Camper Crunch

Fewer families choose national park vacations.

by Michael Milstein - Portland Oregonian
Fresno Bee - June 15, 2003

MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, WASH. -- From their inception more than a century ago, national parks have been magnets to a world hungry for awe and, especially in America's post-World War II boom, recreation.

Now the most crowd-pleasing of parks -- including Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Mount Rainier -- are seeing declines in use, particularly among campers.

The trend predates the falloff in tourism linked to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While researchers probe for answers, the falloff does seem to reflect shifts in society: from shorter vacations to an aging baby-boomer generation more comfortable in hotels to a generation of youth for whom "nature" is compellingly represented on TV or by computer.

"People don't take the big vacations to several parks anymore," said Bridget Eisfeldt of Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico, where visits number almost half what they did in the late 1980s. "They don't have time when both parents work. People, when they go on vacation now, want to be pampered. You go to a spa, you go on a cruise, you go to a resort."

Visitors at Mount Rainier in Washington have dropped from a 1991 high of almost 1.6 million to 1.3 million last year.

Fewer people went to Grand Canyon National Park last year than any year since 1991.

Numbers at Yosemite National Park peaked at just more than 4 million in 1996, but they have dropped 16 percent since. Yellowstone Park numbers have not reached their 1992 high.

The trend reaches to the East Coast, where visits to Shenandoah National Park near Washington, D.C., last year had fallen a third from their 1993 high.

Visits to the entire national park system have remained roughly level, dropping only slightly since Sept. 11. But numbers at historic and urban sites in the Eastern United States, and new sites added in recent years, hide the larger declines at major, iconic Western parks.

Statisticians predict further declines in the next two years.

Finding the time

It's not that travelers will find parks empty this summer. But there's a growing sense that natural vacation lands may not hold the allure they once did.

"Mostly it's a matter of finding time to come up," noted Ron Ich of Tacoma, who soaked up a brilliant sunny day and the spectacle of snowy Mount Rainier National Park with his wife, Jane, on a spring afternoon.

It's a disconcerting change for beloved parks where visitor numbers grew unchecked for so many years that some feared they were being "loved to death."

While the pressure is off, National Park Service Director Fran Mainella wants her staff to invite more visitors.

"Fifty years from now, with the changing dynamics of the country, we want a nation that can still relate to the parks, especially the natural side of them," said Elaine Sevy, a spokeswoman.

"The Park Service faces a great challenge maintaining its place in a changing society," said Jim Gramann, a professor at Texas A&M University and visiting social scientist for the parks.

The slump has continued despite population growth nationally and as President Bush made the national parks a centerpiece of his environmental agenda, pledging to spend $5 billion to fix deteriorating roads and trails. It puzzles officials eager to maintain support for wild places in an increasingly urban society.

Experts offer explanations:

• Many parks may reach capacity during the busiest summer months, and news coverage of crowding and crime may drive others away.

• Some parks have eliminated campgrounds, reduced lodging and employed shuttle buses and advance reservations to reduce congestion, limiting numbers.

• A depressed economy may slow travel, especially by foreign tourists who visit parks in large numbers. But that would not explain declines starting in the mid-1990s.

• The average American road trip has shrunk from 3.5 days to 2.5 days, as families grow busier and schools switch to year-round schedules. That leaves less time for travel.

• Some ethnic groups may not head to destination parks as commonly as white, middle-class travelers once did, opting instead for daytime, family outings to urban parks.

• Increased entrance fees, along with steep lodging and meal costs, may price park visits beyond the reach of families on limited incomes.

"It's a sad situation," said Ron Ich, sitting on the rear bumper of his hatchback in the Paradise Inn parking lot at Mount Rainier. "It costs $80 for gas, $20 a night to camp, you've got food, and there's all the time packing and unpacking. It's hard to just pile in the car and go."

Ich's wife, Jane, said families also may be avoiding summertime trails awash in people and cars circling parking lots for spaces.

"I don't think people get out to parks as much as they used to, and I know that's part of it," she said.

View through the windshield

Of all federal lands, national parks keep clearest track of recreation use. Their numbers suggest that Americans today experience wild places less through slouching tents and singed marshmallows than windshield tours.

The number of people camping in national parks hit its lowest point in more than 25 years in 2001, a decline of 30 percent from its high of 8.9 million two decades earlier. The number staying overnight -- either camping or in lodges -- has dipped by 20 percent since 1994. That means more people visit parks only for the day.

Camping, it turns out, is a pursuit of the affluent. Surveys of campers in California by Dean Runyan Associates of Portland, Ore., showed more than two-thirds have incomes of $50,000 or more. And those camping in national parks outspend all others.

But as dedicated park visitors age, they may opt for more comfortable outings elsewhere.

"As the population ages, camping isn't such a big draw," said Butch Street, who tracks visitor statistics for the Park Service. "Roughing it is when the Hilton's full, you stay at the Holiday Inn."

Urban youths and young adults who have grown up with video games and the Internet also may not visit parks and wilderness like their parents did. More than eight of 10 campers questioned in California grew interested in the outdoors as children, but more than half of camping parties had no children.

Few people younger than 30 had tents pitched.

"They have the world in the keyboard at their fingertips," said Gramann, the Texas A&M professor. "The traditional family vacation to the national parks isn't as relevant to people growing up today."

Time, crowding cited

A national study by Northern Arizona University found two main reasons people did not visit national parks. First, they were short on time. Second, they thought of parks as places to look at scenery, but didn't know what else they could do there.

They also viewed parks as crowded and travel to them as expensive.

"The challenge before the parks is to get involved in education and tell people what they have to offer," said Fred Solop, who led the study.

Parks looking for their next generation of visitors may face a difficult test. Visitors to national parks have long tended to be white, highly educated and affluent. But Latinos and other ethnic groups who have not frequented parks as much are driving population growth in many parts of the country.

"There's a matter of long-term political sustainability of the parks," Gramann said. "These are new voters who really don't know anything about the national parks. So the challenge to the Park Service is to reach out to them."

That's changing the way parks serve visitors.

North Cascades National Park in Washington has enlarged campsites for extended families -- often ethnic minorities -- that travel together, Superintendent Bill Paleck said. Crews also have built more handicapped-accessible trails, drawing couples with young children who might not use more rugged routes in the largely undeveloped park.

Instead of just discussing troop movements at Civil War battlefields, Gramann said, rangers also talk about the era's struggle over slavery, making talks relevant to more visitors.

"The United States, at that time, was working out what it meant to be free, and that's part of the story," he said.

More diverse parks may be needed. The few with a Latino connection deal mainly with Spanish conquest, but a bill in Congress would consider adding sites related to Cesar Chavez and the farm labor movement.