ABSTRACT
In 1972 over 16,400 commercial and private users sought the supreme “white water” experience by traversing the Grand Canyon, or a portion of it, by means of inflatable rubber boats. This compares with 372 in 1962 and 70 in 1955. Although Grand Canyon represents one of the most spectacular wilderness experiences, similar explosions in visitor use are reported in the High Sierra, the Salmon and Snake Rivers of Idaho, and hundreds of miles of wilderness trails and rivers in the National Park and National Forest systems. This trend is causing considerable distress for naturalists and environmentalists interested in wilderness preservation, and for National Park and Forest Service administrators caught in the cross currents of political pressure to make public lands freely available to the citizenry while attempting to maintain such lands in some approximation to their natural state.
