280 OUR FEDERAL LANDS 



that the new conditions cannot be cured ; motor tour- 

 ing doubtless is in its infancy. A million a season 

 may camp week ends in "Yosemite City/' or sweep 

 in an endless procession of cars past the bowl of 

 Crater Lake, stopping or not to look in, or swing 

 around the double-eight in Yellowstone, or file 

 through the Fall River gorge in the Rockies, without 

 disturbing in the least the loveliness, purity and isola- 

 tion of the surrounding fastnesses of mountain, for- 

 est, canyon, lake and river. On the contrary, I am 

 sure that we should not want these unchangeable 

 conditions changed, for the more who see these spec- 

 tacles, even in this desultory modern way, the more 

 there will be who benefit by impressions at least of 

 their great gifts of revelation and inspiration. 



But the very nature of the invasion carries with 

 it the key to its control. Motorists are motorists. 

 They can be concentrated because they refuse to be 

 anything else. They stick by the road. They de- 

 mand, on tour, the comforts of the road house and 

 the public camp. Their travel schedules rarely can 

 be disarranged. Limitation of roads within National 

 Parks, then, is the ultimate solution. The 2,354,643 

 visitors recorded in 1927 averaged 201 to the square 

 mile. With nineteen twentieths at least sticking 

 fairly to the roads and camps, the use of the enor- 

 mous outlying wilderness is seen to be trifling. Sav- 

 ing the precious, original, unmodified quality of 

 these sanctuaries of nature for use of those who care 

 enough for it to endure the pleasurable hardships of 

 the trail becomes, therefore, feasible. 



