Why We Shouldn't Expand North Cascades National Park

This seems a bit like bashing Santa Claus and I have dreaded writing it but I also feel very strongly about this subject. I want to state from the beginning that this is no reflection on the many good people work at North Cascades National Park. Many are valuable members of my community and many I consider my friends. In my observation, they are some of the most dedicated and hard working people I have known anywhere and the American taxpayer gets their money’s worth from them. And it is no reflection on the National Park Service system as a whole.  

I would also state that my mom worked for this park for over 30 years and I worked there for over a decade as well. My wife works a seasonal job there now. So, in many ways, I have benefited from the presence of this park, though I may have also benefited if these lands had remained under the U.S. Forest Service as I have certainly benefited from lands that are still under the Forest Service.

All things considered, I would have been content to let well enough alone but recently certain groups have been trying to expand North Cascades National Park. I don’t think this is a good idea. Here are some reasons why I hold this belief.

Ecological

I have heard it often stated that the biodiversity of the North Cascades is higher than anywhere else in the United States outside of the Great Smoky Mountains. However, what I have never heard stated is that there are many, or even a few, species of plants and animals that are endemic to the North Cascades. To my knowledge there aren’t any but, of course, my knowledge of the North Cascades isn’t encyclopedic so I could very well be wrong on this point. However, I have lived and worked here almost my whole life and a number of those working years involved environmental monitoring, including many of the species of organisms that occur here. So, I think I would be safe in saying that there aren’t high levels of endemism in the North Cascades. In other words, there are very few species endemic to the North Cascades, if there are any at all.

What are endemic species?  Endemic species are very important for biodiversity because they are found only in a specific locality or area and nowhere else in the world. Since endemic species are, by definition, limited to small geographic areas, they are often more vulnerable to extinction, causing rapid loss of biodiversity. So, while there are a lot of different species found in the North Cascades, most, if not all of these species are also present in areas outside of the North Cascades, in the Pacific Northwest Region, or even across the northern hemisphere. In other words, most, if not all, species found in the North Cascades have a large geographical distribution outside the North Cascades and are at less risk of extinction than endemic species, hence less risk to biodiversity.

So the North Cascades are not as important to regional or global biodiversity as other areas in the Pacific Northwest that do harbor endemic species such as the Olympic Peninsula which harbors at least 20 species of endemic plants and animals or other parts of the state and region that harbor endemic species. From a global standpoint, the North Cascades are not even in the same ball park as many tropical areas. The record holder of endemic species worldwide is Madagascar with over 600 endemic species. The North Cascades don’t qualify as a biodiversity hotspot according to Conservation International’s criteria, which are used to help determine priority areas for species conservation.

So there is biodiversity and then there is biodiversity. Preserving more lands in the North Cascades would probably increase pressure on natural resources around the world. This would probably serve to overall lower global biodiversity or at least apply pressure in that direction. Over the last few years, I have seen articles in magazines like National Geographic that chronicle the loss of important tree species in tropical forests around the world, sometimes even the loss of entire forests.

This is quite often happening in areas where typically there are a large number of endemic species that occur nowhere else in the world. These endemic species can be lost quite easily and with them a loss of biodiversity. Quite often these species don’t do well with habitat disturbance and can’t exist without those trees and forests. There are quite often high rates of poverty in these areas and there is a lot of political corruption where the money generated from the use of these natural resources is funneled into the hands of a few corrupt people at the top of the system, leaving the average poor person out. Poverty and corruption also make it difficult to create and enforce strong environmental laws.   

We could be producing natural resources responsibly and sustainably in the North Cascades, an area of low or no species endemism, where native species are adapted to disturbances of their habitat. Natural disturbances could be approximated by human resource use activities, creating fewer impacts on native species. We are also governed by strong democratic governments where rates of corruption are low and strong environmental laws can, and have been, created and enforced. In addition, because of the low rates of corruption, more of the proceeds and benefits generated from the use of these natural resources would be shared more evenly amongst the population. 

These resources would also help supply global markets, lessening the demand for resources from more sensitive and corrupt areas around the globe. They would certainly not be a silver bullet, but they would have an effect at some level. Even if they are only used to supply local or national markets, the resulting surplus created in these markets could go on the global market. Expansion of North Cascades National Park would prohibit almost any resource use activity on the lands included in the expansion. This would be done at the expense of more sensitive areas and rare species around the globe.   

At present there is an interconnected string of parks and wilderness areas where logging and development are prohibited. This string of parks and wilderness areas runs the length of the North Cascades from British Columbia to Stevens Pass. I have seen figures as high as 2.7 million contiguous acres for this set aside area. If one looks at a map of wilderness areas, where all but a minimum of human activity is prohibited, a large part of Washington State is set aside, preserved, right down the spine of the Cascades. This is enough. We need to start figuring out how to use the rest of the area to procure resources in a self-sustainable manner.

Finally, much of the land proposed for inclusion in the expanded park has already been modified, usually by logging. So it isn’t all untouched virgin old-growth. Already modified lands are the perfect place to start figuring out how we can make human caused disturbances more like natural disturbances and create more habitat for late successional and old-growth dependant species while still acquiring resources from these lands in a self-sustaining manner.

The issue isn’t whether or not humans will use natural resources. It is a given that we will, in order to meet our needs. The issue is how and where we will get these resources. It doesn’t make sense to set aside lands and forests that are resilient and adapted to disturbance that could be contributing to meeting those human needs at the expense of more sensitive areas in the world.

Some proposals I have seen for expansion of North Cascades National Park have also put forward the idea of changing the status of the current Ross Lake Recreation Area from Recreation Area to National Park.   

As I read the Ross Lake Recreation Area General Management Plan, a document created by North Cascades National Park that describes alternatives for managing this recreation area over the next ten to fifteen years, the adverse ecological effects of the recreation area under current management protocols (the no change alternative) are pretty minimal. The only adverse effects that rise above a minimal level are associated with the highway and Seattle City Light’s hydroelectric project. Even these don’t rise to the level of threatening the ecological integrity of the immediate area, much less the North Cascades as a whole. And, at any rate, the highway and hydro project would probably not go away if the status of the recreation area were changed to National Park. So, the ecological integrity of the lands within the current Ross Lake Recreation Area is being maintained at a high level under the current, less restrictive rules. Expansion of North Cascades National Park, with its more severe land use restrictions, to include the current Ross Lake Recreation Area will change little concerning the ecological integrity of the area.

Finally, there was an agreement made with the people who lived in the North Cascades surrounding the park lands when the park was created. The agreement was that the recreation area would exist in its present form under the present rules. This included less restrictive rules such as allowing hunting. I don’t know how much of this agreement is actually on paper. I doubt that it is and I haven’t had time to research this question. Most likely it is one of those instances where the spirit of a law, or in this case, a promise, differs from the letter. There were a lot of other promises made, like providing venues to provide access in order to draw in tourism revenues. By and large, these promises were not kept.  The agreement about the Recreation Area was one of the few promises that was kept and it should be honored. 

Expansion of the park to include the Rec. Area and other lands would ban hunting on all those lands. This would basically be a ban on hunting game species such as black bears, black-tailed deer, mule deer and grouse that have healthy populations and are not endangered. It is already illegal to hunt or kill threatened or endangered species in the State of Washington and, though I don’t have the exact information in front of me, I’m pretty sure killing or possessing threatened and endangered species involves one or more federal offenses as well. It is just as illegal to kill a threatened or endangered species outside a National Park as it is inside one.

To quote Washington’s 2015 Big Game Hunting Seasons and Regulations (this section has been roughly the same for many years), page 88, item number 9 under the heading Endangered Species: It is illegal to hunt, possess, or control protected wildlife or endangered species. Endangered species are: pygmy rabbit; fisher; gray wolf; grizzly bear; ……….. Columbian white-tailed deer; woodland caribou; American white and brown pelicans; sandhill crane; snowy plover, upland sandpiper; Northern spotted owl; ………Western pond…….turtles; mardon skipper, Taylor’s checkerspot and Oregon silverspot butterflies and Oregon spotted and northern leopard frogs.

Also on page 88 in the hunting regulations, which apply everywhere it is legal to hunt, item number 10 under the heading Possession and Use of Wildlife: “ It is illegal to hunt, kill, possess or control protected wildlife. Protected wildlife are: Cascade golden-mantled ground, golden mantled ground, Washington ground, red, Douglas, northern flying and western gray squirrels; Mazama pocket gopher,……… painted turtles; Larch Mountain salamander; Greater sage-grouse; sharp-tailed grouse, bald eagle, peregrine falcon; ferruginous hawk, marbled murrelet, pygmy whitefish, margined sculpins, Olympic mudminnows; cony or pika; North American lynx; common loon; least, yellow-pine, Townsend’s and red-tailed chipmunks; hoary and Olympic marmots; wolverines; California mountain kingsnake; all birds not classified as game birds, except starlings, house sparrows, rock doves (pigeons), Eurasion collared doves, and magpies; all bats, except when found in or immediately adjacent to a dwelling or other occupied building.”

I apologize for the sloppiness of the above quote, the dotted lines represent species on the list that I omitted in order to take up less space because the list is long. Species I omitted from the list are not likely to be found in the North Cascades and I still included quite a few that aren't likely to be found here at that.

In addition to the regulations above, on page 84 in the hunting regulations under the heading Criminal Wildlife Penalty Assessment it states that, in addition to criminal penalties, people convicted of illegally possessing wildlife must pay a penalty. The penalty for illegally possessing a grizzly bear is $6000.

Besides a few more statutes addressing the discharge of firearms and hunting in a National Park, the hunting ban resulting from park expansion would not do anything significant to protect threatened and endangered species from illegal hunting above the laws that are already on the books in Washington State and at the federal level. And anyone who is out to poach a threatened or endangered species is probably not going to care if they are in a national park or not.

Legally sanctioned hunting of non-threatened or endangered game species can also provide a good cheap way to monitor large scale ecological trends through hunter surveys and reports. General population numbers can be gotten through hunter reporting and success rates and fine grained studies of game species can be conducted by close examination of harvested animals at hunter check stations set up in the field. All of this information can, in theory, be gathered at a lower cost since hunters are actually buying licenses which contribute to state revenues and are, in effect, paying to participate in such studies. Or if you prefer to look at it another way, hunters are a built in group of volunteers. This reduces study expenses to securing funding to staff collection stations and analyze the data.

To get similar information on National Park lands, you must first secure a funding source and then pay individuals or a crew to go out and collect the information or, if you are lucky, maybe volunteers will collect the information for you. You still have the expense of getting the data analyzed. While in some cases using volunteers to collect or analyze data might cut costs, quite often there are additional expenses involved such as training volunteers so the data they collect is useful. In the end volunteers, which are never a sure thing, aren’t going to pay you to collect your data for you like hunters would. And the norm, hiring a crew to go out and collect data, is definitely more expensive. 

Finally, I would add that hunters as a general rule are out observing a lot of things. Often this has to do with a particular game species and how those animals are using a landscape in a given year but quite often hunters observe things unrelated to the species they happen to be hunting. Remember, these people are out poking around in some places that would most other people would find to be pretty obscure and hunters are doing this at times of the year when there aren’t a lot of other people out and about. So I thing there is a significant knowledge base that is built by hunters that can be tapped into if and when it is needed. If hunters aren’t allowed to hunt in the area, most, if not all of these people will go somewhere else and some significant insights into this area will be lost.

Public Use

In 1965, a study was made in which the U. S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service and Department of the Interior, National Park Service collaborated to determine the best way to manage the lands in the North Cascades, so as to best serve the most people. This collaboration yielded The North Cascades Study Report. It is also my understanding that the recommendations from this report were, in large part, the basis or used for justification for the creation of North Cascades National Park in 1968 and, as such, were important early “visions” for the park.

In reading The North Cascades Study Report, it becomes readily apparent that the establishment of a national park in the North Cascades had been controversial long before this report was written. There was some debate about inclusion of parts of the Nooksack watershed in North Cascades National Park, but the area in what is now the Pasayten Wilderness, lower Bacon Creek, and much of the area on the Cascade River were never debated. These are areas (though I have heard that the Pasayten was dropped) that are now being proposed for inclusion in North Cascades National Park were never supposed to be part of the original park according to the recommendations put forth by The North Cascades Study Report. The Pasayten was supposed to remain as wilderness where motorized travel would be prohibited and, as such, accessible to a rather limited number of people. The remaining areas on Bacon Creek and the Cascade River were supposed to stay as multiple use areas for recreation and timber production to meet the needs of the local economy. There were very good reasons for this which I hope to make apparent later in this writing.

Though there were some objections by some authors of The North Cascades Study Report to development of some areas in the proposed park, overall, the consensus was that the park was to be developed so as to increase access for all. Consider the vision for a national park in the North Cascades as laid out in The North Cascades Study Report:

“The qualifications of this area as a National Park are not at issue. They are so outstanding that this National Park will take its place with Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Mount Rainier as one of the truly superlative units of the National Park System.

A major reason for recommending a National Park is that by means of access and development, the area can be made available to large numbers of people (italics mine) rather than retaining half the area in Wilderness area status, as would be done by the Forest Service.

A third reason that should be of significance locally is to bring to the area the tourism and other economic benefits that inevitably accrue in connection with a major National Park attracting visitors nationally and internationally” (The North Cascades Study Report, pg. 15).

               

By this measure, North Cascades National Park is a colossal failure. It is perennially one of the least visited parks in the National Park Service system. In the last ranking that I am aware of, it was the second least visited park in the entire National Park Service system. This is despite the fact that North Cascades National Park has no entrance fees. It is free. It might be more successful by some other measures but these were not how this park was sold to the public. 

The report goes on to state:

“The recommendation to establish a new North Cascades National Park is conditioned upon development of adequate facilities and means of entry into presently remote areas. This can be done by use of helicopter and aerial trams providing convenient access for large numbers of people to the spectacular and majestic mountain scenery, snow fields, glaciers and other attractions of the North Cascades” (italics mine; The North Cascades Study Report, pg. 15).

Also:            

“A condition of the recommendation is that adequate access be developed by road, trail, water, and air, including aerial tram and helicopter” (italics theirs; The North Cascades Study Report, pg. 90).

Finally:

“The recommendation to establish a North Cascades National Park is conditioned upon development of adequate facilities and means of entry so that the large numbers of park visitors can have access to the spectacular and majestic mountain scenery snowfields, glaciers and other attractions of the North Cascades. Means of access must not be limited by the National Park Service to the traditional roads and trails. This area calls for more imaginative and creative treatment, utilizing helicopters, trams, perhaps funiculars and narrow-gage railroad.” (italics mine; The North Cascades Study Report, pg. 90). (None of the infrastructure described above was built and several roads were actually closed, with the effect of making access more difficult).

It is interesting to note that the authors of the report considered U.S. Forest Service Wilderness areas to be much less accessible to the general public than national parks as is evidenced by this quote:

“One of the most significant justifications for a National Park is that under Forest Service management about one-half of the area would be in Wilderness status where now only about 1,000-2,000 people visit per year. Under the National Park proposal, this area would be made available to large numbers of people who either do not wish, are unable, do not have the time, or cannot afford wilderness-type travel.

The volume of wilderness area use in the Study Area indicates that despite the very large area devoted to Wilderness, relatively few people make use of these areas.” (The North Cascades Study Report, pg. 109)

 As is stated above, the Forest Service lands were supposed to remain as wilderness, thus accessible to rather limited numbers of people while the park was not to be wilderness and made accessible to many people.

Presently, about 93% of the area of North Cascades National Park is wilderness. While the Wilderness Act might not say it in so many words, wilderness designation means that access is limited to rather small numbers of people especially in terrain as difficult as the North Cascades. Obviously, “One of the most significant justifications for a National Park in the North Cascades” i.e. greater public access, as stated in The North Cascades Study Report was ignored.

While it is tempting to cast this as a bait-and-switch after all that was said and done and promised to get this park established, I think it is merely one more example in a long line of examples of our government failing to carry through. This government has a long history of broken treaties and unfunded mandates. To some extent this is the way it is supposed to be. Our nation’s founders created an adversarial, inefficient government to make it harder for anyone to hijack government and bend it to their will. This is not always a bad thing and I am not anti-government. In fact, I am a firm believer that we need a government and it needs to have authority. However, I am also realistic about how our government works. It isn’t always a good steward of our personal well being and I don’t trust that anything concerning government actions will or won’t happen, no matter what anyone says, until I actually see it happen. I certainly don't trust that the government will always look out for my own personal best interests. Government action quite often is a juggernaut that will crush individuals and small communities in its path. So it is imperative that it is set on the right course or it is not worth having the government take action at all.

I think the decision to make North Cascades a wilderness park was a mix of political and budgetary pragmatism and idealism. I mentioned earlier that, as per the enabling legislation for this park, there are no entrance fees. And it wasn’t properly funded by congress after it was established. In other words, an unfunded mandate, a common situation created by our government. It is cheaper to run a wilderness park, there is less infrastructure to maintain and there are fewer visitors so you need fewer staff to run it. This combined with the idealism of the Wilderness Movement. I think certain individuals were able to seize the opportunity created by the lack of funding when this park was created and substitute their own wilderness focused agenda. I think little, if any, effort was expended in trying to get funding to build the infrastructure recommended and promised with the establishment of the park. Finally, the fact is that the areas immediately adjacent to the park are sparsely populated. These small populations bore the brunt of the adverse economic impacts created by these federal actions and lack of action when the park was created. These small populations were largely invisible to the public eye so there was no real political liability in what was done.

We can see the results predicted by The North Cascades Study Report play out today. Undoubtedly, the number of people who use wilderness areas today is greater than the number cited in the report, probably due at least in part to nearby human populations being much greater at present than at the time the report was written. However, it probably still holds true that many fewer people use wilderness areas for the reasons cited in the report. Again, North Cascades National Park is perennially one of the least visited parks in the entire Park Service system. I have seen stated that more people visit Gettysburg National Military Park in a day than visit North Cascades National Park in an entire year.

North Cascades National Park is not very well known, even in its own region. When I worked there, I frequently encountered people who live 50 miles away or less who were not aware that there is a national park here. One of the more frequent comments I got from people who live in the larger towns nearby was: “It must be nice working for the Parks Department.” At which point, I would have to explain first, the difference between a national park and state, county and city parks, who have parks departments and that there is no such thing as a National Parks Department.  Then I would have to explain that this national park is less than 50 miles away. Evidently, North Cascades National Park has not taken “its place with Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Mount Rainier” in the regional psyche and I doubt it has gone far in the national or international psyches either.

Most of the current use of the park proper i.e. the part of the park that is not in recreation areas where access by boat or road is typically much better, is limited to those who are physically capable of traveling in remote and difficult areas, have specialized knowledge in backcountry travel and can afford the time and gear to access those remote and difficult areas. Is it any wonder why this park is the second least visited park in the entire system?

I have seen it stated that North Cascades National Park harbors some 300 glaciers, more glaciers than any other park in the lower 48 states, is the boast. I ask: Where within the boundaries of this park can the average citizen, without any of the special skills, resources or abilities needed to access backcountry areas that I mentioned above, go to see a glacier? I can think of only two off the top of my head. And you can see a glacier at a fairly close range at only one of these (Cascade Pass). You can see the glaciers on Eldorado from the Marblemount/Rockport area but you can’t see them from the few places you can drive in the park. You can also see the glaciers on Mount Shuksan, which is in the park, from Heather Meadows, which is not in the park though it is on public land (U.S. Forest Service).

What is the purpose of public land if most of the public can’t use it in any manner other than peripherally? Again, is it any wonder that visitation to this park is so low? Imagine what the visitation at Yellowstone (or Gettysburg) would be if access were made as difficult as it is at North Cascades? Expansion proponents seem to play up the National Park aspect couching appeals in vague language that would lead many to believe that this park is in the same category of public experience as more famous parks like Yellowstone where access to the public is many times greater. I think this is very misleading. 

It is interesting to note that Horace Albright, the second director in history of the

National Park Service and an important early figure in that organization was against wilderness designation of National Parks. The public visitation patterns at North Cascades National Park would appear to be case study to support his view.

We need to provide access to public lands to the majority of the public (who own them) in order for them to appreciate what is here and to support it. Wilderness, which is what North Cascades National Park is about, and what many proponents of its expansion are all about, does not do this. Wilderness favors the few people of our population who have specific knowledge and expertise for backcountry travel, the budget to buy the expensive gear needed, the time required to access wilderness areas (sometimes days) and the physical capabilities to do so.

There are some promises, again consistently vague, by expansion proponents of plans to make access better if the park is expanded. There was an opportunity to provide good public access to North Cascades National Park when it was created. This opportunity was lost or declined, depending on one’s point of view. If access is suddenly so important to park expansion proponents, why don’t they improve access to the existing park like it was supposed to be to start with? This would increase the net access to the overall area and could draw more people, though I believe this would still be rather limited and highly seasonal use.

The expansion proposals I have seen have no plans create venues like trams etc. that will make park more accessible to the average citizen and thus draw more people. And the proposals won’t create venues significantly different from what already exists-if any new venues will be created at all. Again, these proposals tend to stick to more vague language like “family friendly” trails and more campgrounds to bring in more people. “Trust us. It will be great.”

What, exactly, is a “family friendly” trail. How does a “family friendly” trail differ significantly from a number of trails that already exist in this general area that are relatively flat and/relatively short? How would “family friendly” trails be more accessible than roads, many of which will be closed upon park expansion? Does this mean these trails would be wheelchair accessible? A friend of mine who used to build trails told me that an ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliant trail can cost about $100,000 per mile. Again, would this provide cheaper, better access than a road to people with disabilities?

Also, there are no specific plans for new campgrounds. For instance: Where are they going to put all of the new campgrounds? There are few suitable campground sites to be had and most such sites are already campgrounds. Unless, of course, the plan is to take over already existing U.S. Forest Service campgrounds in which case what is gained? These campgrounds with their high levels of access already exist. If anything, it will decrease recreational opportunities for several user groups by prohibiting their preferred activities. And, at any rate, the existing campgrounds in both the park complex and national forest aren’t full, or even open, for much of the year anyway.

North Cascades is not a very democratic park, the bulk of its area being accessible to a very few people. It is basically a playground for the elites of our society. The lands surrounding the park can be more democratic and have historically been so, being more accessible to the general public through forest roads. Ironically, some of the best views of North Cascades National Park can be had from these roads.

This has declined in recent years as the U.S. Forest Service road budget is almost non-existent and many roads are slated to be closed. But, at some point in the future, there might be ways figured out to better manage roads to keep them open or even re-open some roads to allow better public access. If these lands are absorbed into North Cascades National Park, especially under a wilderness designation, all road access will be eliminated permanently. More importantly, the ability to generate any significant revenue from these lands will be lost. This revenue is important nationally and at state and county levels because it would help relieve some of the pressure to raise taxes to pay for the services we all use (including the administration of wilderness designated federal lands) and it is needed desperately in the local communities nearest these federal lands.  

North Cascades National Park is a wilderness park. There is no reason to believe that expansion of this park will not expand wilderness designated lands despite all of the promises being made by expansion proponents to have more “family friendly” facilities. When this park was established, promises greater than the current ones were made, the best known is the building of a tram on Ruby Mountain, and there were many more. These promises were subsequently broken. Wilderness designation, by its very nature, is designed to limit access to people and limit human activity as much as possible.

Inclusion in the park will place more severe land use restrictions on the lands to where it is expanded. These would be some of the most severe land use restrictions possible that can be imposed by the federal government. Among other things, no mushroom picking, no hunting and no dogs would be allowed. This would serve to discourage use by many groups of people in a park that is already the second least visited in the entire National Park system.

Park expansion would also cut local people off from a large part of their resource base in an area that is already economically depressed. The more restrictive land use rules of a National Park would prevent people who use this land to supplement their living from doing so by, among other things, banning hunting, mushroom gathering and firewood cutting for home heating. This would make it even harder to make ends meet in a place were this is already often hard. Some of the people that I am referring to are actually also employees of the park many of whom are getting by on seasonal jobs. 

As was mentioned previously, expansion of the park would ban hunting on the lands it is expanded to. This would alienate another user group, this one well known for land conservation efforts, in an area that is already hard pressed to attract visitors. Hunting season is a shoulder season to the summer tourist season. After Labor Day, tourist traffic drops off dramatically. So most of the visitors during hunting season are hunters. Park expansion would give this group of people, likely to be one of the few visitor groups at this time of year, one more reason not to come here. They are hunters. They hunt, so if they can’t hunt here, they will go somewhere else and hunt. Most will not forego their hunting season to come here just to look at the scenery. And, as was mentioned previously, you would lose another group of nature observers who are out seeing things at a time of year when very few others are even out.

Economic

Just about every year a report is published in local media outlets how much revenue North Cascades National Park brings in to the communities that surround it. It usually states that 25 to 30 million dollars are brought in by the park. In about 2012, I looked into the methods of this report. What follows is what I found and sent as an letter to the editor in the local paper. It was published as a commentary because it was too long for a letter to the editor. Obviously 2012 is not the most current report but every year, though the numbers do change, this change is not radically different from year to year. So I assume it is the same report. I don’t know if they just rehash everything each year, plugging new numbers in a data becomes available, or if they completely redo the report. At any rate, there has been no noticeable change on the ground here from 2012 so I think my 2012 report analysis is probably still valid.

The National Park Service press release in the March issue, which indicated that nearly 800,000 people visited North Cascades National Park Complex in 2011 and brought 26.4 million dollars into the “local” economy, does not tell the whole story.

These numbers originated from a federal report: “Economic Benefits to Local Communities from National Park Visitation, 2011”. Report data state that 728,353 people visited Ross Lake National Recreation Area (p. 22), 43,827 people visited Lake Chelan National Recreation Area (p. 20) and 19,208 people visited North Cascades National Park (p. 21). Ross Lake National Recreation Area and Lake Chelan National Recreation Area are both part of the North Cascades National Park Complex but are not part of the park proper which is a “wilderness park”. Though administered by North Cascades National Park, the recreation areas operate under a different set of use rules. The press release clearly states that the park complex consists of the park and the two recreation areas. However, it doesn’t specify which of the areas in the complex were most used. Without reading and understanding this report and federal land use designations, it might appear that a large number of people actually visited North Cascades National Park.

As a “wilderness park”, access for the general public in North Cascades National Park is limited. A fundamental purpose of wilderness designated lands is to limit human activity. Highway 20 bisects Ross Lake Recreation Area (RLNRA) so public access here is much better. The press release does not mention that the overwhelming majority of people recorded as visitors visited RLNRA. There are not enough campgrounds and other facilities in RLNRA both in and out of the highway corridor to handle 728,353 people. Not all of these facilities are constantly full even in the few months of peak tourist season. There are also limits on how many people can stay in each campground, so I assume most of the people recorded in RLNRA were car passengers driving through on Highway 20. My assumption is also supported by the numbers of overnight stays in RLNRA, according to the report: 71,820 (p. 22).

I think the estimated $26.4 million in economic benefit is highly inflated. Supposedly this revenue is spent in communities within a 60-mile area around the park so obviously the money wouldn’t be spent solely in eastern Skagit County. However, if the park is such a big draw, then one would think much of this money would be spent in the communities closest to the park. Communities in eastern Skagit County are plagued by chronic economic depression. I think it would be quite noticeable if tourists were spending millions of dollars here. And I don’t see even close to half the projected 358 park-related jobs. I see jobs mostly related to Highway 20 traffic.

If $26.4 million were generated by North Cascades National Park Complex in 2011 but not spent in the communities nearest to it, where the money is most needed, then something is very wrong.

The report authors acknowledge some errors and limitations. North Cascades National Park Complex doesn’t fit the model assumptions of the report. The report’s national scope is too broad to accurately analyze unique situations. A report tailored to this area is needed to determine how much money each different part of North Cascades National Park complex generates and where it is being spent.

In my interpretation of this report, I am fairly certain that in 2011, over 700,000 people were highway users. It isn’t clear where they or their money went. The most people used Ross Lake National Recreation Area where access is easiest. Fewer people used Lake Chelan National Recreation Area where access is more difficult. The fewest used North Cascades National Park where access is the most difficult. The more accurate headline for this press release would be Highway 20 drew over 700,000 people to eastern Skagit and Whatcom Counties in 2011 but that wouldn’t read as well.

Economic analysis is important because it helps us understand our world, but it is important to remember that every analysis has limitations, statistics can misrepresent situations, and these numbers are estimates. The state of the local economy should be obvious to anyone who lives in eastern Skagit County.

When putting in a hay crop based on a meteorologist’s weather model, if the meteorologist forecasts sun and I see it’s raining outside, I don’t cut hay because it will get wet.

So, while these ongoing reports may look good on paper, if you know this place, you know that they don’t reflect reality on the ground.

There are a few other factors that make me doubt that this report or ongoing series of reports are very accurate. One, the kinds of people who tend to do the backcountry travel that makes up the bulk of the visitation in the park proper tend to be do-it-yourselfers. They might stop at a restaurant for a hot meal on the way back home but they typically bring their own food, they are camping out so they don’t stay in hotels or motels very often and they typically aren’t shopping for souvenirs or other goods. I base this statement on my own behavior while hiking backcountry areas in British Columbia. Over the course of five weekends spent hiking in B.C., I ate one or two meals at a restaurant and made a few purchases of odds and ends at a few convenience stores but I didn’t drop much cash anywhere because I stocked up to be self sufficient before I left home.

The other factor is that there is, to my knowledge, no stand alone for-profit business, either in eastern Skagit or Whatcom Counties, or even within the supposed 60 mile economic prosperity zone that is based solely or largely on revenues generated by the presence of North Cascades National Park. The businesses in eastern Skagit County make their money off the highway during the short season between Memorial Day and Labor Day. There are few minor upticks during hunting season and when bald eagles are in the area but otherwise the area is dead. North Cascades National Park is open this whole time though most of the campgrounds are closed, usually by the end of October, because there aren’t enough people in the off season to justify keeping the campgrounds open.

I get it that the tens of millions of dollars that the reports say are generated by the North Cascades National Park complex are not all going to be generated in eastern Skagit County. But if such revenues were, in fact, being generated, one would think that at least a significant fraction of them would be generated in eastern Skagit County because, after all, several of the major access routes into the park are located here. This would lead one to expect to find a business or two in Marblemount or Rockport or Concrete that derives the bulk of its revenue from the presence of the park. One would expect these businesses to have buildings and facilities and, even more importantly, employees.

In about 2011, North Cascades National Park had a budget of about $6 million per year. As far as I know the park budget is about the same today as in 2011 or maybe even a little less. One can look at the Park Service Compound in Marblemount and it has buildings and facilities, vehicles and employees. This is something that one can look at and see that there is something there that required revenue to build and revenue to maintain and it that it has employees. Except that North Cascades National Park doesn’t count in the economic benefit reports, which are supposed to be about revenue generated by businesses around the park because of the presence of the park, not the revenues required to operate the park itself. No such business exists here. I say this as someone who has been in the job market in this area for most of my adult life.

The last economic benefit report I heard was while driving to work on the morning of the last day in April of 2015. It said North Cascades National Park had generated $30 million in the surrounding communities. That morning was filled with irony for me. On my drive to work from Rockport to Newhalem, a distance of about 20 miles through some of the major access points for the park, I saw a dozen or fewer cars on the road and I spent the hour before work getting in shape for the coming hiking season by walking through empty, chained off campgrounds at Newhalem.

It is also worth saying here that many of the overnight stays that occur in the recreation area occur in the campgrounds at Newhalem and Colonial Creek. These campgrounds some of the busiest in the North Cascades National Park Complex and are often full during the peak visitation season from Memorial Day to Labor Day (though as is noted above, they are largely or completely empty in the off season). These campgrounds are arguably busier than the Wilderness designated park proper. This is despite the fact that there is a use fee for these campgrounds while there is no fee whatsoever for the park proper.

The major difference between the two is that you can drive to the campgrounds in Newhalem and Colonial Creek while you can’t drive to most areas in the park proper. You can’t drive to Wilderness designated lands (98 percent of the park) and you can’t even access most wilderness areas without considerable effort. The other campgrounds in the Recreation Area can’t be driven to but access to them is also fairly easy via boat. The combined visitation rates of the easily accessed Recreation Area are many times that of the park proper because of the difference in the ease of access. This speaks volumes to the impact of Wilderness designation of lands and the restriction of access on visitation rates and it would support the findings of the North Cascades Study Report that I cited earlier.  

Because of wilderness designation, lack of access and lack of venues that provide greater access to the bulk of the park, this park consistently ranks as one of the least visited parks in the Park Service system. Proposals to expand this park do not significantly change policies or land use designations or offer anything significantly different from the status quo. Eastern Skagit County where a large part of the impact of the proposed expansion will fall is a perennially economically depressed area. A visitor here doesn’t have to look very hard to see that this is not a prosperous place. I submit that this is a more truthful measure of the economic benefits this park has provided this area than the projections of millions of dollars that are commonly quoted in the economic benefit reports.

There is no funding identified for this park expansion. From what I understand, the designation of the park comes first then congress or the park service itself allocates funds for the park. Neither the National Park Service or congress has done a very good job of getting money to this park in the past, what reason to think that this would be different in the future. Given it is one of the least visited parks in the system, it might be hard for Park Service managers to justify and secure a lot of funds for it. Why spend a lot of money on a park that most people cannot access and most people don’t use. So, even if some specific plans for new campgrounds and trails were actually put forward, they might not happen anyway. Just like all of the things that were promised when North Cascades National Park was initially established didn’t happen.

Consider that North Cascades is consistently one of the least visited parks in the entire system and this is despite the fact that there is no entrance fee which there is at most other parks. Something is wrong when people are not taking advantage of something that is free.

The park itself can’t employ more than a handful of people locally (eastern Skagit county) with permanent jobs. Everyone else who works for this park has to live seasonally with no assurance that they will be able to keep their jobs in the future. It is very hard to buy a house and raise a family under these conditions, though I see people do it. Several years ago, due to policy changes and cutbacks, several people who have been members of this community for many years abruptly lost their jobs  with the park along with the benefits that went with those jobs. At that same time, during the economic downturn, further cuts threatened even more jobs. If we want to do something with this park and invest in it, why don’t we work on fixing the funding problems so people can have more stable jobs? Expansion and wilderness designation will create few, if any new jobs and virtually no revenue stream. You don’t need many people to help manage and maintain places where very few people go and, as romantic as the sentiment that, “money isn’t everything” may seem, try getting a home loan or pay the bills with that.

As it stands, the bulk of North Cascades National Park, whatever else it may be, is essentially a playground for a small elite group of our population who have the knowledge, physical means and spare time to access and use it. I'm not pointing a finger of blame at this small group. I consider myself a member of it on some level. While the park most certainly provides refugia for many species of organisms, none of these organisms, to my knowledge, is endemic to this area and therefore under dire or immediate threat of extinction.  

Believe it or not, I am actually okay with park as it is even though is isn’t very democratic and is basically a playground for a small fraction of our population. And, for the record, I am not, at this moment, a big fan of the idea of a tram up Ruby Mountain. It would create a mess and would probably be difficult to maintain from an operational and safety standpoint. So I would be content to leave things as they are with a few small changes.

But I am also realistic about what this park is and what it can provide to the communities closest to it. I think it is an interesting experiment and it should be studied, not just any positive effects that may accrue to organisms living on park lands but also the negative effects on the human populations that depend on the land base for some means of generating revenue to create a viable economy. Preservation is the main goal of National Parks. But drawing people in to generate tourism dollars is usually also used to justify setting aside lands for National Parks. It certainly was for this park. Among other things, I think that North Cascades should stand as an example of the results, both positive and negative, when access to public land is denied to the majority of the public.

I think North Cascades National Park should be properly funded. It never has been. It should be funded enough to create a solid base of year round permanent jobs in eastern Skagit County, where they are sorely needed. I think that, if you are going to spend federal dollars, it is better to spend it on giving some good people a chance earn money at good stable jobs so they can have stable lives. This money and stability would go a long way to improving the outlook of eastern Skagit County communities. And a solid, dependable source of revenue going into these communities is much preferable to what seems to have been the practice for too many years, dribbling hand-outs piecemeal here and there to band-aid poverty driven issues when they fester to the point where they can no longer be ignored.

North Cascades is a wilderness park. I stated earlier that there are some 2.7 million contiguous acres in the North Cascades, from British Columbia to Stevens Pass, set aside for wilderness. We have enough wilderness. The remainder of the public lands in this area need to be put to use to benefit the most people. This means not only the average American, who pays taxes but doesn’t necessarily have the time and skills to access remote backcountry areas, but also local populations, American citizens, whose needs the federal government should feel obliged to meet.

One of the many magnificent, awe inspiring spots in North Cascades National Park that the majority of the public will never see. I requires nearly a day, about ten or twelve hours of walking to access, including many very difficult hours through thick brush. I have talked about this spot in a previous post, The Rock Bridge in the Wilderness of February 10th, 2014. This is a natural rock bridge formed when a creek cut a hole through bedrock. I don't know how rare something like this is but I have never seen such a thing in a lifetime of walking streams in this area. You can hear the muffled boom of the waterfall under the rock bridge from several hundred yards away and, when you stand next to it, the sound gives a visceral feeling as if the very air and the rock beneath your feet are vibrating, an experience most of the public will never have. I did see signs that someone had been there before me but I doubt more than a handful of people have ever been here. 

Another thought, the rock bridge may no longer exist. The previous photo was taken in 1999 while the one above was taken in 2006, after some major flooding that winter. Note that there is a projecting point in the 1999 photo that is now gone along with most of the moss and vegetation. 2006 was the last time I went to this spot and there have been several floods since. So, for all I know, the rock bridge is gone, taken out by boulders barreling down the narrow chute. 

I have heard that this waterfall is on a list of exceptionally high waterfalls. I don't know if this particular list is worldwide or nationally or just statewide but I understand that it is a fairly big deal to folks who chase and identify the highest waterfalls. Only the upper half to third of it is visible in this photo. I wasn't able to get to a spot where I could get the whole view of it. It is in North Cascades National Park and it took me 10 1/2 hours of difficult cross country travel to get to this spot. Most of the public will never see this in real life or experience the roar and echo of its sound across the valley. 

Another fascinating (at least to me) spot in North Cascades National Park that most of the public will never see. This spot takes a little knowledge of forests and tree species to appreciate. I took this photo in 2007. The tree I am standing next to is a western white pine (Pinus monticola) about four and a half or five feet through. This is the biggest specimen of that species I have ever seen west of the Cascades. Western white pine is actually fairly common west of the Cascades but they don't seem to get as big here or make up as large a percentage of forests as they do east of the Cascades. I'm not saying that this is the biggest western white pine west of the Cascades, just the biggest I have ever seen. What is more remarkable is that the surrounding forest seemed to have a very high percentage of western white pine in it, though in my field notes I mentioned that I didn't know if was an exceptional number. All of those pines were big as well, though not as big as this one. The indication in my field notes of my not knowing if this forest is/was exceptional reflects the fact that I don't know everything there is to know about the Cascades. That being said, in forty years spent in numerous western Cascade forests, I have never seen another forest like this one. This another situation where you wouldn't necessarily notice the forest or appreciate it if you didn't know something about forests and different tree species. I duly reported my discovery to the people charged with botanical studies and cataloging of such things for the park. If my report was written down, it is probably in dusty file cabinet somewhere. I never heard anything more about it. I don't blame these folks. They are underfunded and short handed with lots of tasks and responsibilities in other areas. What do you do with something like this anyway? It is way cool but it is probably an outlier, and exception to the rule as western Cascade forests go and it is in middle of nowhere. Here is another example of something protected so well (at least from direct human activity) that most people never get to see it. Even fewer of the few who have seen it appreciated it, I'm sure. This prompts the question of what is the point of having all these places so remote and inaccessible and obscure that most people, including myself would never even imagine they exist unless they are able to actually see them?  More concisely: How can you appreciate something if you don't even know it exists? I'm still okay with North Cascades National Park the way it is but it is big enough. It would be nice to let the public who owns the federal lands in the North Cascades get to experience the rest of them that aren't in the park. Actually this forest might be gone now too, I think there was a big fire in this area last year. And a fire came within about a quarter mile of burning it down about ten years before I visited it. Bringing up another question: How do you miss something that is gone if you never even knew that it existed in the first place? 

This is a nearly 360 degree view from the top of Ruby Mountain that I took in September 2012. I stitched it together from a series of photos. I didn't take a lot of time to clean it up and it sports a number of defects. However, it does display fairly well (assuming you can enlarge it in your browser) the views of the dramatic scenery so often cited as the reason for the establishment of North Cascades National Park and why this spot was one of the ones promoted to having infrastructure, a tram in this case, to allow access to large numbers of the general public. As it stands today, you have to be in a fairly small group of people who know where the trail, which has been abandoned by North Cascades National Park, is. On my way in to Ruby Mountain, I ran into a couple at Fourth of July Pass who expressed their disappointment in not being able to see any glaciers from that trail (Fourth of July/Panther Creek) or several other locations that they had tried in the park. As I recall, they asked me something to the effect of "Where are all the glaciers?" They knew nothing about the trail up Ruby Mountain where you can see quite a few glaciers. Again, I would state that I am not really a proponent of a tram up Ruby Mountain, if such a thing is even a possibility today. But, that said, I would also reiterate that we have enough federal land under Wilderness designation, 2.7 million contiguous acres down the length of the North Cascades. We need more areas where the general public can readily access and enjoy their lands. This opportunity was missed or ignored when North Cascades National Park was established. 

The following photos are the series I stitched together to make the panorama in the photo above. I put these up in case readers couldn't enlarge the above panorama enough to see the smaller details. Not as dramatic as a panorama but better detail. One should also understand that the conditions were good for taking impressive photographs on this day, though it was a bit hazy. Not every day is like this and quite often you can't see anything for the fog and clouds. From the standpoint of someone trying to do a tourism based business this is huge. If the weather is good, people come out. If it is not, many stay home or go elsewhere. This view is looking roughly south up the Thunder Creek drainage at a number of peaks (Logan, Buckner, Boston, Forbidden, Torment, Tricouni, Primus, Austera and more) and glaciers . 

Looking southwest, Colonial Peak to the left of center frame. 

Looking west southwest, Colonial Park near center frame, Pyramid Peak to right of center frame. 

Looking west, Colonial Peak to left of frame, Pyramid to right of Colonial. Mount Baker is visible on the skyline just to the right of center frame. Much of the North Cascades between Mount Baker and Ruby Mountain are visible along with numerous glaciers. Diablo Lake is to right of center frame. 

Looking north, northwest, Sourdough Mountain at center frame. Mount Baker on skyline left of center frame. Again much of the North Cascades are visible. Diablo Lake left of center frame. Ross Lake right of center frame. 

Looking north at Upper Skagit Valley occupied by Ross Lake. Sourdough Mountain left of center frame. Pumpkin Mountain middle distance, left of center. Hozomeen Mountain in the distance right of center frame. And more of the North Cascades. Hozomeen Mountain is nearly on the Canadian border. 

Looking north, northeast, Ross Lake left of center frame, Hozomeen Mountain in distance left of center frame, Jack Mountain right of center frame. 

Looking northeast, Jack Mountain just left of center frame, Crater Mountain just right of center frame. 

Looking east towards Cascade Crest, Crater Mountain to left of center frame. 

Looking southeast at North Cascades.  

This is the view the general public got. The next series of photos were taken from the Diablo Overlook just off State Route 20 (North Cascades Highway). Because Diablo Overlook is so accessible, this is one of the pictures you see quite frequently featured when people are talking about the North Cascades. Unfortunately the conditions were not optimal for picture taking when I was able to get up to get some photos. So the result was that the group of photos that don't show this spot at its best.  That being said, one can still see that the scenery is quite impressive, though, in my opinion, not nearly as impressive as the view from the top of Ruby Mountain. Though the construction of the highway through here and the establishment of North Cascades National Park occurred at about the same time they are not related. Highway construction was managed and funded from different sources (state and federal I believe). Given what happened when the park was established, if it had been left to the first managers of the park, the highway probably wouldn't have happened, especially not at a million dollars a mile as I have it cost for construction. I am also pretty sure that many of the proponents of the park were against a highway here. So there would have been enormous pressure not to build, resulting in no highway and no Diablo Overlook either. Ironically, I have seen some of the early park proponents who were against the highway or any development now using the Diablo Overlook as a scenic backdrop as they try to sell expansion of the park, probably because it is so easily accessed. This view is looking southwest at Colonial and Pyramid Peaks and Thunder Arm on Diablo Lake with Thunder Knob in the foreground. Impressive but hardly a sea of mountain peaks.  

Looking northwest, Pyramid Peak and Thunder Knob to left of center frame, Davis Peak to right of center frame, Diablo Lake in foreground. 

Looking north, northwest. Davis Peak left of center frame. Sourdough Mountain on right side of frame. 

Looking north at Sourdough Mountain. Note the cars in the parking lot to right of center frame. Probably several dozen people came through while I was taking these photos. I am sure the scenery draws many people to take State Route 20 (North Cascades Highway) and for a certain number this area is their destination but the majority of them just pass through on their way to somewhere else. 

Since the photo conditions were poor (lots of haze, bad sun angle) when I took the previous Diablo Overlook photos I thought I should get up there when photo conditions were good in order to give the reader a better comparison between the Diablo Overlook and the view from Ruby Mountain, compare good day to good day. Getting photos of the overlook on a good picture day would present the area in a better light and give what I feel is a more honest perspective on the differences between the two. I went up in early February, Superbowl Sunday to be exact, thinking conditions would be good. They were. Due to fresh snow and breaking clouds, the overlook was in a much better condition aesthetically than it was when I took the summer pictures above. Of course, these are winter pictures so the comparison is still not exact. The point I am trying to make is that the view from the Diablo Overlook can be, and often is, quite striking but in my opinion, even at its best, the view from the overlook still falls well short of the view from Ruby Mountain. There are no sweeping views over a sea of mountains and no glaciers to be seen. The overlook is also a kind of stop in to look around on your way to somewhere else type place. I have, on many occasions worked at the Diablo Overlook during the height of the summer tourist season and, for the most part, it seems that people don't stay long, usually half an hour or less from my observations, which in fairness, probably aren't completely accurate. Because of the views, Ruby Mountain, had it been developed, would have been a destination trip for many people. These people would then have been more likely to contribute quite a bit more to the local tourism economy because they would be staying. In my opinion, the two different views are just not of the same caliber. The difference between the two views I would describe as the difference between very good and knock-your-socks-off exceptional. I think the margins are very thin on tourism and you aren't going to attract many people by half measures and doing things on the cheap, especially not in an area like the North Cascades where access is very difficult. If you want to claim, as early park proponents and current expansion proponents do that a national park will draw people in to create a local tourist economy (which, based on the experiences of other tourist towns in the U.S., I seriously doubt would support many family wage jobs), then you need the knock-your-socks-off exceptional areas that area accessible to the general public to draw that public in and encourage them to stay for a while. There are no knock-your-socks-off exceptional areas accessible to the general public in North Cascades National Park and there are no plans to create any if the park is expanded. There were supposed to be even more Ruby Mountains as per The North Cascades Study Report. All that being said, one can still get impressive valley views like this from many Forest Service roads. This would go a long way to not only attracting more people but spreading the use pressure out over a larger area. Forest Service roads also have the potential to pay for themselves. The Diablo Overlook is funded purely by taxpayer money. Unfortunately many Forest Service roads are slated to be closed and, if North Cascades National Park is expanded, any Forest Service roads in the area of expansion will almost certainly be closed. 

As per the Ruby Mountain panorama, I have included the photos I stitched together to make the Diablo Overlook panorama so readers can get a better look if the panorama doesn't display well on their browser. The overlook panorama isn't 360 degrees because I couldn't get such a view from a single spot. The view of peaks are restricted to the  east because you are looking directly into the side of Ruby Mountain. To the northeast, up the Skagit Valley, Jack Mountain is often quite impressive but I neglected to get any photos of it this day as I was in a bit of a hurry.  

Colonial and Pyramid Peaks. 

Pyramid Peak to the left of center, Davis Peak to the right of center. 

Davis Peak at far left of frame. Sourdough Mountain to right of frame. 

Additional photo of Colonial and Pyramid Peaks and Thunder Arm of Diablo Lake. 

Additional view of Davis Peak. 

The parking lot at the Diablo Overlook on the day I took the winter photos above. Traffic and visitor use fall off dramatically after Labor Day and when the pass closes for the winter it falls off even more. This photo would seem to indicate that nobody comes here in the winter but this isn't necessarily the case. In fairness, this photo was taken fairly early on Superbowl Sunday. The weather was good that day and often, when that is the case, there is some out-of-town traffic to the area and there was this day as well. I worked the rest of the day in pretty close proximity to the highway and saw maybe a couple dozen out-of-towners go by. So it is highly likely that a few cars did visit the overlook this day. I have also seen days where pretty much the only traffic on the highway is local. This is usually the case when the weather is bad, which it often is during the winter. Over the course of a winter I have seen a handful of cars at various trailheads in the area so there is also some winter hiking going on but but the amount of this type of activity is pretty anemic. I feel fairly confident in stating that tourist use of this area in the winter is very lackluster and very spotty and not enough to support much business which is quite obvious by the number of businesses, restaurants mostly, in Marblemount that close for the winter. 

Another small bright spot in the winter tourism scene in the North Cascades. This is the Ross Dam Trailhead a few miles up the road from the Diablo Overlook and where the road is closed for the winter in most years. The people here are snowmobiling up the highway past the gate. I sometimes see half a dozen or more parties headed up the road to participate in this activity, usually, but not always, on the nicer days. There might have been more people here this day but it was Superbowl Sunday. That being said, the combined visitation to this area at this time of year isn't enough to support much business. 

This is Mount Shuksan from Picture Lake. I have heard this is one of the most photographed mountains in the world. I don't know if this is true. I do know, having been told by various professional photographers that if you want to sell photos of the Pacific Northwest, you need to have one or more photos of Mount Shuksan, usually from Picture Lake, in your portfolio. This view of Mount Shuksan is easily recognizable by many people and I have seen it in myriad different places, including a gym at Pearl Harbor where I worked out when I was stationed in Hawaii (it was mislabeled Mount Shukcun, Billinghem Washington. I told the guy behind the counter and he informed me that a lot of people had already pointed it out to him). I also have also heard about a man from Poland who, upon seeing this view framed in someone's office here in the U.S. exclaimed "That's my mountain!". I feel fairly confident that this particular spot enjoys a high degree of recognition worldwide. It is probably no coincidence that this area was developed in the 1920's and since then has had road access and a continuous presence of some kind of resort or another. Note the cars on the road on the far side of the lake. You can't get more family friendly than this. Nothing like this exists in North Cascades National Park, where almost anyone can access sweeping views of high elevation alpine landscapes, despite the recommendations of The North Cascades Study Report and the promises that were made when the park was established. Most of the views available to the general public in North Cascades National Park are low elevation valley views, which, while they are definitely impressive, again, are like something that is very good in comparison to something like this which is knock-your-socks-off exceptional. Moreover, there are no plans in park expansion proposals to create any areas like this or even like the Diablo Overlook for that matter. Merely taking over existing Forest Service facilities would result in no net gain of recreational attractions. Ironically, Mount Shuksan is in North Cascades National Park, this is one of the few areas where you can actually see some glaciers that are in the park. However this area (known generally as Heather Meadows) is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest Service. There was an opportunity to create areas like this when the park was created and but that opportunity was missed or declined. There is a very popular ski area here at Heather Meadows under concession with the U.S. Forest Service. So the area sees quite a bit of year round use, though I'm sure visitation drops off in the shoulder seasons in the early fall and spring. The road here is a dead end so this place is a destination. Therefore, most of the folks who come here are going out of their way to do it. Also important there are a number of trailheads in the area for some relatively easy hikes that gains one access to some other pretty stunning alpine views. I tried to come up with some public use numbers for this area but I don't understand enough about them to speak intelligently on the subject. Though I have worked in the area (specifically around the nearest town, Glacier), quite a bit over the years, I don't live here and I don't pretend to know how much of an impact this area has on the local economy or what the job market is like though I would speculate that, as with most places that depend heavily on tourism, family wage jobs are scarce.

Looking at Mount Shuksan and the Mount Baker Highway (State Route 542) from Artist Point. This, and the Heather Meadows area, is what you need to draw large numbers of tourists in order to support a decent tourist economy, which even at that, probably doesn't support a lot of family wage jobs. This is very democratic, virtually anyone can access this spot and experience sweeping views of an alpine landscape and see things like glaciers and alpine wildflowers on the public land that they own. They don't need great physical ability, special gear, special knowledge or even a lot of time, probably a day or less for most people within several hundred miles, to get here. Again, nothing like this exists in North Cascades National Park, where the general public can easily access a spot that makes you feel like you are on top of the world. That being said, this, and the Heather Meadows area, has caused a lot of destruction in a fairly delicate alpine environment and it, and all of the tourist use, has ongoing adverse impacts to that environment (I'm sure a lot of the aforementioned alpine wildflowers and other plants were crushed during the construction and continued maintenance of the highway in this area). For this reason I very well understand why such development would have been opposed when North Cascades National Park was established and why such opposition would continue on any lands within the park today. I am okay with that. I personally wouldn't want to see this type of development all over place. But, by the same token, I think it is a gross misrepresentation to paint North Cascades National Park in the same light as other, more popular national parks, which do have developed areas like this to allow access to more of the public. Just because a given tract of land is in a national park doesn't automatically mean a lot of people will go there, especially if access is as difficult as in the North Cascades. Wilderness designation, which is what North Cascades National Park is about, severely restricts public access and it is not a draw for large numbers of people. Without good public access to some major attractions, you don't have anything to draw people in and then get them to stay a while and any economy in the area that is heavily dependent on tourism, if it can exist at all, is going to be very anemic. 

Artist Point and the end of the Mount Baker Highway (State Route 542) a little way above Heather Meadows, looking roughly east at Mount Shuksan. You can get a 360 degree view of Mount Shuksan and Mount Baker from this spot. Again, the whole area between here and Heather Meadows provides access to a number of fairly easy trails where one can access some pretty stunning alpine views without too much difficulty. I would state that a place like this is a great place to take a family with young children or elderly members or members with conditions or disabilities that prevent them from engaging in strenuous physical activities but it would not be my first choice otherwise. For those who want a little more solitude, there are a number of trails in this general area where, if one is physically able, you can get away from the crowds or there is plenty of area to strike out cross country. I did this several times and didn't see a soul the whole time I was off trail even though, as the crow flies, I was relatively close to the developed areas, often less than a mile.  

This is about 180 degrees out from previous photo looking roughly west at Mount Baker which is mostly hidden in clouds.  As I stated earlier I don't know a lot about the visitation to this area. But I would say that this parking lot is much bigger than the Diablo Overlook and it probably has extra capacity for reason. The number of cars in the above photos would have filled the Diablo Overlook to capacity and probably then some. There are several other large parking lots at trailheads and other attractions at Heather Meadows and between Heather Meadows and Artist Point. In fairness, one of the reasons the Diablo Overlook is smaller than here, at Artist Point, is that there is physically no more area to use at the Diablo Overlook. Ironically, the Diablo Overlook probably sees more visitation over the summer than the Heather Meadows area (Heather Meadows got 14, 500 and change in 2015). This is probably more a function of the Diablo Overlook being right next to a state highway that close to a million people travel on every summer. I have been to the Heather Meadows area several times on a nice summer day and had to look around a bit for a parking spot. I have never seen the Diablo Overlook full to capacity, though I'm sure it happens occasionally. This probably points to the difference in the type of use of the two areas. The Diablo Overlook is a quick stop on the way to somewhere else so the parking lot rarely fills up. The Heather Meadows/Artist Point area is a destination where people spend a lot of time so vehicles will be in parking lots for hours or days. I will state here that one should be careful using certain comparisons. I don't spend a whole lot of time in the Heather Meadows area and when I do it is usually on a nice day. Weather has a huge impact on the visitation of places like this and can drop off dramatically when the weather is bad. Therefore, the majority of my experience with this particular spot being on nice days gives me a very narrow view of how things actually are. The above photos are a case in point. The day they were taken was on a very nice day in the October shoulder season. I am sure if the weather had been bad that day, there would have been a lot fewer people. This spot is definitely empty in the middle of winter because the road to it isn't plowed. All this being said, this is an example of a place where the majority of the general public can come and use and enjoy their public lands and get to experience an alpine landscape and I think a lot of them do this. All of the comparisons I have made in this post between which is the most superior of the various accessible attractions are my opinion. In looking at the pictures, the Diablo Overlook doesn't look that dissimilar from the Heather Meadows area but photographs can also be deceiving. I feel there is a distinct difference between the Overlook and Heather Meadows and between the Overlook and the top of Ruby Mountain. A lot of this is a matter of taste. I guess the reader will either have to take my word for it or investigate for themselves. 

This is the Diablo Overlook on a foggy day. No, its Heather Meadows. No, its Ruby Mountain.  Actually its a spot about half a mile off the Pacific Crest Trail near Hart's Pass. The point I am trying to make with this photo is that any tourism economy based on scenic views and experiences is highly unpredictable. No matter if I am right or wrong about the visitor use in the North Cascades there is one thing I feel fairly confident in saying: You can do your best to provide access and services to attract the most fickle visitors and still get shot down by the weather. Sometimes you might be surprised by how many people show up but not often. The spot pictured above could be virtually anywhere on the planet in the temperate zone. On a day like this whatever might be there whether magnificent or mundane, all looks the same. A lot of people are going to stay home or engage in some other activity on a day like this. We get a lot of these days in the Pacific Northwest. The margins get even thinner when you do most of your business in a short window between Memorial Day and Labor Day when a day like this can significantly impact your bottom line.