CAMPS 109 



to 2 million; by 1932, park attendance exceeded 3 million; and in 1939, 

 nearly 7 million people visited the national parks. The figures do not, of 

 course, include the visitors to national monuments, national historical parks, 

 and other miscellaneous areas administered by the National Park Service. 



Comparable figures show that in 22 years, attendance in national parks 

 increased nearly 20 times while the acreage was not quite doubled. On the 

 national forests it increased more than 10 times, or from 3 million to 32 

 million. Apparently the major factors in growth of use in both national 

 parks and national forests were neither advertising nor provision of facili- 

 ties — or the absence of either — but rather the enormous expansion of all 

 forms of travel, based on increased national wealth and leisure and on 

 autos and good roads. 



This mushroom growth in attendance brought consequences and prob- 

 lems that had not been clearly foreseen. The terrific concentration of use 

 in such restricted areas as the floor of the Yosemite, on Mount Rainier, and 

 in upper Geyser Basin in Yellowstone caused serious overuse of camping 

 areas, extension of roads in a not always successful attempt to spread use, 

 and the development of grave mass-policing problems. 



Foresters have been having the same trouble, but not, generally, as 

 intensely. With a growth from some 4% million visits in 1924 to 14% million 

 visits (exclusive of transients and sightseers) in 1938, parts of the forests 

 have developed centers of very heavy use. Where there has been but a 

 limited area of usable land near a great city, where only a single mountain 

 lake is available to a large population, and in comparable cases, concen- 

 tration problems have developed, differing only in degree from those on 

 some of the national parks. 



The tendency of crowds to attract crowds has not been offset entirely 

 by attempts to divert them to new areas. The administration of the use 

 has not been completely simple nor wholly successful. 



Public use of national-forest campgrounds has reached such tremendous 

 proportions in recent years as to create many new administrative problems. 

 Supervision becomes each year more necessary, not only to prevent misuse, 

 vandalism, and misconduct, but also to regulate the flow and distribution 

 of the tide of campers. 



