JACKSON, WYO. -- At the Laurance S. Rockefeller Preserve in Grand Teton National Park, a new visitor center offers environmentally correct restrooms with compost toilets and an intentionally downsized parking lot with just 50 spots (cars with hybrid fuel systems get waved to the front of the inevitable waiting line). There is also a "listening" room where visitors are invited to sit a spell and get into the mood for a hike up to Phelps Lake -- by listening to recorded sounds of the Tetons.
Are we really that out of touch with the natural world and its sights and sounds that we need to be reminded what it is like before we are fit to hit the trail? Yes, judging by some behavior you can witness in the great national park epicenter of northwestern Wyoming, where Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons bump into each other. The spectacular parks are crawling with unprecedented numbers of tourists this year; popular hiking spots seem elbow-to-elbow; motels and hotels are booked for a hundred miles in every direction, and full-up campgrounds swarm with sun-up visitors hoping a departing camper will strike his tent. We lucked out and got a Jenny Lake campground site last Sunday, then stood vigilant over our tent the rest of the week: "No, sorry, we're not leaving. Good luck."
As I mentioned in a column about the intersection between humans and grizzly bears, some are attributing the record crowds (a million people visited Yellowstone in July, the most in any month since Yellowstone was established in 1872) and this summer's onslaught on nature to the popularity of the Ken Burns PBS series on the parks. Others, including a Yellowstone spokesman, believe there is a more sobering reason for the influx: Millions of Americans have tents and no jobs. Gas might be spendy, but oohing and ahhing over God's splendors is still free.
"I believe national park visitation benefits from our current national economic situation," Al Nash told the Jackson Hole Daily last week.
Yep. It could be that some of us will have to get used to sleeping in tents.
While numbers of visitors are up, spending is down: Dollars from tourism, the second-biggest revenue-producing industry in Wyoming behind mineral extraction, declined by 10 percent last year, despite a small increase in the number of visitors. Maybe that accounts for some of Wyoming's growliness toward the rest of the country, and why almost every candidate for governor whose campaign ad I heard on the car radio promised that he or she would "fight the federal government."
After a while, you start to wonder what country you're in. And why.
Orange signs touting projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act are sprinkled across Wyoming, but the federal spending hasn't helped make Barack Obama any more popular: The president's approval rating in Wyoming stands at 29 percent -- the lowest in the nation. And despite the hordes of liberal tree-huggers who help keep Wyoming floating -- more than 7 million people visited the state last year, 13 times the size of the permanent population -- we don't get much respect.
