“Nature’s Cathedrals”

Abstract

National parks and wilderness are practically synonymous, at least in the minds of most visitors. Never mind the roads that penetrate into the parks or the lodges scattered about them, one popular vision of the national parks is of untamed wilderness with miles of unbroken backcountry and legions of wild—and sometimes fearsome—animals. That would accurately describe Yellowstone, Glacier, and several other national parks, and it is an image the National Park Service has endorsed from its earliest days. Since 1964, however, following passage of the Wilderness Act, portions of only a few parks have been designated official wilderness areas, and the prospect of such a legal designation has ignited intense controversy in others. Given the ever-mounting visitor and recreation pressures coming from within the parks as well as development pressures coming from outside park boundaries, the challenges involved in maintaining an undisturbed natural setting have grown increasingly more difficult. As a result, whether the parks are true wilderness strongholds or whether the Park Service can consistently manage them as such is open to question.