Too Many People are Going Outside

Writing by Sam Denby and Tristan Purdy
Editing by Alexander Williard
Animation led by Josh Sherrington
Sound by Graham Haerther
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

References

[haskell]

At 19:52, the sign that should've appeared on the screen might say this:
You are entering Maine's largest wilderness
- Your safety is your responsibility
- Set a turn around time and stick to it
- Your destination is your safe return to the trailhead
- Rescuers can be many hours in arriving

[Turdfergusen]

The problem is only certain state and National parks are promoted, many have virtually no attendance but have equally interesting features

[chilkootsailor]

I work at a state park. The amount of people coming and destroying the beautiful landscape really took all of my faith in humanity as being good natured and shoved it down the drain. Shit on rocks. Crazy amounts of trash in camp sites. KAYAKERS ATTACKING LOONS. One time I was going to clean up a campsite before campers arrived, and the previous campers were packing up. They had just had a water balloon fight. A little kid in the family asked his mom "Mommy, why don't we clean up the balloons?" His mom shushed him and quietly told him not to say that in front of me. People screamed at me and other staff for telling them that dogs were not allowed in the park. Fights. Drugs. Used needles.

When pigs walk free, they make the world their pig pen.

[zeegeejay]

I live in Moab. I grew up here for the last 30 years. I now manage my family's hotel. I am impressed with how well you tackled all of the problems there are of being a local here, with the ever-growing number of tourists. They have become the necessary evil of anyone trying to live here. I get asked all the time "where do the locals go to eat, hike, hangout in town". The answer is locals do not have any places of their own. Everything has been discovered and shared with tourists, restaurants only cater to them and charge ridiculously high prices. Even our local grocery stores are so overcrowded that we have to push our ways to get our marked-up items and a trip to the grocery store takes 2 infuriating hours. Millcreek that you showed on a map used to be a watering hole that only the locals knew about. It was only within the last 10 years that we saw tourists going there as well. Now there is a line a mile long to share the trail and get to the water. It is true that without tourism there would be no Moab but Moab is now unlivable for most people that have been here for a long time or are just trying to move here and work.

[michaelh]

Leave No Trace (LNT) ethic should be mandatory curriculum in elementary/high schools. The 7 principles fit on an index card. Going through an online primer could be integrated into camping reservation or backcountry permit systems and it costs nothing. You can't hope to completely perfectly manage every visitor but you can make sure they've all been given the same guiding information.

[tysonplett]

I'm from Manitoba, Canada, and every summer, me and my buddies canoe out to one of our thousands of backcountry lakes that are not road assessable. The experience of being completely in the wilderness is so incredibly surreal, and I consider myself very fortunate to have that opportunity.

[jestahjava]

It feels like so many people are engaging in tourism in a such shallow way lately - and not just national parks. It’s to take an obnoxious amount of pictures, check a box, gamify the experience, or tell a story later, without actually appreciating the surroundings or having respect for them in the moment.

[lisawhereisthecultjam]

It destroyed the place where I grew up and lived. The price on our family home increased so much that my elderly parents thought they were doing a great thing by selling it for $850, 000.00. They did not discuss this with me or my sister. They got screwed and it is so depressing. The house is now an Airbnb that I cannot comfortably afford to stay in with my children. It is heartbreaking and the island that holds my best memories is now a disgusting tourist trap.

[TheAmazingWanderLuster]

This is purely an observation I've made after exploring some parks this year, a lot of people visiting right now are by no means outdoorsy people, or not at all versed in moderate to advanced level hiking, sure some of the picturesque locales I've seen have been crowded, but as soon as you delve into an actually challenging section few will participate and sweet solitude can be found

[jessifrechette]

My girlfriend and I went on one of our earliest dates to Acadia... in March. There was nobody there, clear roads, empty rocky beaches, and that made it 100% better than visiting in the summer. We watched the sunset from the top of desert mountain literally alone.

If the parks encouraged people to visit more in the off-season, and promote the benefits of the park year round they would even out their visitation. All these parks have something to offer year round but visitation is concentrated on 4-5 summer months.

[hajimesenpai]

This all reminds me of the poppy feild incident in California. Groups of people addicted to social media kept stomping and crushing flowers just for pictures to their Instagram or something.

The flowers started dying out because of it. So the local authorities had to step in and ban people.

We really can't have nice things out here.

[Bobrogers]

The overcrowding problem has hit on the local level. In my small NH town and in those surrounding, we have scenic spots along brooks, waterfalls and ponds. We have mountaintops with spectacular views. We have groves of old-growth trees and a variety of native flora. And we have wildlife! In recent years, parking to access these places has blocked our narrow roads. Trash litters the trails and graffiti adorns treetrunks. Some publicly-owned areas have had to be closed for months at a time, and the owners of private property have had to put up "no trespassing" signs. The places that I used to explore freely as a kid are becoming restricted because too many people, and especially too many thoughtless slobs, are overwhelming them.

[Xr.]

This is happening in Canada too. My favourite way to explore is getting lost and finding new spots that are a bit more remote, but people are so disrespectful. The rule is always pack out what you pack in, people !!

[chadisrad]

I lived and worked in Yellowstone National Park doing wildlife research for a summer in 2016. This is 100% accurate. You get all the drawbacks of living in a remote area with lots of big city problems like traffic, noise, disease, etc. It's still true though that as soon as you get on any non-major trail, these problems usually go away. However, when the major solar eclipse occurred it was like a nearly literal apocalypse where you couldn't go anywhere for the 3 days around it due to traffic.

There's very little these parks can do to accommodate this increasing tide of people. I don't see any solution other than limiting access to tourists.

[TheQuadLaunchers]

I got sick in late 2019, and was bed ridden through late 2021. Basically, I missed out on what Covid did to our culture. After recovering, I set out across the U.S to experience the things I thought I never would. I didn’t go see the outdoors because I was bored, looking for something to do. I went outdoors because I once thought I never could again. I saw the national parks because just months prior, it was a pipe dream.

The amount of tourists that had never walked half a mile before was baffling. The trash disheartening. The disrespect, to the land, appalling. I hate that these places are starting to limit admission, but I understand why. I do admittedly feel slighted. I came the outdoors to celebrate my return to life. I came to the outdoors to see things that my health had once prevented. I came to do things and conquer more that few have in spite of my condition. Yet here I am at a trailhead with Karen and her cheeseburger complaining and lecturing kids playing on the rocks that they’ll get hurt. It’s disheartening.

[charlottepipe]

My grandparents owned a Mercantile in Hurricane, Utah, “ gateway to Zion”. Us grandkids spent many summers in red rock country. My Dad would drive us up to the tunnel in Zion, let us kids out at one end, drive to the other end to read the paper and wait. We would run like maniacs the length of the tunnel, sit in the windows,  play adventure games with each other, never saw a single car, person, tourist over those two three hours. This was in the 60s. Now, as a grown adult I don’t go back to my childhood/adolescent haunts. It grieves me so to see Southern Utah destroyed by too much of too much.

[robchristensen]

Living in Lake Tahoe for the past 18 years, I’ve seen a clear distinction between pre and post Instagram Tahoe. There used to be certain beaches and trails that only locals and the most adventurous visitors would ever see, but ever since social media began blowing up every hidden gem there have been more people in more places. In some aspects it’s nice that more people are gaining an appreciation for the natural environment, yet there are so many disrespectful people who are now coming up just to boost their social media profiles that negatively impact our community and environment here. It’s important that we consider the changing uses and impacts on our natural resources so that we are able to adequately manage and preserve our natural resource assets for future generations to experience.

[swaggery]

One factor is when everybody is working 40+ hours a week, they don't have time to research and explore. So they have to go with options that are widely recommended for outdoor locations to not waste the time they don't have available.

[NicheGreens]

Living in a rural area that butts up next to national forest, life has become a lot less pleasant. Starting in 2020 I noticed a lot of our local swimming holes were appearing on lists of places you could escape the city to. I tried going out to them and they had no parking and far more people than I have ever seen by a large margin. Trash has been an issue, and picking up litter from out of town food joints is a guarantee on the weekends. The increase in traffic unfamiliar with our roads (built along old Indian walking trails so very very curvy) means we end up with convoys fifteen vehicles deep or more running ten below the speed limit for miles. It's getting harder and harder to be an understanding and respectful person when I see the nonchalant and disrespectful attitude people have for my home.

[eddiespaghetti]

Once again proving that social media is the worst thing to have ever been invented