Tourism wrecking natural wonders

when i went in like 2016, the amount of pushy/rude new-middle class Chinese tourists and old people was so ridiculous. at Emerald Lake, i was literally a foot from the water's edge, and somehow a selfie-stick chick managed to get between me and the water to take a pic and almost push me out of the way. the ONE good thing with most of the tourists though, is if you are just willing to walk a mile of any severity easy or hard, you avoid 95% of them. i went to one waterfall that was the easiest 2 mile stroll ever, and there were 4 people there. another glacier, walked around a lake and then up towards the glacier, i was the only one there. mostly they just wanna get off the bus, get the picture, get back on the bus. easy enough to still find a piece of tranquility.

Yosemite was the last one that's really bugged me. dudes in a lodge watching football, traffic jams... its a wonderful place, but off-putting for sure. Sequoia was so much nicer to me

Yellowstone was only a mad house when i was there in 2010, where there was a bear cub sighting and the rangers were regulating people/traffic. everywhere else was fine.

this is how New Denver in BC was when i went to Retallack Lodge to ride. Long abandoned silver boom town, turned town of 1000 people in the mountains near nothing. The grocery store is basically the gas station. there's a quasi-somewhat hospital if you get fucked up, and a lake view for some. given Canada's fucked up housing market, it seems like an insane place. the housing prices even there are insane, in what otherwise looks like a trailer park/small rambler mountain town. there's no tech or real industry, but the houses cost like IT dudes live there. i did a 2 week drive around BC to a bunch of iconic freeride MTB towns, and most of them were 10k people sized or so besides Kamloops, which i guess is like Boise sized. Nelson, Vernon, Revelstoke, Golden, Cranbrook, Fernie... all logging towns. and yet, for some reason driving thru Salmon Arm, i saw a bunch of Aston Martins and Ferraris and Lambos. i dunno what the hell people do up there, but i guess there's something. Squamish and Whistler make even less sense to me. the housing market makes zero sense in most of Canada right i guess.

 

Golden BC is where we are staying right now. Cheap houses can still be bought here, but not something that most of the population would consider living in. But the sheer number of van life ( and carlife I guess you would call it) is insane.

And the Indian people (middle eastern, not native) have to be the worst tourists currently up here. It's actually funny to watch them do pictures. They all have to pose looking away from the camera, in some stoic fashion. Or walk while videoing themselves is a quasi 180deg view.

 

I was almost one of those idiots. Pretty far up a slot at Zion, and noticed the water level rising. No noise until it was too late. The morning weather report didn't have any rain showing, but a strong downpour hit about 5 mi to the north, which apparently funneled down into the area where we were at. Ankle deep water got chest deep before we broke out into the main channel. Probably one of the most scared I've ever been.

 

Kings canyon is just up the road from Sequoia, and while it might not be as dramatic as Yosemite, the lack of people made it way higher on my list.

 

I’m going camping with a few friends at Lodgepole in the Sequoia National Park in 3 weeks and we’re doing the Watchtower hike.
I’ll report back if it’s great or ruined.

 

You guys know where the name Sequoia came from?

back when the ethnically European based Americans got to the PNW and were amazed by the tallest trees on earth they wanted to name them something special… this was under 200 years ago… so they chose to have the giant redwoods share the name of a halfbreed Tsalagi who created the only written Native American language(still to this day), who led his people, printed the Cherokee Phoenix, educated his people to survive in the rapidly changing world, the only Sequoia.

I figured he was named after a tree, not the other way around until about a decade ago… He must’ve really made an impression on some people in his short life. The tribe was betrayed by a handful of bad people acting with corrupt Gov and removal happened. After a few years of trying to fix it he left the US forever to Mexico with a small group from all seven clans to rebuild in Mexico. They blended in and no written history tells what happened… and he literally bought ink by the barrels to print the Phoenix… there are seven yellow stars on the Cherokee flag, and one black one… for the lost clan.

 

My grandpa worked the leadville coal mine.

I remember a trailer park there where half a trailer was hanging off the edge of the cliff

 

Traverse City Michigan comes to mind.

Used to go up wine tasting every fall.

Now the mega millionaires bought the shit out of the surrounding areas. Busses and all that shit now.

I won't even go anymore. Great area, just too much going on.

I'll stick with small towns.

 

I've been going up to the Atlanta / Onaway / Millersburg / Black Lake area since I was a kid. My parents bought a cabin in Canada Creek Ranch (between Atlanta and Onaway). CCR is a 16,000+ acre members only property. Memberships are only given if you own a cabin there or there's some "membership lots" that you can't build on, but you could camp on it. The ranch has a small hotel / lodge / restaurant / library / etc. There's a gun range, archery range, a handful of lakes that're all no-motor, trails all over for hiking, snowmobiling, and atvs, pickleball and tennis courts, a beach and playground, plus 125 camping sites in a private campground. There's also a storage lot if you want to leave your RV, trailer full of snowmobiles/atvs, etc. It kind of sounds like some rich people thing on the surface, but it's def not. Just a great separation from the general public. I just looked now and there's a membership lot available for $1600. The plus with this type of membership is you can sell the membership lot later down the road, so it isn't just a big membership fee you cannot recover later. I believe after the initial fees (around $2500), the annual fee is $1000. My parents go up there a lot with my brother and his family since they also still live over there in the Midwest.

Just a thought if you're looking for some wilderness that's not-so-spoiled; and won't be for a long time in MI: https://www.canadacreekranch.com/Home.aspx

 

that’s really cool, no idea things like that existed… Michigan is alright 6 mos a year

 

As a kid in the 50’s my family spent a large part of every summer in Yosemite Valley, and finding a camping space was as simple as driving through the campground you wanted. I kind of grew up there. Now it’s super crowded, reservations required. I haven’t been there in years, it’s just too much for me. But hey, it’s something special and folks should see it.

Things change. There’s a lot more people. More people have more money, more expendable income. It’s just how it is.

 

so you were there before the rock climbing even really got started?

bet you saw some cool primitive methods

 

when we were there, we did just that in Sequoia, just rolled up as the sun was going down. in Yosemite, not a chance. we ended up finding a "turn off" right outside one of the exits of the park that had just enough brush/cover from the road that it didn't really draw attention. just set up our tent there and went to bed. a few others saw us and followed suit. luckily no cops came by or anything. what a mess. the football tv watching bothered me more than the crowds honestly. i can't imagine going to a place like that just to sit at a bar and watch tv. to each their own i guess.

 

On my most recent attempt to ride and motocamp the entirety of the Skyline Dr and Blue Ridge parkway to the Smoky's and Deals Gap, the congestion was horrendous.
The parkways roads were jammed and literally every camp ground was full so I decided to turn around and call it quits.

With nearly 25% of the work force now remote, it seems as though most of them are "working" remotely. The vanlifers are booming right now since they can travel and work from anywhere.

 

Speaking of actually ruined national parks… the GSMNP is and has been the most polluted in the county afaik… makes no sense really as Knoxville doesn’t seem that bad… and nothing actually in the mountains to pollute…


I’ve camped in most of them and have never reserved/used a regular camping area… yeah I know rules and shit but I’ve been leaving no traces of my interjections into the nature that we belong to since I could walk… I’ll keep on keeping on my way…

 

there has never been a time that I wouldn’t rather watch a campfire/stars than any tv…

 

The 24/7 Gatlinburg grid lock might have something to do with it.
This last trip back in April it took over an hour to get thru the 2 miles along the main strip. And it's like this throughout the day year round. Not to mention the 20 to 30 go-kart tracks and utv/atv trails throughout Gburg, Pigeon Forge, and Seiverville

 

Cnn.com has an article about this very subject today

 

New Denver is in the heart of the best riding in BC, Kaslo, Creston, Osoyoos, Nakusp, Vernon - our group does it every summer for 6-7 days and it never disappoints for the riding.

Most of those towns you list as logging towns aren't/weren't logging towns however - most were mining and now are tourism/winter sports focused.

 

Nope, it’s been the top polluted since at least the early 80s… when we’d go down home we used to drive straight to Sieverville to through one stop light PF Gburg Dollywood and through the park into the Rez… none of that shit was there then… none of it… I’ve taken I75 to I40 over and back in from the east for over 20 years now as it’s faster and no idiots…