CHAPTER FIVE: CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FUTURE OF THE SAN GORGONIO WILDERNESS
Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into…extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste. (Stegner, 1962, §3)
Introduction
What does the future hold for the San Gorgonio Wilderness? As the population of the surrounding cities continues to increase, as Banning, Beaumont, Yucaipa, Oak Glen, Forest Falls, and Angelus Oaks continue to spread their boundaries closer and closer to the edge of the wilderness, what can be done to ensure that the wilderness remains unspoiled? Huge challenges face the Forest Service and the volunteers who work with it, challenges that include maintaining the support of the American citizens. The American people must constantly be reminded of the importance of wilderness; of the consequences of its degradation and elimination; of what a future without wilderness could be like.
Societal Values
Hendee and Dawson (2002) insisted that environmental and sociopolitical conditions in the United States have driven how wilderness is defined and managed. It is unclear what those conditions will be in the future, and therefore, it is “the concern of many for designating as much wilderness as possible now for tomorrow” (p. 505). The values of society are constantly in conflict as well as in flux, and often decisions about the environment are made from the standpoint of only one of the competing values. It is crucial to attempt some rational balance between these values.
It is clear that wilderness not only remains important to the public, but continues to increase in value. Since 1964, 133 pieces of legislation to strengthen and expand the United States wilderness system have been passed, the most recently being the addition of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area in Utah in January 2006 (Wilderness Society, 2006). In addition, the number of wilderness visitors continues to grow, as does the size of the industry supporting the wilderness experience. Companies such as Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI), Trails.com, and Rodale, Inc. (publisher of Backpacker magazine) have seen their profits explode over the last decade, and wilderness-related websites have proliferated on the World Wide Web.
While the San Gorgonio Wilderness is a mecca for hikers and climbers who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of southern California and its 10 million people, it has other qualities that make it important to society. In 2000, researchers Ken Cordell and Jerry Stokes reported that in national surveys the top five values of wilderness were protection for water quality, wildlife habitat, air quality, endangered species, and future generations (Cordell & Stokes, 2000). Indeed, water quality is a priority in southern California, and the San Gorgonio Wilderness is the headwaters of several creeks and rivers which provide water to southern California residents. It would be a significant problem if those water sources were degraded in any way.
Wilderness Management
Many wilderness managers have responded to increased visitation by rationing the numbers of hikers, the numbers of campsites, the sizes of parties, the numbers of days and nights. These measures will continue to be necessary, and it is hoped that further restrictions will not make it next-to-impossible to experience the wilderness. The proposed expansion to the San Gorgonio Wilderness will bring the boundary right down to the highway, and it is entirely possible that new trails will take off into the wilderness from there. An existing trail to Mountain Home Bench will be enfolded into the Wilderness, and will receive more maintenance and patrol, thus providing one more trail and wilderness camp for hikers and backpackers.
The recent addition of the acreage to the south, while currently receiving very little visitation, will provide more opportunities for trails and camps. It is hoped that some day the restrictions on camping in South Fork Meadows will be lifted, though that date is many years away. As mentioned in Chapter Four, the acquisition of land adjacent to the Wilderness for the rerouting of the Pacific Crest Trail may result in the shifting of hiking pressure away from the South Fork Trail corridor. Managers of the San Gorgonio Wilderness must seed to provide more hiking and camping opportunities at the edge of the Wilderness and draw some of the crowds away from the more heavily-used center.
Hiking and camping will continue, however, to impact the San Gorgonio Wilderness. These impacts will come mostly in the form of trampling. Trampling’s effects include abrasion of vegetation, abrasion of surface soil organic layers, and compaction of soils. In addition to groundcover, large shrubs and trees are negatively affected by wilderness visitation. Some trees are cut for tent poles, hitch rails, or other structures, and some are deliberately defaced by ax scars or the carving of initials. Soil compaction is a concern since it affects aboveground vegetation, prevents penetration of the soil by earthworms (which help to rejuvenate soil), and drastically reduces the rate at which water filters into the soil. Water that does not filter into the soil runs off across the surface, leading to greater erosion and loss of the supply of groundwater. The San Gorgonio Wilderness has numerous campsites in which the trampling damage is clearly evident. In addition to limiting the numbers of people in parties, as well as the numbers of nights of stay, it would be beneficial if wilderness managers considered rotating the use of the wilderness campsites. Alternately, some campsites could be closed to all use for a period of rejuvenation. This strategy is currently in effect at South Fork Meadows, as described in Chapter Three. Managers would have to weigh the cost of restricting and shifting campsite use to other locations against the benefits of restoration of heavily-impacted sites. Dispersal has been found to disperse campsite impacts as well as use, so it is a much less common strategy that it was in the past (Hendee & Dawson, 2002).
Water pollution and disposal of human waste is a significant problem in the San Gorgonio Wilderness; it was the reason for the closure of South Fork Meadows. When they receive their permits, campers are reminded of the regulation that requires that they carry a small camp shovel. They are directed to bury human waste at least six to eight inches deep, and to pack out their toilet paper. It is a violation of Federal Code to bury toilet paper, yet SGWA volunteer rangers carry out pounds of used toilet paper every weekend from the wilderness. Human waste is the primary cause of the spread of Giardia, a nasty parasite which causes severe intestinal distress.
A management strategy that might be effective in the San Gorgonio Wilderness is called site hardening. Site hardening is the increasing of a site’s durability through manipulation, such as planting hardy grasses and building fireplaces, tent pads, shelters, toilets, and trash cans. While some will argue that site hardening is counter to the wilderness experience, it is an effective strategy in some of the heaviest-used wildernesses in the United States. The backcountry of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example, has shelters which are used by hikers. They receive 37% of the backcountry use, but they account for only 10% of the disturbed campsite areas since they concentrate the impact (Hendee & Dawson, 2002). The addition of toilets might prove to be necessary in the San Gorgonio Wilderness. These can come in the form of wooden boxes, such as the ones in the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Wilderness toilets can solve the problem of human waste disposal by concentrating human waste and reducing the chance of human contact with it (Hendee & Dawson, 2002).
Howard Zahniser, architect of the Wilderness Act and a former head of the Wilderness Society, reminded us, “we must not only protect the wilderness from exploitation. We must also see that we do not ourselves destroy its wilderness character in our own management programs. We must remember that the essential quality of the wilderness is its wildness” (Zahniser, 1992, p.52). It is vital that in managing the San Gorgonio Wilderness by providing more opportunities and dispersing the visitation impact, that the other qualities of wilderness, such as solitude, naturalness, wildness, and minimum of management restrictions, be maintained as well.
The Role of Environmental Education
Wilderness management has two main objectives: maintaining the natural setting and providing outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation. These two objectives must be met without diminishing the wilderness character of the area (Hendee & Dawson, 2002). The Wilderness Act, as well as the general spirit of wilderness, restricts the development of facilities, such as paving trails and providing campsite facilities. Efforts to provide visitors with opportunities for quality wilderness experiences and at the same time limit impacts on the wilderness by visitor use must take into consideration those restrictions.
The strong alliance between the Forest Service and the San Gorgonio Wilderness must endure, and the Adventure Pass program must continue. Government financial constraints will always be there. No one can reasonably foresee a huge increase in the Forest Service budget, and the Wilderness will forever be in need of protection. Many of the management jobs–trail, campsite, and trailhead construction and maintenance, ranger talks and other forms of public education, and trail patrol–have been possible because of the partnership between the Forest Service and the Association. While those jobs must continue, some changes should be made in the delivery of information to the public. Many visitors come to the San Bernardino National Forest and the San Gorgonio Wilderness because they already have an interest in what those areas have to offer. They should be a receptive audience to various forms of education.
Hendee and Dawson (2002, p. 481) stated, “providing wilderness visitors and prospective visitors with information and education is a highly acceptable indirect management action–maybe the most important of all wilderness management techniques.” They also stated that the effectiveness of visitor education programs is a concern, and that more research is needed on the effectiveness of wilderness education on wilderness behavior. They provided 11 guidelines for the effective use of information and education programs in recreation management, that can be applicable to wilderness visitor education. These were compiled by researchers Manning and Lime in 2000 from a review of published literature. The first guideline recommends personal contact by wilderness field staff (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002). This guideline has been adopted as practice by both the Forest Service and the SGWA. If not for the volunteers from the SGWA, Wilderness Ranger Sharon Barfknecht, a Forest Service employee, would be the only ranger patrolling the entire San Gorgonio Wilderness. Each weekend during the summer, Barfknecht and volunteers in Forest Service uniforms hike the wilderness trails and camp in the campgrounds, making contact with as many visitors as possible. In their contacts, they not only enforce regulations such as dog leash requirements and campfire restrictions, but use the face-to-face meetings as opportunities to educate people about the wilderness.
Another guideline recommended by Manning and Lime (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002) stated that information and education programs are more effective with younger, less experienced, and less knowledgeable visitors. The SGWA and the Forest Service work together to provide, in addition to the fully-staffed Barton Flats Visitor Center, two days for visitor education and recreation. The first, scheduled in August, is called the Forest Festival. Up to 1000 visitors stop by the Barton Flats Visitor Center to meet Forest Service mascot Smokey Bear and participate in various fun activities. Volunteers from the SGWA provide camping and fishing tips, puppet shows, and crafts. Numerous displays show information about the San Bernardino National Forest and the San Gorgonio Wilderness. This day provides an excellent opportunity for educating visitors about environmental issues and concerns related to the wilderness. The second activity is the Fishing Festival, which takes place each September at Jenks Lake. Hundreds of inner city children are brought bus for a day of fishing, educational programs, and activities. In partnership with the Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game, SGWA volunteers teach the children to bait a hook, make a cast, and bring in one of the many rainbow trout stocked in Jenks Lake. Many of the children have never been out of the city, so the opportunity for education about the environment is an excellent one (Gordon & Saffle, 1996).
Some research has shown the effectiveness of bulletin boards at trailheads. Most of the information presented on bulletin boards is related to low-impact travel practices, such as Leave No Trace (LNT) and Walking Softly in the Wilderness. Manning and Lime (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002), however, pointed out that brochures, personal messages, and audiovisual programs are generally considered more effective than the same information on signs. One audiovisual form of visitor education currently in place in the San Bernardino National Forest is the Greyback Amphitheater Ranger Talk Program. These talks take place on Saturday nights during the summer in the Greyback Amphitheater about a mile and a half east of the Barton Flats Visitor Center on Highway 38. Guests at the programs are mostly families camping at nearby Forest Service campgrounds. The San Gorgonio Wilderness Association arranges, coordinates, and introduces the various programs, which are presented by SGWA volunteers and San Bernardino National Forest personnel. The local campground concessionaire, Alpine Camping Services, provides monetary support for interpretive training, as well as supplies, equipment and employees to set up and take down program equipment. Topics for the talks include local wildlife, astronomy, wilderness awareness and Forest Service history (San Gorgonio Wilderness Association, 1996-2006b).
I recommend that an additional topic be added to the programs: low-impact or no trace camping. The National Outdoor Leadership School, at the request of the U. S. Forest Service, developed hands-on minimum impact training, which became a cornerstone of the Leave No Trace (LNT) educational program. This research-based program includes teaching materials, and traveling trainers, and can be adapted for use at the ranger talks (Marion & Reid, 2001). The SGWA already uses the basic LNT principles on its website and in some of its print materials.
Another relevant guideline from Manning and Lime (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002) advised that computer-based dissemination can be an effective technique. The San Gorgonio Wilderness Association has a comprehensive website which includes a popular bulletin board for information about trails and camping conditions, a newsletter, a store with maps, books, shirts, and wilderness-related souvenirs, a photo gallery, and dozens of pages of reference material about the wilderness and the organizations responsible for its management.
The San Gorgonio Wilderness will remain long after the humans have left. Through careful management and education, its future is full of promise as a place where people can go to escape the pressures of urban life. People found the wilderness, explored and exploited it, and now are left with the responsibility to ensure its survival. Bob Marshall, founder of the Wilderness Society, wrote over 75 years ago, “There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness” (1930, p. 148).
Introduction
What does the future hold for the San Gorgonio Wilderness? As the population of the surrounding cities continues to increase, as Banning, Beaumont, Yucaipa, Oak Glen, Forest Falls, and Angelus Oaks continue to spread their boundaries closer and closer to the edge of the wilderness, what can be done to ensure that the wilderness remains unspoiled? Huge challenges face the Forest Service and the volunteers who work with it, challenges that include maintaining the support of the American citizens. The American people must constantly be reminded of the importance of wilderness; of the consequences of its degradation and elimination; of what a future without wilderness could be like.
Societal Values
Hendee and Dawson (2002) insisted that environmental and sociopolitical conditions in the United States have driven how wilderness is defined and managed. It is unclear what those conditions will be in the future, and therefore, it is “the concern of many for designating as much wilderness as possible now for tomorrow” (p. 505). The values of society are constantly in conflict as well as in flux, and often decisions about the environment are made from the standpoint of only one of the competing values. It is crucial to attempt some rational balance between these values.
It is clear that wilderness not only remains important to the public, but continues to increase in value. Since 1964, 133 pieces of legislation to strengthen and expand the United States wilderness system have been passed, the most recently being the addition of the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area in Utah in January 2006 (Wilderness Society, 2006). In addition, the number of wilderness visitors continues to grow, as does the size of the industry supporting the wilderness experience. Companies such as Recreational Equipment Incorporated (REI), Trails.com, and Rodale, Inc. (publisher of Backpacker magazine) have seen their profits explode over the last decade, and wilderness-related websites have proliferated on the World Wide Web.
While the San Gorgonio Wilderness is a mecca for hikers and climbers who want to get away from the hustle and bustle of southern California and its 10 million people, it has other qualities that make it important to society. In 2000, researchers Ken Cordell and Jerry Stokes reported that in national surveys the top five values of wilderness were protection for water quality, wildlife habitat, air quality, endangered species, and future generations (Cordell & Stokes, 2000). Indeed, water quality is a priority in southern California, and the San Gorgonio Wilderness is the headwaters of several creeks and rivers which provide water to southern California residents. It would be a significant problem if those water sources were degraded in any way.
Wilderness Management
Many wilderness managers have responded to increased visitation by rationing the numbers of hikers, the numbers of campsites, the sizes of parties, the numbers of days and nights. These measures will continue to be necessary, and it is hoped that further restrictions will not make it next-to-impossible to experience the wilderness. The proposed expansion to the San Gorgonio Wilderness will bring the boundary right down to the highway, and it is entirely possible that new trails will take off into the wilderness from there. An existing trail to Mountain Home Bench will be enfolded into the Wilderness, and will receive more maintenance and patrol, thus providing one more trail and wilderness camp for hikers and backpackers.
The recent addition of the acreage to the south, while currently receiving very little visitation, will provide more opportunities for trails and camps. It is hoped that some day the restrictions on camping in South Fork Meadows will be lifted, though that date is many years away. As mentioned in Chapter Four, the acquisition of land adjacent to the Wilderness for the rerouting of the Pacific Crest Trail may result in the shifting of hiking pressure away from the South Fork Trail corridor. Managers of the San Gorgonio Wilderness must seed to provide more hiking and camping opportunities at the edge of the Wilderness and draw some of the crowds away from the more heavily-used center.
Hiking and camping will continue, however, to impact the San Gorgonio Wilderness. These impacts will come mostly in the form of trampling. Trampling’s effects include abrasion of vegetation, abrasion of surface soil organic layers, and compaction of soils. In addition to groundcover, large shrubs and trees are negatively affected by wilderness visitation. Some trees are cut for tent poles, hitch rails, or other structures, and some are deliberately defaced by ax scars or the carving of initials. Soil compaction is a concern since it affects aboveground vegetation, prevents penetration of the soil by earthworms (which help to rejuvenate soil), and drastically reduces the rate at which water filters into the soil. Water that does not filter into the soil runs off across the surface, leading to greater erosion and loss of the supply of groundwater. The San Gorgonio Wilderness has numerous campsites in which the trampling damage is clearly evident. In addition to limiting the numbers of people in parties, as well as the numbers of nights of stay, it would be beneficial if wilderness managers considered rotating the use of the wilderness campsites. Alternately, some campsites could be closed to all use for a period of rejuvenation. This strategy is currently in effect at South Fork Meadows, as described in Chapter Three. Managers would have to weigh the cost of restricting and shifting campsite use to other locations against the benefits of restoration of heavily-impacted sites. Dispersal has been found to disperse campsite impacts as well as use, so it is a much less common strategy that it was in the past (Hendee & Dawson, 2002).
Water pollution and disposal of human waste is a significant problem in the San Gorgonio Wilderness; it was the reason for the closure of South Fork Meadows. When they receive their permits, campers are reminded of the regulation that requires that they carry a small camp shovel. They are directed to bury human waste at least six to eight inches deep, and to pack out their toilet paper. It is a violation of Federal Code to bury toilet paper, yet SGWA volunteer rangers carry out pounds of used toilet paper every weekend from the wilderness. Human waste is the primary cause of the spread of Giardia, a nasty parasite which causes severe intestinal distress.
A management strategy that might be effective in the San Gorgonio Wilderness is called site hardening. Site hardening is the increasing of a site’s durability through manipulation, such as planting hardy grasses and building fireplaces, tent pads, shelters, toilets, and trash cans. While some will argue that site hardening is counter to the wilderness experience, it is an effective strategy in some of the heaviest-used wildernesses in the United States. The backcountry of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example, has shelters which are used by hikers. They receive 37% of the backcountry use, but they account for only 10% of the disturbed campsite areas since they concentrate the impact (Hendee & Dawson, 2002). The addition of toilets might prove to be necessary in the San Gorgonio Wilderness. These can come in the form of wooden boxes, such as the ones in the Selway-Bitteroot Wilderness and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Wilderness toilets can solve the problem of human waste disposal by concentrating human waste and reducing the chance of human contact with it (Hendee & Dawson, 2002).
Howard Zahniser, architect of the Wilderness Act and a former head of the Wilderness Society, reminded us, “we must not only protect the wilderness from exploitation. We must also see that we do not ourselves destroy its wilderness character in our own management programs. We must remember that the essential quality of the wilderness is its wildness” (Zahniser, 1992, p.52). It is vital that in managing the San Gorgonio Wilderness by providing more opportunities and dispersing the visitation impact, that the other qualities of wilderness, such as solitude, naturalness, wildness, and minimum of management restrictions, be maintained as well.
The Role of Environmental Education
Wilderness management has two main objectives: maintaining the natural setting and providing outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation. These two objectives must be met without diminishing the wilderness character of the area (Hendee & Dawson, 2002). The Wilderness Act, as well as the general spirit of wilderness, restricts the development of facilities, such as paving trails and providing campsite facilities. Efforts to provide visitors with opportunities for quality wilderness experiences and at the same time limit impacts on the wilderness by visitor use must take into consideration those restrictions.
The strong alliance between the Forest Service and the San Gorgonio Wilderness must endure, and the Adventure Pass program must continue. Government financial constraints will always be there. No one can reasonably foresee a huge increase in the Forest Service budget, and the Wilderness will forever be in need of protection. Many of the management jobs–trail, campsite, and trailhead construction and maintenance, ranger talks and other forms of public education, and trail patrol–have been possible because of the partnership between the Forest Service and the Association. While those jobs must continue, some changes should be made in the delivery of information to the public. Many visitors come to the San Bernardino National Forest and the San Gorgonio Wilderness because they already have an interest in what those areas have to offer. They should be a receptive audience to various forms of education.
Hendee and Dawson (2002, p. 481) stated, “providing wilderness visitors and prospective visitors with information and education is a highly acceptable indirect management action–maybe the most important of all wilderness management techniques.” They also stated that the effectiveness of visitor education programs is a concern, and that more research is needed on the effectiveness of wilderness education on wilderness behavior. They provided 11 guidelines for the effective use of information and education programs in recreation management, that can be applicable to wilderness visitor education. These were compiled by researchers Manning and Lime in 2000 from a review of published literature. The first guideline recommends personal contact by wilderness field staff (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002). This guideline has been adopted as practice by both the Forest Service and the SGWA. If not for the volunteers from the SGWA, Wilderness Ranger Sharon Barfknecht, a Forest Service employee, would be the only ranger patrolling the entire San Gorgonio Wilderness. Each weekend during the summer, Barfknecht and volunteers in Forest Service uniforms hike the wilderness trails and camp in the campgrounds, making contact with as many visitors as possible. In their contacts, they not only enforce regulations such as dog leash requirements and campfire restrictions, but use the face-to-face meetings as opportunities to educate people about the wilderness.
Another guideline recommended by Manning and Lime (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002) stated that information and education programs are more effective with younger, less experienced, and less knowledgeable visitors. The SGWA and the Forest Service work together to provide, in addition to the fully-staffed Barton Flats Visitor Center, two days for visitor education and recreation. The first, scheduled in August, is called the Forest Festival. Up to 1000 visitors stop by the Barton Flats Visitor Center to meet Forest Service mascot Smokey Bear and participate in various fun activities. Volunteers from the SGWA provide camping and fishing tips, puppet shows, and crafts. Numerous displays show information about the San Bernardino National Forest and the San Gorgonio Wilderness. This day provides an excellent opportunity for educating visitors about environmental issues and concerns related to the wilderness. The second activity is the Fishing Festival, which takes place each September at Jenks Lake. Hundreds of inner city children are brought bus for a day of fishing, educational programs, and activities. In partnership with the Forest Service and the California Department of Fish and Game, SGWA volunteers teach the children to bait a hook, make a cast, and bring in one of the many rainbow trout stocked in Jenks Lake. Many of the children have never been out of the city, so the opportunity for education about the environment is an excellent one (Gordon & Saffle, 1996).
Some research has shown the effectiveness of bulletin boards at trailheads. Most of the information presented on bulletin boards is related to low-impact travel practices, such as Leave No Trace (LNT) and Walking Softly in the Wilderness. Manning and Lime (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002), however, pointed out that brochures, personal messages, and audiovisual programs are generally considered more effective than the same information on signs. One audiovisual form of visitor education currently in place in the San Bernardino National Forest is the Greyback Amphitheater Ranger Talk Program. These talks take place on Saturday nights during the summer in the Greyback Amphitheater about a mile and a half east of the Barton Flats Visitor Center on Highway 38. Guests at the programs are mostly families camping at nearby Forest Service campgrounds. The San Gorgonio Wilderness Association arranges, coordinates, and introduces the various programs, which are presented by SGWA volunteers and San Bernardino National Forest personnel. The local campground concessionaire, Alpine Camping Services, provides monetary support for interpretive training, as well as supplies, equipment and employees to set up and take down program equipment. Topics for the talks include local wildlife, astronomy, wilderness awareness and Forest Service history (San Gorgonio Wilderness Association, 1996-2006b).
I recommend that an additional topic be added to the programs: low-impact or no trace camping. The National Outdoor Leadership School, at the request of the U. S. Forest Service, developed hands-on minimum impact training, which became a cornerstone of the Leave No Trace (LNT) educational program. This research-based program includes teaching materials, and traveling trainers, and can be adapted for use at the ranger talks (Marion & Reid, 2001). The SGWA already uses the basic LNT principles on its website and in some of its print materials.
Another relevant guideline from Manning and Lime (as cited in Hendee & Dawson, 2002) advised that computer-based dissemination can be an effective technique. The San Gorgonio Wilderness Association has a comprehensive website which includes a popular bulletin board for information about trails and camping conditions, a newsletter, a store with maps, books, shirts, and wilderness-related souvenirs, a photo gallery, and dozens of pages of reference material about the wilderness and the organizations responsible for its management.
The San Gorgonio Wilderness will remain long after the humans have left. Through careful management and education, its future is full of promise as a place where people can go to escape the pressures of urban life. People found the wilderness, explored and exploited it, and now are left with the responsibility to ensure its survival. Bob Marshall, founder of the Wilderness Society, wrote over 75 years ago, “There is just one hope of repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every niche on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom of the wilderness” (1930, p. 148).
posted by Cyndi at 1:14 PM
2 Comments:
My father was one of the skiers who built the Alpengluck ski hut.
Excellent work, Cyndi. I was a volunteer for SGVA/SGWA in the 90's and your information is very interesting to me. A question from your research: Was the Thurman Flats Forest Service facility destroyed by the 1937 or the 1938 storms?
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