"waste of money." The request for open-ended com- 

 ments also asked whether the brochure should be 

 continued. Over 97 percent of those expressing an 

 opinion favored continuation, although about 60 per- 

 cent did not comment, which is not unusual for open- 

 ended questions. 



Factors in Visitor Location Choices 



To provide a comparison with the factors stressed in 

 the brochure, we asked visitors what influenced their 

 choice of trailhead. The leading factors mentioned were 

 scenery, convenience (closeness to home), advice of 

 friends, fishing, easy trails, and tvjo opposite reasons- 

 novelty and familiarity (table 7). 



Some of these factors are beyond direct Forest 

 Service influence; they cannot be modified to alter use. 

 Scenery, for example, cannot be changed within wilder- 

 ness. Such features could still be described and used as 

 appeals or repellents in information programs. Use 

 levels, or crowding, by itself does not seem to be a major 

 element, at least not in these volunteered comments. 

 Fishing opportunities were cited by three times as many 

 visitors as crowding. 



DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS 



The effort by the managers to use information to 

 redistribute visitors to the Selway-Bitterroot did not 

 succeed in reducing the concentration of use on a few 

 popular trails. The measure of use distribution changes 

 is crude, and there are aspects of visitor opinions and 

 reported behavior that should temper negative conclu- 

 sions. However, the bottom line still is that the effort 

 apparently did not achieve its objectives. 



There are several reasons for the brochure's general 

 ineffectiveness. Its distribution was limited— most visi- 

 tors never saw it, and only about one-fourth had it before 

 they reached the trailhead. 



The content of the brochure had three weaknesses. 

 First, it probably had too narrow a focus. It stressed use 

 and crowding, which was not a major decision factor for 

 many visitors. Fishing was not mentioned, and scenic 

 quality was only touched on for two trails. Ease or 

 difficulty of trails was mentioned in passing for only two 

 trailheads. 



Second, the information may have been too limited in 

 detail. The use information only showed relative num- 

 bers entering at each trailhead and a few overused 

 campsites. There was no information on camping use 

 levels at destinations, such as lakes, or how use divided 

 at forks in the trails. Especially in an area like this one 

 with a large amount of day use, much of which is limited 

 to the first few miles of trail, more detailed use distri- 

 bution information might have influenced more visitors. 



Third, a number of respondents indicated a lack of 

 confidence in the accuracy of the use information. They 

 commented on the low compliance at the trail registers, 

 which seemed to be widely recognized. They were right; 

 the use data were low in accuracy. 



Many visitors felt the brochure could be improved. 

 Most asked for more detailed information and for infor- 

 mation on other aspects in addition to use levels. 



The types of visitors common to the area probably 

 made it more difficult to influence use patterns than in 

 some other places. Most visitors lived nearby; for some, 

 trailheads were almost in their backyards. The three 

 heavily used trails are all in the northern half of the area, 

 in the direction of Missoula, where over half of the 

 visitors originated. Many visitors were already familiar 

 with the area; new information could not be entered on a 

 blank slate but had to compete with substantial, prior 

 knowledge, some of which may have conflicted with 

 information in the brochure. 



On the positive side, most visitors who obtained the 

 brochure found it useful, and almost all who expressed 

 an opinion felt it should be continued. A higher propor- 

 tion of groups who obtained the brochure before they 

 reached the trailhead entered on lightly used trails 

 compared to the total visitor population. About one- 

 fourth of those with the brochure said they used it to 

 choose a trailhead, and this proportion was higher on 

 the lightly used trails than the heavily used ones. On 

 lightly used trails, about 40 percent of those who had 

 the brochure before they reached the trailhead re- 

 ported their choices were influenced. 



These types of desired location choices were ap- 

 parently too small a part of total use, which grew rapidly 

 during the study (an average increase of 26 percent per 

 year, based on trail register data), to overcome trends 

 toward greater concentration of use. 



MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS 



The results of this study, together with those of four 

 other studies reviewed earlier (Schomaker 1 975, Lime 

 and Lucas 1977, Krumpe 1979, and Roggenbuck and 

 Berrier 1 980), indicate that the effect of information on 

 wilderness use distributions can range from none to 

 substantial. Information must be used in particularways 

 to be a useful management tool: 



1. Information campaigns must be geared to man- 

 agement objectives. Managers must decide if they want 

 to bring about a general redistribution (say from heavy 

 to light use areas), or site-specific redistribution (prob- 

 ably a more appropriate objective), or help visitors 

 match their desires and experiences better (a very 

 appropriate objective and probably the easiest to 

 achieve). Each objective or group of objectives needs to 

 guide the design and conduct of the information cam- 

 paign 



2. The information must be delivered to a large pro- 

 portion of visitors. 



3. The information must be delivered early enough in 

 the recreation location choice process to be of use to 

 visitors. After people have arrived at an access point it is 

 too late to influence that trip, although later trips might 

 be affected. 



4. Information provided should cover a variety of 

 attributes of the environmental, use, and managerial 

 setting. Different visitors have different objectives and 

 will respond to varying types of information in different 

 ways. 



5. Considerable detail seems to be desired and 

 perhaps necessary to compete with previous know- 



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