I was fortunate to grow up near Yellowstone National Park and was able to visit it frequently. My parents flying service had contracts to provide a variety of services to the National Park service including fire patrol, game counts, and arial survey work. The view of the park from the air became familiar to me as I was able to join my father in frequent light airplane flights over the park. The most-used type of airplane for that work was a Piper Super Cub, a two-seat airplane with good performance in the mountains. My father also flew plenty of tourist charters over the park in a four-passenger plane, but I didn’t get to go on those trips often because the other three seats were occupied by paying tourists.

When I earned my driver’s license, I got the job, several times each summer, of driving guests through the park. We often hosted people in our home who were visiting the area for the first time and it was common for them to expect that they could tour the park in a day. We had a version of a tour that started at 6 am. We’d drive to the park entrance at Mammoth, stopping for breakfast in Gardiner. Then we’d drive the outside loop of the park in a clockwise direction, stopping for some short hikes and views and having lunch at Yellowstone Lake. We’d visit Old Faithful in the early afternoon and continue up the west side of the park making it back to our home around 8 pm. It was a long day with a lot of driving, but I knew where to stop and which hikes would yield views of geysers, waterfalls, and other features.

Throughout my life I have made man more visits to Yellowstone Park, often driving through just part of the park rather than completing the entire loop. As the number of visitors increased over the years, visits to the park began to require more planning. Campgrounds are all reserved in advance now, even those outside of park boundaries. If you don’t have a reservation, you won’t have a campsite. Roads become clogged with traffic and when roads that normally only accommodate 35 mph traffic slow to 25 mph it takes longer to drive between sights. Park visitors regularly block roads when game is sighted near the road because pullouts are full of cars.

In recent years the park has attracted over three million visitors each year. Last year the count was 4.5 million. That makes the park crowded.

When I was growing up, we knew several ways to avoid crowds. We often made family trips to the park in the winter. Only part of the park is open to vehicle traffic in the winter and the number of people is much less than during June, July, and August. Even in the busiest seasons, however, the best way to get away from crowds in the park is to walk. If you are willing to walk more than a mile, you can be mostly by yourself. If you walk five miles, you’ll have territory all to yourself. Most visitors don’t walk more than a quarter mile from a road or parking lot.

I haven’t kept up with the statistics, but Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and Zion National Park in Utah used to have even more visitors than Yellowstone. I think Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee is the most visited park. I think, however, that the nearest national park to where we now live is among the least visited parks. North Cascades National Park was established with a different emphasis than other parks. North Cascades was established specifically as a wilderness park. There are minimal resources for tourists. Most of the park is accessible only to backpackers and mountain climbers. Washington State Highway 20 crosses part of the park and provides some “front country” visitor sites including campgrounds, viewpoints, and visitor centers. The most visited areas in the park are Lake Chelan and Ross Lake. Although we were able to obtain a camping site without a reservation a few years ago, I’m told that it is unlikely that one could do so during the summer any more. We do know of a campground just outside of the park boundaries where we can generally get a site with short notice.

Unlike some national parks, North Cascades doesn’t really have a single iconic feature. Yellowstone has Old Faithful. Grand Canyon has the south rim. Arches has Delicate Arch. Mount Rainier has Paradise Lodge. Olympic has Hot Rainforest. North Cascades, however, has rugged mountains and back country suitable for technical climbing and multiple-day backpack trips.

Part of the attraction of any national park, in my opinion, is its ability to offer contact with somewhat undisturbed nature. I go to parks to get away from crowds and crowded conditions definitely detract from the experience. On the other hand, as I grow older I am more likely to visit places that provide easy access and so find myself more likely to end up in crowds at those locations.

Balancing the preservation of wilderness with access and visitor services is an issue for all national parks. I need to remind myself that there is value to wilderness even when I don’t have access. I benefit from the waters stored in alpine snowfields that feed the rivers where the salmon spawn even when I am unable to hike onto the glaciers. I breathe air that has been freshened by acres of old growth forest even when I am not able to walk through the forest. All of us benefit from the preservation of wilderness for future generations that will give our grandchildren and their grandchildren glimpses of the natural world.

Just as I was fortunate to grow up with access to Yellowstone, I am fortunate to have retired with easy access to North Cascades National Park. Our national parks are treasures. They deserve the protection that our government can offer. And even when I become too old to visit the parks, I will have stories to tell to anyone who will listen.