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Comment by Alex3917 | Hacker News Reader

He wrote a famous book called Mountains Without Handrails:

https://www.amazon.com/Mountains-Without-Handrails-Reflectio...

It's been 20 years since I read it, but iirc he is musing about whether things like paving the trails around Niagara falls to make them handicap accessible diminishes our ability to be awed by the natural experience.

I may well be mischaracterizing it, so if you want to read it yourself the whole thing appears to be online here:

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sax/contents.ht...

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The thing is that like 90% of national park visitors will never venture more than a half mile from their car. We should be making the experience as accessible as possible for those visitors while also preserving the vast majority of the open space for backcountry users.

The Paradise Visitor Center at Mt Rainier does a nice job striking this balance. Visitors can get an excellent view of the mountain by driving to the parking lot. There is a paved path to a popular waterfall. Beyond that, hikers can have a more typical trail hiking experience and by the time you are about 4-5 miles from the parking lot, it's a proper wilderness experience.

The problem is national parks have a vendetta against dogs. I love out of my car with my dog. If a place doesn’t allow dogs, it doesn’t allow me.

Granted, I prefer BLM, FWS, and FS land anyways. But don’t forget that NPS adamantly excludes whole classes of people.

High traffic nature areas are ruined by selfish dog owners. My favorite is spring on my local trails when every time you go out you get to enjoy progressively more dog poop revealed right on the side of the trail as the snow recedes.

With the volume of visitors popular National parks see there wouldn’t 50ft of path free of dog poop even if they went out of their way to mitigate it.

Ah yes, the ol’ “some people can’t behave, so everyone of their ilk must be discriminated against” approach.

Instead, I’d recommend requiring dogs be accompanied by a dedicated shit-carrying pack and bags sufficient for it. Similar to how humans are required to have bear canisters in some parts. (indeed some places require humans to carry shit bags for themselves!)

Let's not pretend that we're discriminating against a class of people with some immutable characteristic. Having a dog is a choice. Are you entitled to bring your pet into Mesa Verde? Obviously no.

As I’ve said, I’m homeless. Is that a choice? Kinda. Is having a dog a choice? Kinda. But I wouldn’t be alive without her.

Given those two things, I am basically 100% prohibited from using National Parks. Am I entitled to them? Maybe not. But still kinda sucks that I cannot use them through no fault of my own and people like you justify it by pointing out bad actors who have nothing to do with me.

I’m empathetic to responsible dog ownership and your situation. It does suck that you’re precluded from some experiences as a result of the selfish actions of others.

I’m not the type who thinks dogs have zero place in nature. I was happy to see a dog summiting a rocky scramble at 13000 ft just the other week. I plan on adopting this coming spring and am acutely aware of how it will affect my ability to travel and plan outings.

I responded, maybe too bluntly, because I felt your language including words like discrimination was heavy handed and you did not even allude to the absolutely Herculean task the NPS faces when trying to balance accessibility and conservation in nature areas that see millions of visitors every season.

I hope you and your pup enjoy the winter. We just got our first big snow up here in the rockies.

I've been to plenty of national parks with my dog. The rules are generally that dogs must be on-leash, and they are not allowed in especially sensitive areas. Those rules make a lot of sense to me.

The NPS hardly has a vendetta against dogs. At Carlsbad Cavern they even had a free kennel facility so you can visit the caves without worrying about leaving your dog in a hot car.

Every one I’ve seen only allows dogs on paved trails. Which is basically just the roads.

Not sure where you are, but the southwest tends to have pretty dog friendly policies. Sand Dunes, White Sands, Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest (these are just ones I’ve been to off the top of my head) all allow pets on trails with some minor limitations: e.g. Pets only allowed on rim in Grand Canyon.

Pretty easy to google a list of dog friendly parks.

Alright I guess we just have different ideas of “minor limitations”. Being able to use only a single (paved) trail in the entire park sounds like a pretty major limitation to me.

Regardless, I much prefer BLM and Forest Service land. Free as in freedom, free as in beer. National Parks are fantastic for the disabled and (petless) families, but that’s about it as far as I can tell.

Those who appreciate the raw outdoors will know that National Parks are best compared to amusement parks. Family friendly, tons of rules and regulations you must follow, expensive, but granted: some really cool vistas too.

Much better is BLM land, US Forest Service land, and (sometimes) US Fish and Wildlife Service land. Free, generally unregulated, vast, and exceedingly beautiful in its own right.

https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/sax/chap6.htm in particular:

> One does not provide such an opportunity for older people or inexperienced visitors by building a highway to the top of a mountain. Rather we can assure that places that are accessible to them are not so deprived of their natural qualities as to put such an experience beyond their reach.

which suggests that he'd be fine with things like the pass program.

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