Wilderness in National Parks casts light on the complicated relationship between the National Park Service and its policy goals of wilderness preservation and recreation. By examining the overlapping and sometimes contradictory responsibilities of the park service and the national wilderness preservation system, John C. Miles finds the National Park Service still struggling to deal with an idea that lies at the core of its mission and yet complicates that mission, nearly one hundred years into its existence. The National Park Service's ambivalence about wilderness is traced from its beginning to the turn of the twenty-first century. The Service is charged with managing more wilderness acreage than any government agency in the world and, in its early years, frequently favored development over preservation. The public has perceived national parks as permanently protected wilderness resources, but in reality this public confidence rests on shaky ground. Miles shows how changing conceptions of wilderness affected park management over the years, with a focus on the tension between the goals of providing recreational spaces for the American people and leaving lands pristine and undeveloped for future generations.

North Cascades National Park is remote, rugged, and spectacularly majestic. Efforts to establish a park gained traction after World War II, as national interest in wilderness preservation and concerns about the impact of harvesting timber grew. Troubled by the National Park Service¿s policy favoring development for tourism and the United States Forest Service¿s policy promoting logging in the national forests, conservationists leveraged a changing political environment and the evolving environmental values of the natural resource agencies. Their activism eventually led to the 1968 creation of a crown jewel--Washington¿s magnificent third national park. This engaging account tells the story.

The aim of this book is to entertain its readers, to alert readers to the potential dangers and emergencies that might occur inthe wilderness and how to avoid them.

Portland's Forest Park is one of the largest urban parks in the world and the only city wilderness park in the United States. The park is home to hundreds of native plants and animals and offers more than eighty miles of trails-all within minutes of downtown Portland. This updated and expanded edition of One City's Wilderness provides directions to twenty-nine hikes of varying length, difficulty, and scenery, covering every trail within the 5,100-acre park. Marcy Houle shares the history of Forest Park, introduces the people who fought to preserve it, and explores the role stewards play today. She encourages people of all ages to take an "All Trails Challenge"-learning about the unique nature of the park by exploring every trail. Includes Full color trail maps for 29 hikes Fold-out color map of the entire park and its watersheds More than 80 color photographs of native plants and birds Park history, geology, watersheds, vegetation, and wildlife

An authoritative guide to managing the ecological impacts of recreational activities on natural resources. The challenges facing today's recreation resource managers are both complex and daunting. Accommodating rapidly growing numbers of recreational visitors without sacrificing the ecological integrity of wildlands is a major challenge. Determining and planning for the limits of acceptable change and expanding services with little or no growth in natural resources or funding are major issues. Wildland Recreation, Second Edition provides solutions to these and other crucial recreational resource problems. Based upon its authors' extensive firsthand experience as well as their exhaustive review of the world literature on the subject, it provides up-to-date, detailed coverage of today's wildland recreation management issues, including: Ecological impacts of recreational activities on wildland resources Spatial and temporal patterns of recreational impacts Environmental durability, visitor use, and other key factors The limits of acceptable change, long-term monitoring, and impacts on wildlife Social and economic factors associated with managing impacts Alternative approaches to wildland recreation resource management Recent trends in satisfying increased demand for outdoor recreational opportunities International perspectives on recreational wildland management and ecotourism Like its best-selling predecessor, Wildland Recreation, Second Edition is a valuable working resource for wildland recreation management professionals and a comprehensive course text for students of forest and natural resources recreation, park management, environmental conservation, and related disciplines.

The global popularity of outdoor recreation and ecotourism is on the increase. At present, there is little systematic information on the management practices that have been successful in National Parks. This book presents the issue of how to manage outdoor recreation in ways that protect the integrity of park resources and the quality of the visitor experience. Using case studies drawn from the U.S. National Park System, it illustrates a range of successful management approaches that can be applied worldwide.