Thorsell (1968) studied wilderness visitor registration rates in Banff and Yoho 

 National Parks in Canada. He observed six trail registration stations from a distance 

 using binoculars without the knowledge of the visitors during a total of 95 hours. The 

 stations were located at destinations in the interior of the Parks. Only 35 percent 

 of the visitors registered, a much lower rate than in Wenger's Oregon study. Thorsell 

 attributes this to the long form he used, which contained 19 questions. He also re- 

 ported great variation in registration rates between locations, but this could be due 

 to the small sample at each location. He classified all registration stations into 

 three rates of response, and multiplied registration totals by the inverse of the 

 assumed rate of response in order to estimate use. A similar procedure, based on an 

 arbitrarily assumed 75 percent registration rate, was used by Thorsell (1967) in an 

 earlier study of Waterton Lakes National Park. He reported that about 14 percent of 

 Banff visitors used the trails, but in a very uneven distribution; the most popular 

 trail out of a total of 56 trails in the Park accounted for 39 percent of the trail 

 visitors. Steepness of trails did not seem to affect amount of use. Day use 

 predominated (94 percent). Only 11 percent of the trail visitors penetrated over 5 

 miles into the backcountry. 



Cushwa et al. (1965), and James and Henley (1968) conducted pilot sampling 

 studies to estimate dispersed recreation use on large, general recreation areas. Their 

 technique incorporated interviewing recreationists at established road checkpoints as 

 they left recreation areas in nonwilderness situations. 



4 



