badlands. As you can see in the map, the densest area of America’s public lands is in the West. This land ranges from national parks, which we focused on, to forest service lands to BLM land. Each type of land has a slightly different mission and level of protection; however, they are all preserved and federally-managed to some extent or another.

For our roadtrip, we spent four weeks on the road – where we hiked and camped in eight national parks, learning about their history, ecology, and current-day importance. We had the goal of balancing research (books and online), with experiencing the parks for ourselves through hiking and photographing, so we could see the importance of the parks through multiple facets. In order to deepen our understanding of the parks and why they are worth preserving, we interviewed park rangers, tourists, locals, and employees from conservation non-profits. From them, we learned the value of the national parks, as well as the challenges that face the parks today – which we will elaborate on later in the presentation. 

We wanted to share with you a bit of what it was like for us day-to-day while we were on this trip, visiting each of the parks. Typically, when we arrived at a new park, we would first find somewhere we could set up camp (not always easy to find, as many of the parks were very very full.) Then, we would organize our things, maybe begin making dinner on our camp stove, and make a plan for the next day – what hikes we wanted to do and who we wanted to talk to. We either slept in the back of the car or in tents, depending on the type of campsite. Here is a photo of our campsite in Yosemite (you can see the bear boxes where we had to store our food for protection). The next day, we would wake up, make breakfast, and typically do 2-3 hikes, totaling around 8-10 miles of hiking a day. We spent about 3-4 days in each of the parks. 

We want to share with you some of our findings from our experiences and research. We are going to share why the parks are worth preserving by focusing on 3 topics – historical importance, ecological importance, and personal importance. So, to begin – the historical importance. 

Because of the locations of these parks, many of them are full of a rich Native American history and many of these parks hold great importance to Native American tribes in the area. In the parks in southern Utah, like Arches, for example, you can see petroglyphs – created by the Ute Native American tribe hundreds of years ago.  You can also, in some places, see old native american dwellings

It is also important to recognize that ALL of the land on which national parks sit today were formerly inhabited by native americans. Even worse, many of the national parks that the Americans celebrate today, like the Grand Canyon, Glacier, and Badlands, were carved out of land that was actually intended to become reservations for Native Americans. When the government designated the first national park – Yellowstone – white settlers describes the land as “uninhabited wilderness,” when in fact 26 native american tribes were living there, and they considered that land to be sacred.

When we were on a hike in Yosemite – we saw this graffiti which reads “Stolen Land,” suggesting that there are still feelings of anger about the fact that, despite it being preserved, that the U.S. government is now in control of land that some Native Americans consider to have been stolen.

Unfortunately we were unable to speak with any Native Americans about their opinions on parks and the federal government having control over these lands.

This video was created by an organization that we met with as a part of our research called the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, whose goal it is to fight for the protection of public lands against natural resource extraction and development. The clip goes into more depth on the relationship Navajo people have with the public lands in southern Utah. 

 

Every park has different ecosystems at play, but every single parks ecosystems are critical in making the park what it is today and every ecosystem in every park is at some risk by human interaction. When we were in the parks, particularly Badlands where we saw bighorn sheep and Grand Teton where we saw lots of elk and bison, we witnessed how comfortable the animals are being around humans. The issue with this is when animals become reliant on humans for their survival (like the bears in Yosemite that eat scraps of human food), the animals can become violent and often have to  be put down by park rangers. You can see in this photo we took in Badlands that the big horned sheep have tracking collars on. Although this is not inherently dangerous for the sheep, it is still not something  you would come across in the true “wild.”

The tourists and park rangers we spoke to in the national parks gave a variety of reasons for why they value the parks – many of them said that the beauty of the parks is what draws them there, others spoke about the hiking and mountain biking possibilities in the parks, as well as a spiritual connection and a way to get out of cities and escape the stress of everyday life. We wanted to share a little bit about why we each value the national parks. 

Claire: I did not grow up travelling to national parks, but I have always felt connected to nature, mainly through my passion for surfing. As I got older, I began going on backpacking trips. To put it simply, I value nature because, for me,  nature has been an avenue through which I can connect with people that I wouldn’t otherwise, a sort of common ground and mutual passion or understanding. I have learned that since environmentalism is such an intersectional issue, it is something people can come together on, as almost everyone has some stake in it. Nature has also led to a lot of personal growth for me, as it has forced me to be vulnerable, as I learn to navigate places that make me feel uncomfortable due to their terrain and magnitude.

Loulou: Nature has always been something I have interacted with and been important to me. I thought when exploring this question that it might be a bit more complex to fully understand, and yes the answer to why national parks are worth preserving can have a very complex answer involving history, ecological, and personal experiences, but for me the answer was really simple, when you see these parks you understand that they should exist forever. The feeling of being in a canyon and feeling so small, yet so powerful, is something that is impossible to capture. It can only be felt in a canyon. The feelings of these places are not feelings that can easily be replicated and that’s what makes National Parks and nature/the outdoors as a whole so important to me. 

The need to answer this question happened pretty quickly for us and combined with our interactions with tourists, we began to wonder more about HOW we preserve these spaces rather than why. When talking about how to preserve national parks we must recognize the current threats to these parks and also the limitations that come along with the title of “National Park.”

 

The main threat to national parks, which we did not expect to be such a big part of our experience, is the overcrowding and mass-tourism in the parks. Since the parks’ founding, national parks’ visitation has increased extremely rapidly. In the past decade, the visitation at Zion and Yosemite National Parks have increased substantially: at Zion, the number of annual visitors has risen from 2.7 million to 4.3 million, and at Yosemite, it has risen from 3.2 million to 4.3 million. This is, in part, due to the way that states, like Utah, have sought to capitalize on the parks by using the tourism to boost their economy. In the past ten years, Utah launched something called the Mighty Five campaign, which was a way to advertise Utah’s five national parks.

Although this campaign was very beneficial for local economies surrounding national parks, the campaign did not take into consideration the effects mass tourism would have on these parks and their ecosystems. As a result of tourism, more roads and paved trails have had the be cut through the national parks, which not only destroys ecosystems, but it takes away from the “wildness” of the parks. Before visiting the parks, our experiences in nature have mostly been associated with solitude. When we got to the parks, however, we were shocked by how they often looked more like Disneyland than wilderness. On multiple occasions, we had to wait in a long line of cars just to enter the park – we also experienced being stuck in traffic IN the parks and hiking trails where we were shoulder to shoulder with other hikers. 

We realized that it can be hard to enjoy nature when you are surrounded by so many people. Aside from the quality of the expereince, the mass-tourism is also a safety concern – how can an ambulance enter the parks if the roads are jammed with traffic? While it is exciting to see how many people are spending time outside and seeing these places, as well as how accesible the parks have become (there are now many wheelchair accesible trails,) it is sad to see the damage that has been done. And the question is how to mitigate this damage.

The over-visitation has led to serious discussions in the more popular parks like Zion and Yosemite, saying that in the near future you will need to make a reservation to visit the park. While it may seem like a simple solution, it comes with a lot of push back, particularly from the people who argue that national parks are meant to be “the people’s land,” and they reject anything that limits the people-park connection.

Another limitation to visiting national parks is the cost of visitation. Many National Parks (pretty much all of the popular ones) require a fee to enter. At Yosemite, Arches, and Zion the fee per entry is 35 dollars per vehicle. While not a ridiculously high cost, it could still turn people off from entering the parks (particularly locals) and limits the class a person must be in to afford “public land”. When we asked park rangers why there is a fee at all, considering this land is meant to be “for all americans,” they consistently stated that the reason for the fee is the lack of government funding for the parks.

It is not just the fees that lead to a lack of socioeconomic diversity in the parks but the images we see in advertising, as well. Here we have three, likely familiar looking, advertisements by well-known outdoor companies. The ads feature white men doing highly challenging and somewhat daunting tasks. It is no surprise then that white men dominate the outdoor hiking/backpacking scene. Women and people of color seeing these advertisements are not going to think – “Oh hey, that person looks like me, I can do that.”

While the lack of diversity in outdoor spaces is a clear issue, there have been a lot of organizations and companies that are actively working to diversify outdoors. Even REI has launched an advertisement initiative in which a clear effort is being made to incorporate women and people of color. Here, we have an example of an organization called Diversify Outdoors, which is a coalition of social media influencers who share the goal of promoting diversity in outdoor spaces where people of color, LGBTQIA, and other diverse identities have historically been underrepresented. We are passionate about promoting equity and access to the outdoors for all, that includes being body positive and celebrating people of all skill levels and abilities.

Another threat to not just national parks, but public lands in general in the U.S., is the fact that the federal government, particularly the Trump Administration, does not recognize their value; rather, they see it as a waste of land that could be used for natural resource extraction. Soon after being elected, Trump announced his plan to reduce Bears Ears national monument by eighty percent, as well as drastically reduce Grand Staircase Escalante national monument – while these are both technically monuments and not parks, they are equally as beautiful and historically and ecologically rich. They are also just outside the parks – Bear’s Ears, for example, is located right outside Arches. In 2016, Trump announced that he would open up these parks to oil drilling. We learned and saw from our research that there is so much quality wilderness land right outside the parks that do not receive the same protection – but should. Doing so also has the potential to reduce the impact of over visitation. 

 

The next threat we focused on for our project is the impact of climate change on the parks. The only one instance where we saw the impacts of climate change was in Yosemite with the damage from the Ferguson Fire (seen in the photo here). Wildfires are a major threats to parks like Yosemite and Redwoods, as each year, as California grows hotter, drier, and windier, the wildfires grow larger in size and intensity. While there are, of course, other ways climate change impacts parks (particularly with wildlife) we did not witness it, as we were not observing the parks over an extended period of time. 

We wanted to end with a call for importance of the parks. Many of the people we spoke to talked about the ways that the nature that the parks provided actually changed the course of their lives by providing them a place they could heal. However, what we found to be most critical about the parks is not their beauty, or what you do while you are there, but what they remind us of – and that is the importance of all natural landscapes (especially those in our own home environments) and their power to change lives.

We encourage you to go out and visit your neighboring public lands and America’s national parks to see for yourself why they are worth preserving, but be thoughtful, be respectful, do your research, and support the preservation of national parks and ALL public lands.