Many of America’s most magnificent tracts of real estate are preserved as national parks and monuments.
The crowds have never been bigger. The Covid-19 pandemic drove people denied admittance to theaters, stadiums, and shows into the Great Outdoors.
It’s not pretty.
“The hey-let’s-try-hiking crowd is not only ruining public lands, they’re overwhelming local search and rescue teams that are having to haul them off the mountains after they do something stupid,” Mother Jones says.
“Adirondack search and rescues have been at a record high for two years running now, and … rescue reports are a catalogue of people … fleeing COVID by rushing headlong off a cliff.”
Meanwhile, out west, harebrained city dwellers are pooping on trails, starting wildfires forests, polluting streams, and plastering rocks with graffiti, not to mention needing to be rescued (or retrieved, depending on whether they survive). Tip: Don’t head up Mt. Rainier’s icy slopes in sandals or flipflops.
“Imagine the people who spray-painted “white power” and a penis on 1,000-year-old Native American petroglyphs on public lands in Utah,” their story says (read it here).
Mother Jones says “more needs to be done to save public lands from the public. This vast human assault on the wilderness will come to an end only when all the unprepared adventurers, hapless nouveau campers and unrepentant litterbugs finally realize that if they can’t respect the outdoors, maybe they should just buy some twig furniture, get an Adirondack Life subscription and enjoy photos of the outdoors from the safety of home.”
Here’s another idea: Reopen movie theaters, stadiums, and clubs; remove all Covid restrictions; let them take their chances. It can’t be more dangerous than falling off a cliff.
Photo: Angel’s Landing trail in Zion National Park has sheer drops on both sides, and 13 hikers have been killed falling off it since 2000.