United States

Department

of Agriculture

Forest Service

Rocky Mountain

Research Station

Proceedings

RMRS-P-20

August 2001

Visitor Use Density and

Wilderness Experience:

Proceedings

Missoula, Montana

June 1–3, 2000
Abstract

Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density and wilderness experience:

proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proceedings RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department

of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 67 p.

The workshop was convened to assess progress and offer further ideas regarding scientific contributions

to (1) understanding relationships between visitor use density and wilderness experiences and (2) applying

such knowledge to decisions about use limitation in wilderness and parks. The first paper provides an

overview of the topic and the papers presented at the workshop. Subsequent papers include reviews of

previous research, discussion of issues related to use limitation, exploration of the solitude concept and of

visitor conflict, and explications of alternative research methodologies.

Keywords: carrying capacity, recreation management, solitude, use limits, visitor density, wilderness

experience, research methods

The Compilers

Wayne A. Freimund is Arkwright Associate Professor of Wilderness Studies and Director of the Wilderness

Institute at the University of Montana. He holds a B.S. degree in outdoor recreation from the University of

Minnesota, a Masters degree in wildland management from West Virginia University, and a Ph.D. degree

in recreation resource management from the University of Minnesota. His research interests are in the

management of visitor use, the role of technology on wilderness values, and the application of planning

frameworks in wilderness and park management.

David N. Cole is Research Biologist with the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain

Research Station, located on the University of Montana campus in Missoula, MT. He holds A.B. and Ph.D.

degrees in geography from the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Oregon. His research

interests are in wilderness restoration, the management of visitor use, and the integration of the social and

ecological sciences in wilderness and park planning and management.

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Visitor Use Density and Wilderness

Experience: Proceedings

Missoula, Montana

June 1–3, 2000

Compilers:

Wayne A. Freimund

David N. Cole

i
The use of trade or firm names in this publication is for reader information and does not imply

endorsement by the U.S. Department of Agriculture of any product or service.

ii
Preface

The Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experience

Workshop was held at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest

near Missoula, MT, in June 2000. The workshop was

founded on the assumptions that (1) relatively low use

densities are a fundamental desirable attribute of wilderness, (2) use limits are needed at least in some portions

of the wilderness system, and (3) science can contribute

to better decisions about use limits. Given these assumptions, the workshop focused on what science has contributed or could contribute to decisions about where limits

are needed, what those limits should be, and on what

they should be based. Answers to these questions depend, in turn, on understanding the nature of wilderness

experiences and the influence of use density (and related

variables such as encounters) on both the nature and

quality of experiences. Participants were invited to present

the papers included in this proceedings, to discuss

progress to date on these issues, and to suggest research needs.

Financial support for the workshop was provided by

The Wilderness Institute, School of Forestry, University

of Montana, and by the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA

Forest Service. In addition to those participants who

presented and reviewed papers, we appreciate the

contributions of other participants: Laurie Ashley, Chris

Barns, Anne Hoover, Sue Matthews, Mike Patterson,

Dave Parsons, Jack Potter, Chris Ryan, and Vita Wright.

The Compilers

iii

Contents

Page

I. Overview of the workshop ....................................................................................................................................1

Wayne A. Freimund Use Density, Visitor Experience, and Limiting Recreational Use in

David N. Cole Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs .................................................... 3

II. Invited Papers ................................................................................................................................................... 9

David N. Cole Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review

of Research ................................................................................................................11

Robert E. Manning Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science

of Values ..................................................................................................................... 21

William T. Borrie Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience .................................. 29

Robert M. Birzell

Troy E. Hall Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge .................................. 39

Stephen F. McCool Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Research Issues and Management

Challenges in Appraising Their Effectiveness ............................................................ 49

Steven J. Hollenhorst Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective ........................................ 56

Christopher D. Jones

Alan E. Watson Goal Interference and Social Value Differences: Understanding

Wilderness Conflicts and Implications for Managing Social Density .......................... 62

v
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 1

Section I.

Overview of the Workshop

USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 3

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Wayne A. Freimund is an Arkwright Associate Professor of Wilderness

Studies, University of Montana, School of Forestry, Missoula, MT 59812.

David N. Cole is a Research Biologist, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research

Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forest Service, P.O. Box 8089,

Missoula, MT 59807.

Use Density, Visitor Experience, and

Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness:

Progress to Date and Research Needs

Wayne A. Freimund

David N. Cole

Abstract—Recent increases in demand have revitalized interest

and controversy surrounding use limits and the effect of visitor

density on wilderness experiences. A workshop held in Missoula,

Montana, in June of 2000 addressed the potential for social science

to contribute to understanding and managing increasingly populated wilderness conditions. Scientists identified progress in our

understanding of use density impacts on the wilderness visitor.

Management frameworks such as Limits of Acceptable Change

have proven beneficial in assisting managers. Science has also

advanced the ability to assess and interpret visitor opinion about

use density. However, several limitations to our understanding and

research needs emerged from this workshop. Contemporary visitor

assessments have largely been constrained to current visitors of

individual management units. Visitor opinion tends to focus on

indicators rather than the actual experience of individuals. We need

an improved understanding of the multidimensionality of the wilderness experience and how solitude is defined as one dimension of

experience. Poor understanding of the impacts of use limits on

visitor experiences and population dynamics is also a problem. The

absence of information about visitors, at regional scales, poses

problems to understanding how visitor populations are affected by

use limits or why objections to limits are prevalent in some places

and not others. To address these issues, the science community will

need to be inclusive of additional research methods based on a

broader suite of conceptual frameworks that can be integrated at

multiple scales.

Introduction ____________________

Wilderness means different things to different people.

Virtually everyone would agree, however, that to be wilderness (in the context of public lands) a place must be relatively

uncrowded. To use the particular words contained in the

Wilderness Act, wilderness should provide “outstanding

opportunities for solitude.” Wilderness need not be completely deserted. There can be other people around—just not

too many. If there are too many, those visitors who desire

solitude, privacy, opportunities for contemplation, and so

on, may have difficulty achieving these. Certainly, attributes

other than uncrowdedness are also essential to wilderness.

Relative naturalness, lack of development and modifications, for example, are also necessary for a place to be

wilderness. Nevertheless, the density of recreation use is

without question among the primary attributes of the wilderness setting.

As the population of the United States has increased, total

recreation use of wilderness has increased, as has the density of recreation use in most wilderness areas. As early as

the 1930s, a few people were expressing concern about

overuse of wildlands and asking how much use wildlands

could sustain (Sumner 1936). Recreation use of wilderness

increased exponentially during the 1950s and 1960s. By the

1960s, both the social and ecological impacts of recreation

use were being studied and the concept of recreation carrying capacity had been advanced. By the early 1970s, some

wilderness areas began limiting recreation use. The first use

limits were highly targeted. In 1972, boating use was limited

on the Middle Fork and Main Salmon Rivers in what is now

the Frank Church—River of No Return Wilderness and

overnight use was limited at one popular lake basin (Rae

Lakes) in Kings Canyon National Park. By 1973, use limits

were more widespread. Use was limited on more rivers,

throughout the backcountry of Yosemite and Kings Canyon

National Parks, in the San Gorgonio and San Jacinto Wildernesses and at Aravaipa Canyon (a BLM area designated

as wilderness in 1984). Outside the Western United States,

use limits were imposed at Linville Gorge Wilderness in

1974 and within a few years in the Great Gulf and Boundary

Waters Canoe Area Wildernesses and at Isle Royale National Park. By 1980, recreation use was limited in 23 areas

that currently are designated as wilderness.

About the time wilderness managers began adopting use

limits, recreation researchers began advising against the

widespread implementation of use limits. Use limits were to

be used only as a last resort (Hendee 1974). Arguments

advanced against use limitation included the nonlinear

relationship between amount of use and amount of impact

and the potential to control impact in other ways (Lime and

Stankey 1971). In the late 1970s, use dispersal was widely

promoted as a strategy that might alleviate the need to limit

use (Stankey and others 1976). By the early 1980s, as some

of the problems with use dispersal emerged (Cole 1981), lowimpact education was advanced as the means to avoid use

limitation (Bradley 1979). Hope that use limits might be the

exception rather than the rule was furthered by reports that

wilderness use was no longer increasing (Lucas 1989).

By the late 1990s, the pendulum had swung back and

management interest in use limitation is on the upswing
4 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Freimund and Cole Use Density, Visitor Experience, and Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs

again. It is now clear that wilderness recreation use is

increasing (Cole 1996) and probably always will unless it is

controlled. Activities that favor wildland settings (such as

hiking, backpacking, cross country skiing) are increasing in

popularity at the national level (Cordell and others 1997).

Moreover, people are migrating to places with abundant

outdoor recreational opportunities and natural scenery

(Cordell 2000). Increased populations in close proximity to

wildland resources will likely result in increased use levels.

Recreation impacts have spread across many wilderness

areas over the past several decades (Cole 1993), despite

increased attention to low-impact education. Crowding has

increased greatly at popular wilderness destinations. Concern about day-users and their impacts, typically unmanaged

in the past, have also increased. Many managers are considering limits on day-use and a few limits on day-use are

already in place.

Lime and Buchman (1974), in a paper extolling the virtues

of mandatory permits, noted that we were on the verge of

instituting a system-wide wilderness permit system. That

same year, Al Wagar (1974) stated “For wilderness, use

limits are inevitable.” Two and a half decades later, permits

are required and recreation use is limited in most National

Park Service wilderness areas but in only a handful of the

wilderness areas managed by other agencies. These other

agencies have spent much of the past several decades trying

to avoid these actions—hoping that increasing demand

could be accommodated within an expanding wilderness

system or on lands outside wilderness, and that impacts

might be controlled by reducing per capita impacts. Increasingly, however, wilderness managers perceive the limits of

these strategies and realize they may need to eventually

limit use. Use density is increasing faster than per capita

impacts are decreasing and, therefore without use limits,

social and ecological impacts will increase endlessly.

Ironically, now that managers are seriously considering

use limits again, public outcry against such limits has

become more shrill and perhaps more widespread. Requirements for public involvement in management planning have

increased, as have calls to base controversial management

decisions on science. The implications of research are not

always straightforward. For example, visitor studies in

high-use wilderness destinations show that visitors encounter more people than they prefer but do not support the

imposition of use limits at this time (Cole and others 1997).

Should managers veto most visitors’ opinions about appropriate management prescriptions in order to provide preferred experiences? Or should they honor most visitors’

opinions about management, recognizing that the result will

be experiences that differ from preferred experiences? How

can science best inform management decisions related to use

limits and wilderness experiences?

An Example: Wilderness on the

Mt. Hood National Forest,

Oregon ________________________

Controversy surrounding management of three wilderness areas on the Mt. Hood National Forest illustrates the

importance of these issues. All three of these wilderness

areas are located within a one to one-and-a-half-hour drive

from the Portland metropolitan area. The Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness is lightly used, with the exception of heavy

day use along the Salmon River. The Hatfield Wilderness

also receives relatively light use, except for the Eagle Creek

trail corridor that leads to several lakes that are popular

overnight destinations. In contrast, much of the Mt. Hood

Wilderness is heavily used. Day use is particularly heavy at

Ramona Falls—several easy miles from the trailhead. Moreover, Mt. Hood is one of the most frequently climbed mountains in the world. On an average weekend, more than 200

people per day summit Mount Hood via the South Climb

route. On some days, over 400 people attempt the summit.

The Mt. Hood National Forest Land and Resource Management Plan, completed in 1990, adopted regional wilderness standards for total encounters per day, campsite

encounters, and campsite conditions. In 1994, the Forest

began a “Limits of Acceptable Change” (LAC) planning

process for these wildernesses. As monitoring data became available it was clear that conditions were often out

of compliance with these standards. Compliance was most

problematic for the encounter standards and in the Mt.

Hood Wilderness. In 1998, the Forest issued the first LAC

Wilderness Protection Environmental Assessment. That

document proposed a management alternative that would

have cut use by as much as 90 percent on peak-season

weekends both at day-hiking destinations such as Ramona

Falls, and on the South Climb of Mt. Hood. Public outcry

was profound and seemed to catch the Forest Service off

guard.

Responses to the Mt. Hood proposal—and similar ones at

places such as Alpine Lakes Wilderness outside Seattle—

clearly show that wilderness advocates harbor diverse opinions about solitude, desirable wilderness experiences, and

the place of use limitation. Some take what might be considered a traditional “purist” approach to use limitation. They

support limits wherever increasing use threatens outstanding opportunities for solitude. Many of these people believe

that wilderness should be managed according to the

“nondegradation” principle. This principle posits that wilderness conditions at the time of designation provide a

minimally acceptable standard. Wilderness should be managed such that the quality of conditions (including opportunities for solitude) does not decline at all over time.

Other wilderness advocates, however, state that solitude

is only one desirable quality of a wilderness experience and

it is not always expected. They point out that the Wilderness

Act mandates “outstanding opportunities for solitude or

(emphasis added) a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.” One could have a high quality wilderness experience—the trip of a lifetime—even without experiencing an

outstanding degree of solitude. Many note that it is more

important for them to have access to places like Ramona

Falls and the South Side Climb than to have solitude on

every trip. They note that—if they want solitude—they can

find a place or a time where they can find it. Even in a

popular area, on a popular weekend, solitude can be found

simply by leaving the trail. Outstanding opportunities need

not be provided on every acre of wilderness at all times.

Many suggest that they would support use limits needed to

maintain the ecological integrity of the wilderness but not in

order to provide solitude everywhere at all times. Ira Spring,
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 5

Use Density, Visitor Experience, and Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs Freimund and Cole

a longtime wilderness advocate from the Seattle area, went

so far as to work with Senator Slade Gorton to get language

written into the Forest Service’s Appropriations Bill advising against the use of “subjective” solitude standards in

wilderness.

At Mt. Hood, Alpine Lakes, and elsewhere, the Forest

Service is reconsidering their wilderness recreation policies

in the light of this experience and the divergent opinions of

wilderness advocates. The Mt. Hood National Forest has

issued a second Environmental Assessment with a new

preferred alternative. It strives for a compromise between

divergent opinions. This alternative seeks to be responsive

to the solitude mandate by emphasizing the preservation of

solitude in the portions of wilderness that currently receive

little use. In popular places, however, the focus of management efforts is on avoiding excessive resource damage and

minimizing the need to curtail use of these places. Overnight

use will need to be limited immediately, based on the

number of existing acceptable campsites; but day use might

be allowed to increase further. This is a 180 degree change

from early use limitation programs with highly targeted

limits applied to just the most highly used locations. It

reflects recognition that such programs can displace use and

problems, as well as the philosophy that all wilderness acres

need not be managed to the same standard.

Is this appropriate? The wilderness management watchdog group, Wilderness Watch, doesn’t think so. They have

appealed the new plan. Even with this new direction, use

will still need to be limited— but on what basis? Should we

listen to visitors and attach more credence to ecological

integrity as a limiting factor than to social conditions? These

questions are not only applicable to popular places. Many

lightly used wildernesses, still offering outstanding solitude

and near-pristine conditions, are being discovered and used

more frequently. How can we decide whether or not to limit

use of low-density wilderness to keep it that way—as was

done, for example, on the Selway River? More broadly, how

can wilderness stewardship be implemented in a more

systematic, less incremental way? And how can social science

contribute to improved stewardship?

The Visitor Use Density and

Wilderness Experience

Workshop______________________

To address the role of social science in informing decisions

about appropriate visitor use densities and the implementation of use limits, a workshop was held in Missoula, Montana, in June of 2000. The workshop was founded on the

assumptions that (1) relatively low use densities are a

fundamental desirable attribute of wilderness, (2) use limits

are needed at least in some portions of the wilderness

system, and (3) science can contribute to better decisions

about use limits. Given these assumptions, the workshop

focused on the question of what science has and can contribute to decisions about where limits are needed, what those

limits should be and on what they should be based? Answers

to these questions depend, in turn, on understanding the

nature of wilderness experiences and the influence of use

density (and related variables such as encounters) on both

the nature and quality of experiences. Participants were

invited to present the papers included in this proceedings,

discuss progress to date on these issues and to suggest

research needs. It was noted that this focus on use limits

does not mean that use limits are the only or even among the

more useful wilderness recreation management techniques.

Use Density and Use Limit Research:

Contributions to Date ____________

From Carrying Capacity to Tradeoffs

Several papers described early research on carrying capacity and use density, as well as experience with setting use

limits. In an historical review, Cole describes how much of

the work on carrying capacity stemmed from the early

conceptual work of Wagar (1964). Following Wagar’s lead,

social research moved from descriptive studies to assessments of relationships between use levels, setting (social

and biophysical) attributes and experiential quality. Conceptually, the attempt to borrow carrying capacity from

range sciences was limited in success due to the difficulty of

adjusting for human values using a purely technical calculation. In his paper, Manning describes recent progress in

assessing appropriate use levels based on the normative

approach. This can be viewed as a shift from technical

calculation to making informed judgments. By using the

term “informed judgment,” Manning draws attention to the

fact that in making decisions about appropriate use levels,

managers must reconcile numerous and often contested

human values.

The Limits of Acceptable Change (LAC) process (Stankey

and others 1985) provided a technical framework within

which to make use density decisions. Complimentary approaches to defining acceptable levels of use density have

also been developed by the National Park Service, The

National Park and Conversation Association and Parks

Canada. Central to each of these processes are indicators

and standards developed for setting attributes, including

attributes such as visitor density that seem to influence

visitor experiences. When conditions approach or are beyond standard, management actions are invoked to bring

conditions into compliance with standards. Various forms of

use limits are often among those designed actions.

Despite the existence of such technical frameworks,

defining human acceptability and setting standards remains a challenge to managers. Frequently, managers

turn to the research community for help with this challenge. In early research, scientists described the relationship between (1) visitor evaluations of the “acceptability” of

the conditions they encountered, and (2) visitor reports of

how many people they encountered. From this early focus

on description, research approaches added an evaluative

dimension. A social norm approach, described in Manning’s

paper, has been dominant. At the heart of the norm concept

is the notion that visitors share, on some level, agreement

on what managers “ought” to provide in a setting and to

what extent they should impose sanctions (such as use

limits) to ensure those conditions. Recently, research approaches are evolving in an attempt to assess how visitors

make personal tradeoffs between acceptable numbers of
6 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Freimund and Cole Use Density, Visitor Experience, and Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs

encounters and their ability to gain access to wilderness.

Ultimately, while the tradition of evaluative assessment

can assist managers in understanding how visitors may be

affected by a use limit decision, any decision must still be

based on the judgment of managers.

Research on Limiting Use

During the 1970s and 1980s, a parallel path of research

and conceptual development explored the notion of perceived freedom and unconfined recreation. This work focused on the concept of obtrusiveness and the principle of

keeping management presence as indirect as possible. The

influence of education appeals, interpretive programs, and

environmental attitudes was the focus of many of these

studies. This focus on unobtrusive measures helps explain

the reduced popularity of the use limit policies that had been

commonplace in the 1970s.

Papers by Hall and by McCool (this proceedings) point out

some further concerns about the implementation and efficacy of use limits. First, the concept of solitude has become

more highly contested. Second, the wisdom of distributing

use is being challenged. These two concerns are especially

intertwined in the management of high use places in wilderness such as those on the Mt. Hood Forest. Should solitude

be a mandated setting condition on all areas of each Wilderness? What can research on solitude offer to the discussion?

Contemporary wilderness managers face a number of

solitude specific questions. Should some forms of solitude be

sacrificed in high use areas of wilderness to safeguard the

integrity of the remaining areas? Should there be a solitude

opportunity spectrum? In their paper, Hollenhorst and Jones

argue that existing research on solitude is not definitive

enough to offer much guidance on these questions. They

assert that the typical social-spatial (encounters within time

or place) operationalization of solitude is an overly simplistic

view of the concept. To support this contention, they look to

the conflicting explanations of solitude within the existing

wilderness literature. There they find interpretations of

solitude related to norms, attitudes, desired privacy and

involvement with the place or experience. They recommend

that researchers “turn their gaze away from crowding and

encounter norms towards the visitor’s capacity to realize

solitude.” By tracing the humanist roots of solitude, they

identify a moral rather than transcendental underpinning

to the concept. They contend that solitude is a complex

construct that is deeply internal to the Wilderness visitor. If

so, perhaps we have underestimated the visitor’s ability to

attain outstanding opportunities for solitude even within

areas of high use density.

Moreover, providing opportunities for solitude is not the

only experiential goal of wilderness managers. In this

proceedings, Watson discusses research related to visitor

conflict. Substantial visitor conflict reduces the quality of

wilderness experiences at least as dramatically as loss of

solitude. Moreover, conflict may often be related to visitor

densities, suggesting the desirability of manipulating visitor densities to keep conflict to acceptable levels.

In summary, while social science has progressed in developing understanding of the wilderness visitor, the research

foci have largely been constrained by mandates in the

Wilderness Act that call for “solitude” and “unconfined

recreation.” Solitude has generally been operationalized as

encounter levels and considered within the framework of an

LAC type process. Studies of unconfined recreation have

utilized the concepts of obtrusiveness and illustrated the

importance of education and persuasion. Research approaches have evolved and gained sophistication, moving

from descriptive studies to studies that are theoretically

grounded and predictive. Use limits themselves, however,

have had relatively little direct study.

Research Needs ________________

Adoption of the Limits of Acceptable Change framework

marked a movement from managing numbers of people to

managing setting quality. The diffusion of LAC and subsequent frameworks has strongly influenced research

related to visitor density and use limitation. At the workshop, we identified three problems with the way research

has approached the issues of visitor density and use

limitation within the LAC framework. First, research has

focused primarily on questions related to defining indicators and standards rather than to questions of implementing management actions. Second, the unit of analysis is

usually a single park or wilderness and confined to the

current visitors of that area. Third, research has tended to

focus on indicators or surrogates for the experience rather

than the wilderness experience itself. These limitations

point to some critical research needs.

Research on the Consequences

of Use Limits

In addition to research on defining desirable or acceptable

conditions, indicators and standards, research on the consequences of use limits is needed. In his paper, McCool points

out several concerns reflecting inadequate research. First,

the distributional consequences of use limits are unknown.

Limiting use in one area may shift the burden to other areas

that do not have the capacity to manage it. Are use limit

policies a sledge hammer approach to solving impact problems? Do they treat symptoms or fundamental problems?

The research community should evaluate the before and

after effects of policy changes. For example, the current

changes at the Mt. Hood or Three Sisters Wilderness provides a opportunity for testing hypotheses about the distributional affects of use limits or the lack there of.

As Hall points out in her paper, use limits favor certain

experiences. We do not know who is affected by use limits, to

what extent or for how long. Many of the use limits established in the 1970s were based more on efficiency than

equity. While efficiency is an important component of management, equity is a more important criterion for much of

the public. The need to understand equity effects points out

a need to determine how best to segment the population of

wilderness visitors. Visitor segmentation raises many questions for the research community. Can people be segmented? Do we allow visitors to self identify? Do we

marginalize people by segmenting them? Should we use

the notion of purism or resource dependency to determine

segmentation? Are there legitimate users of wilderness

who are not purists? To what extent is the desire for
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 7

Use Density, Visitor Experience, and Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs Freimund and Cole

solitude a worthy means of segmenting visitors? If so, is

solitude defined differently by different groups of people?

We must also provide processes for everyone to make their

voice heard. Is there a difference between who is listened to

and who is managed for?

Research at Larger Scales

As just noted, imposing use limits implicitly favors some

visitors over others. Depending on the situation, favoring

may be geographic (locals versus tourists), financial (those

who can afford access via outfitted groups), philosophical

(those in closest line with the intention of the Wilderness

Act), or political (those with the greatest influence on the

planning process). As Cole points out in his paper, favoritism

can be reduced if planners and managers can provide a

diversity of opportunities. In such a system, different tastes

are catered to in different places. This demands research

and planning at scales larger than the norm.

Current area-by-area approaches provide insights into

the preferences of current visitors. However, if every place is

managed for the preferences of the average current visitor

we will tend to provide relatively homogeneous recreational

opportunities. We need to conduct research that will help

managers of individual parks or wildernesses make decisions about standards and appropriate experiences that will

maximize the benefits provided by a regional system of

parks and wildernesses.

This type of research and planning will be challenging.

Institutional incentives are typically directed toward the

single unit that is a manager’s unit of responsibility. We do

not know the appropriate size for analysis or the properties

of the larger spatial systems that should be studied. We are

unaware of how visitors define spatial systems. Attention

should be given to how research on constraints, incentives,

place attachment, and conflict could inform our understanding of these systems.

Research on the Multiphasic

Wilderness Experience

In their paper, Borrie and Birzell suggest that the dominant approaches to understanding wilderness experiences

have followed the traditions of satisfaction, importanceperformance, and benefits-based assessment of the experience. They criticize the tendency for these approaches to

reduce experiences to a select number of scale items that

depict motives, setting attributes or experience evaluations.

Assessments of central tendency remove the individual’s

perspective. Survey approaches trend to be one-shot case

studies that lose the dynamic (temporal and spatial) nature

of the experience.

While these dominant reductionistic, group centered and

reflective research methodologies have produced manageable measurement techniques, they are less helpful in producing an understanding of fundamental constructs of the

wilderness experience, such as solitude. At a minimum we

want to know what’s lost by a management decision. A better

understanding of the values that flow from wilderness

experiences will assist in monitoring change. In the Mount

Hood example, where much of the public has embraced the

concept of high use zones, we do not know if the importance

of solitude has decreased, its definition has changed, or if

there has been a substantial change in the people visiting

the place. We do not know if encounter levels act as meaningful surrogates for the complex assessment of solitude offered

by Hollenhorst and Jones. Does this vary by time of day,

point in the trip, or from trip to trip?

To address these issues, we need more and different

research focused on the “wilderness experience.” This is a

way to isolate what’s unique about the “wilderness” as

opposed to a “good” experience. What are the phases of

contemporary wilderness experience and is there something

unique about the experience that could be included in

instruments to help understand dynamics across places and

time? With a better understanding of the experience, a

better understanding of the tradeoffs associated with use

limits will be developed.

In their paper, Borrie and Birzell describe techniques

available for this type of research. Generally qualitative in

method, these approaches focus on particular moments in

people’s lives. People’s voices are much more clearly heard

and the meanings they attach to wilderness can be fleshed

out. Properly collected, qualitative data can provide a

deeper understanding of the wilderness experience than

quantitative data.

There are several methodological obstacles to measurement of the experience. Qualitative interviews are limited

by the respondent’s vocabulary. There are also challenges

in the degree to which results can be generalized and

incorporated into management decisions. While we can get

at the nature and character of the experience by talking to

many people about their experience, we are unsure of the

monitoring techniques that would work with this level of

individual analysis. What are the characteristics of a qualitative monitoring system? Instead of focusing on the magnitude of quality, it is also important to look at responses

over time and note changes in experience. How would we

know if the experience has qualitatively changed? How do

we best confront the relative subjectivity of various research methodologies?

Conclusions____________________

This workshop offered the opportunity to reflect on a large

body of research and ask what we are currently contributing

as scientists to understanding visitor use density and wilderness experience and the application of such understanding to decisions about use limits. We recognized that with

some exceptions, research relative to use limits has occurred

in distinct eras. The first era was descriptive and occurred

coincidentally with the aggressive application of use limit

policies in the late 1960s and 1970s. Research at the time

was largely focused on issues of efficiency of visitor redistribution. Recreation research in general sought an improved

understanding of general wildland experience motives. In

the next era, research focused on the parallel paths of

defining acceptable conditions and understanding unconfined experiences. Much of this research was organized by

the need to define indicators and standards within LAC type

frameworks. Work on unobtrusive methods encouraged

management to be mindful of the conflicts its presence could
8 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Freimund and Cole Use Density, Visitor Experience, and Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs

create. During the 1980s and 1990s, the application of use

limits was less common.

The sentiment of our workshop was that it is timely to

embark on another era of research. Research should move

beyond the spatial and temporal scales of past research and

embrace the complexity of regional analysis. Tools are now

available to facilitate understanding the connectivity of

wildland resources in a regional context. Computer programs such as travel pattern modeling and geographic

information systems can be combined with survey research

to assess relationships among areas with varied policies on

use density. This research should be complimented by studies of organizational barriers to regional thinking.

Similarly, increased attention should be given to understanding the individual wilderness visitor. For efficiency

sake, models have been adopted to simplify the understanding of visitor experiences. The scientific and management

community will benefit from the increased understanding of

the experience that is emerging from hermeneutic and other

experienced-based research approaches. With work, the

results of these types of studies can be incorporated into

management applications, complimenting the types of

information being generated at other scales of analysis.

Finally, those involved in studying the social dynamics of

wilderness must identify a framework for organizing a

multiscale research agenda. By combining the strengths of

diverse social sciences such as cultural geography, sociology,

political science, and social and environmental psychology,

an integrated understanding of issues as complex as those

that influence use limit policy will be developed.

References _____________________

Bradley, J. 1979. A human approach to reducing wildland impacts.

In: Ittner, R., Potter, D., Agee, J., Anschell, S., eds. Recreational

impact on wildlands conference proceedings. Portland, OR: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest

Region: 222–226.

Cole, D. 1981. Managing ecological impacts at wilderness campsites: an evaluation of techniques. Journal of Forestry. 79: 86–89.

Cole, D. 1993. Campsites in three western wildernesses: proliferation and changes in condition over 12 to 16 years. Research Paper

INT-463. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest

Service, Intermountain Research Station.

Cole, D. 1996. Wilderness recreation use trends, 1965 through 1994.

Research Paper INT-RP-488. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of

Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station.

Cole, D., Watson, A., Hall, T., Spildie, D. 1997. High-use destinations in wilderness: social and biophysical impacts, visitor responses, and management options. Research Paper INT-RP-496.

Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Intermountain Research Station.

Cordell, H.K. 2000. Wilderness in the contemporary american

mind. Presentation to the Wilderness Summit, 2000. Washington, DC. May 16–17.

Cordell, H.K, Teasley, J., Super, G. 1997. Outdoor recreation in the

United States: Results from a national survey on recreation and

the environment. Prepared for the outdoor recreation and wilderness assessment group, USDA Forest Service, Athens GA. And

the Department of Agriculture and Applied Economics, University of Georgia.

Hendee, J. 1974. A scientist’s views on some current wilderness

management issues. Western Wildlands. 1(2): 27–36.

Lime, D., Buchman, R. 1974. Putting wilderness permit information

to work. Journal of Forestry. 72: 622–626.

Lime, D., Stankey, G. 1971. Carrying capacity: maintaining outdoor

recreation quality. In: Recreation symposium proceedings. USDA

Forest Service: 174–184.

Lucas, R. 1989. A look at wilderness use and users in transition.

Natural Resources Journal. 29: 41–55.

Stankey, G., Lucas, R., Lime, D. 1976. Crowding in parks and

wilderness. Design and Environment. 7: 38–41.

Stankey, G., Cole, D., Lucas, R., Petersen, M, Frissell, S. 1985. The

limits of acceptable change (LAC) system for wilderness planning. General Technical Report INT-176. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research

Station.

Sumner, E. Lowell. 1936. Special report on a wildlife study in the

high Sierra in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks and

adjacent territory. Washington, DC: National Park Service

Records, National Archives.

Wagar, J. 1964. The carrying capacity of wild lands for recreation.

Forest Science Monograph 7. Washington, DC: Society of American Foresters.

Wagar, J. 1974. Recreational carrying capacity reconsidered. Journal of Forestry. 72: 274–278.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 9

Section II.

Invited Papers

USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 11

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

David N. Cole is a Research Biologist, Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research

Institute, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forest Service, P.O. Box 8089,

Missoula, MT 59807.

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness

Experiences: A Historical Review

of Research

David N. Cole

Abstract—Considerable research on the relationship between

use density and wilderness visitor experiences has been conducted

over the past four decades. This paper focuses on early work on this

topic, tracing the development and languishing of different research themes suggested by this early work. Research—particularly that conducted in the normative tradition—has contributed

useful information to managers grappling with the imposition of

use limits. However, traditional research approaches need to be

supplemented with research conducted at both smaller and larger

scales. Research on the opinions of communities of onsite recreation users needs to be complemented by research capable of better

articulating the nature of the recreation experience, differentiating between subpopulations of users, and placing individual protected areas within larger regional contexts.

For a long time, researchers have been interested in the

relationship between use density and visitor experiences

and the policy implications of this relationship. This theme

was among the first explored by social scientists interested

in recreation and the resultant literature is large. Some of

this research is primarily conceptual in nature (for example,

much of the work on carrying capacity); some of it is empirical. Much of it is applied, being driven by a desire to help

managers make better decisions about appropriate use

levels in recreation areas.

This paper provides an historical review. I begin with

early writings on the concept of carrying capacity and

principles to guide the management of use density. A

section on empirical research follows. Prominent themes

are identified in early research—some of which have been

well developed by subsequent research and some of which

have been largely neglected. Progress is traced over time

and significant conclusions are highlighted. The emphasis is on applied research and research conducted in

wilderness settings, although I recognize the value of

basic knowledge that can be gained by better understanding visitor experiences and their relationship to use density. Finally, I comment on the ability of science to contribute to management decisions about appropriate use

densities and use limits and suggest research approaches

capable of making worthwhile contributions.

The Concept of Recreation

Carrying Capacity _______________

Although alluded to since the 1930s, the concept of recreation carrying capacity was first developed in detail in the

early 1960s. Reflecting early conceptions of carrying capacity, LaPage (1963) asserted that the central issue was one of

quality versus quantity—the choice between restricting “the

number of persons using a given area, in an attempt to

maximize present individual satisfaction” and accommodating “more people currently, at the expense of a reduction in

the quality of individual experience, in an attempt to maximize total satisfaction” (p. 34). Anticipating future findings

and even terminology, he noted that “an increase in numbers

of people accommodated may not necessarily result in a

linear decrease in the quality of the individual experience”

(p. 33) and asked questions such as “what are the indicators

that carrying capacity has been exceeded?” (p. 34) and “what

are the ‘critical levels’ of satisfaction...which must be exceeded” (p. 36) for the experience to be acceptable?

Early Writings

Wagar (1964) developed the first formal exploration of

the recreation carrying capacity concept. Based on his 1961

doctoral dissertation, this monograph laid the conceptual

groundwork for much subsequent research and writing.

Among the important ideas presented were the following:

(1) In contrast to earlier characterizations of carrying capacity as an inherent property of a place that can be determined,

carrying capacity is not an absolute value; (2) Carrying

capacity depends on the needs and values of people and can

only be defined in relation to some management objective;

and (3) The conflict between quality and quantity—the need

to limit use—can be reduced through other management

actions such as zoning, engineering, persuasion, and the

management of biotic communities.

Once it was agreed that carrying capacity was not an

inherent property of a place—something that could be determined—the term lost much of its intuitive meaning. Consequently, Wagar (1974) and numerous other authors have

suggested that the term was a bad choice and should be

dropped. This advice has never been followed. The term

continues to be used in legislative and policy mandates by

managers and even some scientists. So, as Manning (1999)

notes we will probably have to live with it—despite the

problems it causes. Today, most scientists refer to carrying

capacity more as a topical heading than a property of a place

or even a management tool.

Even as a topical heading, there is considerable confusion

about what carrying capacity is. In the writings of some early
12 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Cole Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research

scientists, such as George Stankey and Dave Lime, the topic

of carrying capacity is treated very broadly. Lime (1976), for

example, says that carrying capacity is about “how to plan

and manage a particular recreation resource” (p. 123). Many

early articles about carrying capacity are either reviews of

research on recreation impacts and management techniques

(for example, Lime and Stankey 1971) or lists of extremely

general principles and propositions (for example, Lime 1976).

Such treatments did much to organize information about

recreation impacts and management techniques. Particularly helpful were the discussions of the numerous approaches for managing recreation use—only one of which is

use limitation.

More germane to this paper are articles that confined the

topic of carrying capacity to the issue of prescribing appropriate use levels, an approach that is more in line with the

original meaning of the term in wildlife and range management. For example, Wagar (1974), in his further writings on

carrying capacity, felt that the salient issue was clearly one

of use limitation—when they are appropriate and how one

could decide what they should be. Insightful early writings

about carrying capacity by Heberlein (1977), Schreyer (1979),

and Shelby and Heberlein (1986) also focused primarily on

building a conceptual and/or empirical basis for setting use

limits.

One of the few specific theoretical frameworks for assessing carrying capacity was presented by a National Park

Service policy officer, Rendel Alldredge (1973). In the

tradition of LaPage’s observation that carrying capacity

decisions involve a choice between quantity and quality,

Alldredge proposed a means of setting carrying capacity

based on the economic concept of marginal utility. He

hypothesized that total satisfaction (aggregated across all

visitors) should increase as more visitors enter an area but

that the individual satisfaction of each user should decline

due to increased crowding. If the rate of decrease in individual satisfaction is great enough, there will come a point

when total satisfaction starts to decline as use increases.

This would be a logical point to restrict use. The fundamental assumption of this theory is that experience quality will

decline substantially with increases in use density.

Wagar (1974) also drew on analysis of marginal utility to

discuss how limits might be set. In contrast to Alldredge,

however, he asserted that the difference in quality between

low and high density recreation sites would never be substantial and, therefore, “mass use would always appear to be

justified (in terms of maximizing human benefits) if we

examine one area at a time” (p. 276). Numerous empirical

tests have supported Wagar’s assertion. They fail to show a

pronounced inverse relationship between use density and

satisfaction (described in a subsequent section), invalidating the central thesis of Alldredge’s conceptual framework.

Wagar’s primary point is not that use limits are unjustified. His point is that to make good decisions about use limits

we need to enlarge the scale of analysis. “Examining one

area at a time may be the trap that has caused so much

confusion about use limits for specific areas.” (Wagar 1974:

276). He goes on to show how the concept of decreasing

marginal utility can be used to conclude that benefits are

optimized by providing some low-density recreational opportunities within a system dominated by high-density

opportunities.

Points of Agreement

Most students of carrying capacity agree on several important points. First, recreation carrying capacity is not an

inherent value; it must reflect value judgments. Decisions

about appropriate use must include what Shelby and

Heberlein (1986) call an evaluative component. These evaluations can be explicit or implicit. Managers are making

subjective judgments—reflecting their values or those of

others—even if they decide not to limit use. Limits on use can

be set without specifying desired ecological and social outcomes and without much understanding of the relationship

between use density and ecological and social conditions.

Examples include decisions to limit use to current levels (as

was done on the Colorado River in Grand Canyon) or to the

number of currently available campsites (as has been done

in the backcountry of many national parks) or to some other

density, such as the one launch per day allowed on the

Selway River.

Alternatively, use limits can be based on explicit evaluative decisions about conditions that are or are not acceptable. In this context, use limits are means rather than ends;

they represent the limits that must be set in order to

maintain specified acceptable conditions. This is the approach that has been advocated by most recreation researchers. Such evaluative descriptors are usually called standards (Shelby and others 1996) and are the basis of recent

“carrying capacity” processes, such as Limits of Acceptable

Change (LAC) (Stankey and others 1985) and Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) (Manning and others 1996a). Clearly, research can be helpful to management

if it provides descriptive information that can be used by

managers making decisions about acceptable conditions. As

described in a later section, considerable attention has been

devoted to research designed to provide such information.

A second point of agreement is that because any decision

about use limits will favor certain users and certain types of

experiences (Schreyer 1979), decisions must be made about

which recreation users and which experiences should be

favored in any given place. This suggests the value of science

that helps managers of individual parks and wilderness

areas make decisions about which users and experiences to

favor in their area. It also suggests that research needs to

give managers insight into the attitudes and preferences of

a variety of different potential interest groups. Unfortunately, little research of this type has been conducted.

The important implication of this second point is not that

managers need to give preference to certain users. Rather,

it demonstrates the importance of a third point of agreement. In order to avoid giving unfair preference to certain

users and experiences, managers need to make use limitation decisions within the context of a large system perspective. As Schreyer (1979) notes, the systems approach is

important because “the equity of any allocation decision is

dependent upon a broad picture in which one seeks to

maximize as wide a range as possible of individual definitions of quality” (p. 264). A decision to give preference to one

user group over another is less discriminatory if the other

user group is given preference somewhere else. This suggests that science directed at regional analyses should be

particularly helpful in making decisions about which users

and experiences to favor and, therefore, in making decisions
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 13

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research Cole

about acceptable conditions and appropriate use levels.

Again, little research taking a regional perspective has been

conducted.

Empirical Research ______________

The first substantial empirical study of use densities and

visitor experiences in wilderness was Bob Lucas’ (1964)

study in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. Despite the lack

of any formal theoretical foundation, this study is remarkable in the degree to which it laid the foundation for further

work. Lucas asked different user groups to decide where “the

wilderness began” on their trip. He then correlated the

percentage of groups that perceived a lake to be wilderness

with actual use of that lake. This allowed him to assess the

effect of use density on experience, without having to ask

visitors directly about crowding or their response to other

people (avoiding concerns about leading questions and the

ability of respondents to adequately assess their personal

responses and evaluations).

This relationship varied depending on which user group

was assessed and what type of user was encountered (paddle

canoeist, motor canoeist, or motorboater). For lakes without

motorboats, almost all canoeists felt themselves to be “in

wilderness” if use of that lake was under about 300 groups

per 3-month season. Lucas also asked visitors for their personal evaluations, asking questions about (1) whether they

were bothered by crowding, (2) the number of groups seen and

whether the number seen was too many, about right, or too

few, and (3) how many groups “could you meet in a day before

you would feel there was too much use.” A majority of

canoeists felt they had seen too many people when they

encountered more than five groups of canoeists per day.

Lucas (1964) went on to suggest how such data could be

used to inform decisions about use limits. He began with

several explicit assumptions—that paddling canoeists were

the recreational group whose opinion was most critical and

that a wilderness experience was the appropriate experience for the Boundary Waters. He justified these assumptions by asserting that the type of recreation to emphasize

(wilderness canoeing) should be the type with the fewest

alternative possibilities. This assertion would be supported

by a regional marginal utility analysis, as Wagar (1974)

proposed. Lucas concluded that “full wilderness” could be

maintained (all canoeists would perceive such places to be

wilderness) where there were less than about 300 groups per

year. Places with less than 600 groups per year would seem

like wilderness to 50 percent of canoeists, but not to the other

50 percent. Finally, he suggested that density ought to vary,

particularly in relation to proximity to access points. These

“capacities” would be much lower on lakes where the groups

encountered were in motorboats; they would be much higher

if the area were to be managed according to the preferences

of motorboaters.

Lucas clearly recognized that capacity decisions must

begin with decisions about which interest groups’ opinions to

favor and what type of experience to provide. In his analysis,

he decided that canoeists were the group to be favored and

a “wilderness experience” was the type to be provided. So he

used research to describe how use density affected the

wilderness experience of canoeists and based his analysis on

this information. He used a regional systems analysis to

justify his decision about which group and experience to

favor. Motorboaters, auto campers, and resort guests had

many alternative places to obtain nonwilderness experiences. And he built further diversity of opportunity into the

system by suggesting spatial variation within the Boundary

Waters Canoe Area itself.

Relationship Between Use Density and

Experience Quality

The fundamental goal of this line of research is to answer

questions about how important use density (or measures of

social interaction such as encounters) is to experience quality and visitor satisfaction. The value of use limits seemingly

should increase to the extent that encounters have a pronounced and negative effect on the quality of visitors’ experiences. Most studies of this topic have (1) used survey

techniques, (2) been conducted after the trip—often as much

as two weeks or more, and (3) required visitors to generalize

about the entire trip—as opposed to individual events.

Despite this reliance on post-trip questionnaires, three different approaches to this topic have been taken, with differences reflecting the dependent variable selected and whether

relationships are assessed under hypothetical or actual

conditions.

Studies have also varied as to whether the ultimate

independent variable is use density or some measure of

interaction between groups (encounters). Although these

variables are usually correlated, use density is likely to be

less directly related to experiences than actual interactions.

Therefore, this review will emphasize the relationship between encounters and experience quality.

The first approach involves assessing, under actual conditions, the extent to which quality of the entire experience

(often referred to as total satisfaction) declines as encounters increase. Shelby’s study of boaters on the Colorado

River at Grand Canyon (Shelby and Nielsen 1975; Shelby

1976, 1980; Shelby and Heberlein 1986) was the first of a

number of studies of the density/encounters-satisfaction

relationship based on actual experiences in wilderness-like

environments. For Colorado River boaters, there was no

evidence of a relationship between encounters and satisfaction with the total experience. Subsequent studies in

other places have generally come to the same conclusion

(see reviews by Kuss and others 1990; Manning 1999). In a

few cases there is a statistically significant inverse relationship, but the magnitude of effect is never pronounced.

Where r2

 has been used, density and encounter measures

have never explained more than 10 percent of the variation

in total satisfaction. Lucas (1980) used gamma as a measure of association in a study of visitors to nine wilderness

areas. He found that the percent of variation in satisfaction

explained by encounters exceeded 10 percent in six of nine

wilderness areas, with one value as high as 31 percent. It

is unclear, however, whether this very different result

reflects differences in instrumentation and statistical analysis or differences in the relationship between encounters

and satisfaction in these wilderness areas.

The second approach, also based on evaluations of actual

conditions experienced on each visitor’s trip, uses a more
14 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Cole Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research

elaborate “crowding model.” Crowding is a personal negative evaluation of interaction with other people. Theoretically, more encounters should result in increased levels of

crowding, which, in turn, should be associated with reduced

experience quality or satisfaction. Numerous studies—beginning with Shelby’s work in the Grand Canyon—report

either no relationship or a weak relationship between encounters and perceived crowding. Again, in park and wilderness settings, density or encounters typically explain less

than 10 percent of the variation in crowding (Kuss and

others 1990; Manning 1999). Antecedent variables (expectations and feelings about crowding) typically have a greater

influence on perceived crowding than density or encounters

(for example, Shelby 1980). Stronger relationships between

encounters and crowding (r2

 as high as 0.36) have been found

in a few studies of heavily-used rivers (Heberlein and Vaske

1977; Hammitt and others 1984; Tarrant and others 1997),

but not in wilderness-like settings. Moreover, most studies

report little or no relationship between crowding and experience quality.

In a variation on this approach, Hammitt and Rutlin

(1995) explored the relationship between encounters and

“privacy achieved” among visitors to Ellicott Rock Wilderness. They reported an inverse relationship between encounters and privacy achieved, but provided no statistical

data to help interpret the consistency of this relationship.

They also did not attempt to assess the extent to which

privacy achieved was an important aspect of visitors’

experiences.

The third approach has been to ask visitors directly, but

in a hypothetical manner, how they think different levels of

interaction would affect their experience. This has been

operationalized in several different ways. Visitors have

been asked about preferred numbers of encounters and

maximum acceptable numbers of encounters. They have

been asked to assess their likely response to different

numbers of encounters, presented either verbally (Stankey

1973) or visually (Manning and others 1996b). They have

been asked to give their highest tolerable contact level

(Shelby 1981). Analyses of such data, referred to variously

as satisfaction curves, preference curves, acceptability

curves, or encounter norms, show that most visitors prefer

relatively low use densities and encounter levels. They

perceive that their experience quality would be negatively

influenced by increased encounters.

These are the sorts of results originally anticipated by

managers and many researchers, given that some people

complain about encountering too many other people. However, it is important to note that (1) these are hypothetical

self-reports, the validity of which has been questioned (Lee

1977; Williams and others 1992) and (2) the dependent

variable in this approach is “satisfaction with the number

of people seen rather than satisfaction with the entire

experience” (Shelby 1980: 47). There is still no empirical

evidence that encountering more people than one prefers

has a substantial adverse effect on the quality of most

visitors’ experiences.

Numerous reasons for the apparent weak relationship

between encounters and experience quality have been advanced. One potential explanation is that there are important

mediating variables, mostly beyond the control of managers

(such as weather or expectations regarding encounters) that

have not been included in the analysis. While this is likely

the case and such variables are clearly of academic interest,

this explanation has little management application. If manipulation of use levels has little effect on experience quality—regardless of why this is the case—managers need to be

careful that the costs of limiting use do not exceed the

benefits.

Other explanations have been methodological criticisms—

particularly about lack of variation in total satisfaction

measures, lack of variation in number of encounters, the

need to remember how one felt several weeks ago, the need

to condense an evaluation of an entire trip into a single

rating, and, particularly, the limitations of generalizing

across different individuals. Wilderness visitors vary greatly

in motivations, expectations and other characteristics likely

to influence their response to any setting attribute such as

use density. The cross-sectional research designs used to

address this issue have been unable to “factor out” all this

variation. In essence, all the variation between individuals

becomes “error,” making it very difficult to detect relationships, within individuals, between density and experience

quality.

In a recent study at Grand Canyon (Stewart and Cole

2000, in press), many of these methodological shortcomings

were mitigated, with the use of onsite, daily diaries. Analysis

of resultant data showed highly consistent relationships

between encounters and crowding, crowding and experience

quality, and encounters and experience quality. The magnitude of influence was small, however. For example, for 60

percent of respondents there was a significant negative

relationship between number of groups encountered and

experience quality—assessed using a five-item measure

modified from Ditton and others (1981). For 20 percent of

respondents, there was a positive relationship between

encounters and experience quality. For the average person

with a negative relationship, encounters per day would

have to increase from 1 to 80 per day to reduce quality 50

percent (the independent variable was square root of encounters/day). Only 5 percent of respondents had strong

negative relationships (arbitrarily defined as a slope

steeper than –1.0, equivalent to a 50 percent reduction in

quality if encounters increased from 1 to 16 per day).

This study provides increased insight into the relationship between use density and experience quality but does

not alter earlier conclusions. For a few people, meeting

increasing numbers of people has a strong adverse effect on

experience quality. A few others respond positively as encounters increase. Most wilderness visitors are adversely

affected by meeting many other people but the effect of

meeting many people on the overall quality of their experience is minor. Most people prefer to see few people—as the

results of hypothetical studies indicate—but are not highly

bothered when they cannot have their preferred experience.

Different factions of the research community have interpreted these results in different ways. Some largely dismiss

these results as irrelevant, asserting that satisfaction or

overall experience quality is the wrong dependent variable

to examine. Shelby and Heberlein (1986) state, for example,

that although people are equally satisfied at low and high

use levels, managers should not forget about carrying capacity. They and others (Manning 1999) note that high satisfaction among current users may result from coping behaviors
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 15

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research Cole

such as visitor displacement, rationalization and “product

shift.” They conclude that the result of managing for satisfaction “will be loss of diversity in outdoor recreation opportunities, particularly low use alternatives” (Manning 1999:

120). These researchers assume that crowding is a problem

that must be managed and have turned to the “normative

approach” (discussed below) as an empirical basis for setting

use limits.

Other researchers have criticized this search for “scientifically determined restrictions” (Burch 1981: 223). Burch

(1981) goes so far as to suggest that the situation is one of

“organized irresponsibility where managers point to the

‘scientific’ data as reason enough for preferred decisions, and

the scientists have the pleasure of both defining and ‘proving’ the value of certain wildland policies held by personally

compatible social strata” (p. 224). These critics suggest that

managers should be concerned about denying visitors access

to recreational opportunities, particularly when available

empirical evidence suggests that denying access will not

result in higher quality experiences—just different experiences. Both Burch (1984) and Becker and others (1984)—

echoing Wagar (1974)—argue that better justifications for

carrying capacity decisions lie in systems analyses, “placing

the characteristics of a specific site into a regional context

and...(arriving) at an agreement as to what a specific site

could and should reasonably be” (Becker and others 1984:

482). Several of the stronger critics also suggest that more

insight might be gained by studying how visitors behave

when experiencing different use densities (Lee 1977; Burch

1984)—a recommendation first made by Alldredge (1973).

Visitor Assessments of Appropriate

Use Levels and Conditions

The first attempt to obtain visitor opinions about appropriate use levels in wilderness—what has come to be called

the normative approach—was Lucas’ (1964) study in the

Boundary Waters Canoe Area. He asked visitors “how many

other groups could be met in a day before you would feel

there was too much use?” Most canoeists wanted to encounter no motorboats and zero to five canoes. Stankey (1973), in

the second such attempt, asked a different type of question.

He asked visitors to evaluate their feelings—on a five-point

scale from “very pleasant” to “very unpleasant”—about

meeting increasingly large numbers of groups. He found

that, for a majority of overnight users in four different

wilderness areas, experiences were no longer reported to be

“pleasant” once more than two or three other groups were

encountered. He also illustrated how such evaluations varied between user groups (canoeists, motorboaters, hikers,

and horseback riders), as well as with the type of group

encountered.

In describing his results, Stankey (1973) casually described them as “norms regarding use encounters” (p. 23). It

was Heberlein (1977), however, who proposed that a formal

normative approach might be a worthwhile perspective for

carrying capacity research. He promoted Jackson’s (1965)

return potential curve as a model for portraying visitor

opinions about appropriate use levels as norms. Despite

recommending that return potential curves be generated,

Heberlein (1977: 76) noted this was not necessary:

By going to various groups and asking if the contacts are

too few or too many, the manager can get a rough idea of the

described curves. It is very important, however, that a variety

of potential users and nonusers (such as managers) be consulted. It is also necessary that this input be presented

according to the various user groups rather than by simply

adding them all together in a ‘vote’. This will give the manager

a sense of the variety of norms that exist for visitor density in

a particular setting, for a particular activity.

Heberlein and Vaske (1977) subsequently modified

Stankey’s question and developed return potential curves

(later called impact acceptability curves) from visitor assessments of the “pleasantness” of encountering different numbers of groups on the Brule River. The point at which these

curves crossed the neutral line—where the mean response to

that number of encounters was neither pleasant nor unpleasant—was interpreted as the encounter norm. This

metric was proposed to represent the upper limit of what

people will tolerate or accept (Vaske and others 1992; Manning 1999), an interpretation that has been adopted in many

subsequent research projects. This interpretation has been

widely criticized, however, for reasons ranging from questions about whether respondents are providing valid selfassessments (Williams and others 1992) to concerns about

whether such assessments are really norms (Heywood 1996)

to criticism of the use of the neutral line to define the norm

rather than some other point on the curve.

Numerous subsequent refinements to this “normative”

approach have been developed. Among the more important

refinements was Shelby’s (1981) attempt to develop different encounter norms for different potential experience types

that might be provided in Grand Canyon. He asked respondents to think about the Grand Canyon as offering three

different types of experience: a wilderness, a semiwilderness, and an undeveloped recreation area experience. Then

respondents were asked to state the highest number of

encounters they could tolerate before the experience would

no longer be that kind of experience. Unfortunately, the

value of the resultant data is limited by the fact that each of

these three types of experience was defined in the questionnaire using terms that suggest appropriate levels of social

interaction. Results would have been more useful if a richer

and more varied vocabulary had been used to describe each

experience. Roggenbuck and others (1991) asked people to

state the maximum number that would be acceptable, replacing the notion of tolerance with the notion of acceptability and reflecting the terminology of LAC-type processes

even more precisely.

In Shelby’s (1981) study, respondents were given the

response option “encounters make no difference to me.” This

option is now commonly given. Interestingly, when it comes

to analysis, such respondents are typically excluded, as if

they have no tolerance level. For some applications, at least,

it seems more appropriate to assume that respondents who

do not care how many people they meet have an extremely

high tolerance—and adjust median responses upward accordingly. Roggenbuck and others (1991) went a step further

and also provided the option to state that encounters do

make a difference, “but I don’t feel I can suggest an acceptable number.” Including this option can substantially reduce the number of respondents who say “encounters make

no difference to me” (Hall and others 1996).
16 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Cole Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research

Many of these refinements—particularly recent ones—

are described in Manning (1999, this proceedings). Examples of various types of question formats are presented in

Donnelly and others (1992). Studies have evaluated variation in the norms derived from different question formats

(Hall and others 1996; Manning and others 1999a).

Much of the controversy about the normative approach

concerns the prescriptive utility of resultant metrics. When

Lucas (1964) first asked people for their opinions about how

many people they could meet before they would feel there

was too much use, he clearly viewed the resultant data as

self-assessments of likely responses to encounters. He presented these data as being descriptive (what is) more than

evaluative (good versus bad) and certainly not as prescriptive data (what ought to be). He referred to the question as

an “informal” one, suggesting little confidence in the results.

This interpretation changed, however, when it was asserted that such data could be used to identify social norms,

defined as societally shared judgments of what conditions

“ought to or should be” (Vaske and others 1992). In recent

dialogue responding to criticism of the norms approach,

Doug Whittaker and Bo Shelby asserted that questions

about acceptability measure norms rather than attitudes

and that “norms are about degrees of should/should

not...while attitudes are about degrees of good/bad” (Heywood

2000: 261). This assertion has not been tested, however. It is

quite possible that visitors are merely responding in terms

of good or bad, even though they were asked to evaluate

acceptability. While this may appear to be largely a semantic

argument, this debate has important implications for how

such data are interpreted and used.

Ever since processes like LAC and VERP emerged as

recommended frameworks for resource management, managers have struggled with developing the prescriptive standards that are the foundation of such processes. They have

been uncomfortable making subjective judgments about

what ought to be. Proponents of the normative approach

often represent norms as providing an empirical basis for

developing management standards (Shelby and others 1996).

The terminology used and the way norms and standards are

described often leave the impression that data, such as that

first collected by Lucas, if analyzed and displayed as an

impact acceptability curve (Vaske and others 1986) can be

translated directly into management standards.

LAC-type management standards are clearly prescriptive

in nature. They represent carefully crafted compromises

between conflicting goals (Cole and McCool 1997)—such as

concern for providing access and concern for protecting

wilderness experiences. In setting a standard, such as a

maximum number of encounters per day, managers must

consider the management actions that will be needed to

comply with standards. An understanding of the costs of

such a standard, such as reduced access, is as important to

the process of defining standards as an understanding of

beneficial effects of meeting fewer people on experiences.

The “social norms” derived from asking visitors about the

acceptability of conditions, though often referred to as standards and presented in units identical to LAC standards

(such as maximum number of encounters per day), are very

different. Visitors are not presented with conflicting goals

and asked to make tradeoffs. Instead, they are asked to

evaluate acceptability without any explicit information about

the costs of alternative choices. Such unconstrained choices

provide, at best, only half of the equation—information

about how visitors evaluate the effect of density on their

experience—needed to set LAC standards. These data can

inform the subsequent prescriptive process. However, the

difficult decision—how to balance concerns about experiences with concerns about access—still remains.

In a study of day-hikers at Grand Canyon, Manning and

others (1999b) attempted to interject a more prescriptive

element by asking visitors about the maximum number of

people “the National Park Service should allow on this

section of trail. In other words, at what point should hikers

be restricted from using this trail.” Norms derived from this

question were compared with norms from a traditional

question about the maximum number of people that would

be acceptable, where “acceptable” was not defined. For

hikers on the wilderness-like threshold trails, the mean

response, when a consequence was stated, was more than 50

percent higher than the mean response to the traditional

question. The mean respondent felt the National Park Service should allow a use density substantially higher than the

current density, if access might have to be restricted in order

to keep densities within acceptable levels.

Visitor Opinions About and Responses

to Use Limits

Further insight into the effects of use density on experiences can be gleaned from studies that asked visitors about

their support for use limits. Typically, visitors support

restricting the number of visitors to an area “if it is being

used beyond its capacity” (Lucas 1980). However, visitors

are reluctant to ever conclude that an area is being used

beyond its capacity. Starting with a study of three eastern

wilderness areas (Roggenbuck and others 1982), visitor

support for use controls has been assessed by asking them to

select one of the following responses: (1) controls are needed

to lower use, (2) controls are needed to hold use at current

levels, (3) controls not needed now, but should be imposed in

the future if overuse occurs, or (4) controls not needed now

or in the future. Virtually everywhere this question has been

asked, including some of the most densely used destinations

in the wilderness system (Cole and others 1997), most people

have responded that “controls are not needed now but should

be imposed in the future if overuse occurs.”

The one exception in the literature—Linville Gorge Wilderness—already has a permit system. Most visitors there

also support the status quo, which in this case, means they

think use should be held to current levels. Shortly after the

implementation of use limits, visitor opinions about limits

were assessed at Rocky Mountain National Park (Fazio and

Gilbert 1974), Denali National Park (Bultena and others

1981), and San Gorgonio and San Jacinto Wildernesses

(Stankey 1979). In each case, most people who visited these

places after use limits had been imposed supported that

management action. They supported the current management regime.

Hall and Cole (2000) examined visitor response to the

imposition of use limits in the Obsidian Falls area of the

Three Sisters Wilderness. Prior to the imposition of use

limits in 1991, 60 percent of visitors opposed use limits. After
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 17

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research Cole

implementation of limits in 1997, 60 percent of visitors

supported the use limits. One might want to interpret this as

evidence that visitors changed their opinion about use limits

once they experienced the benefits that accrue from a reduction in use density. This does not appear to be the case,

however. Prior to the imposition of use limits, most visitors

were repeat visitors. Following the imposition of use limits

the clientele had changed dramatically. Most visitors were

first-timers, more amenable to regulation and, interestingly, no less tolerant of encounters or ecological impacts.

One of the effects of use limits was to displace many traditional users who were replaced by people who were less

bothered by being regulated. Consequently, the majority of

visitors supported the current management regime, regardless of what that regime was. Use limits were not imposed at

Green Lakes—a nearby wilderness destination that was

even more heavily used than the Obsidian Falls area. The

portion opposed to use limits there increased from 60 to 70

percent between 1991 and 1997.

Discussion and Conclusions ______

What Have We Learned?

Density Affects the Nature of the Experience More

Than the Quality of the Experience—These various

empirical studies present a relatively consistent picture.

Most visitors prefer low-density wilderness with infrequent

encounters—although some do not. If they meet lots of

people—particularly if they meet many more than they

expect—most visitors’ experience is adversely affected. However, the magnitude of effect is small. Even in crowded

situations, most wilderness visitors still have high quality

experiences. We must conclude, therefore, that use density

has little effect on the quality of recreation experiences. One

of the implications of this conclusion is that we ought to be

more careful with our terminology—avoiding reference to

higher density experiences as being lower quality experiences. What density probably does affect is the nature of the

experience—what the experience is like. A visit during

which social interaction is nearly continuous is clearly

different from one in which there is no interaction with other

groups.

Decisions About Appropriate Use Limits Require

Decisions About Which Type of Recreation Experience to Favor—Such decisions are best articulated in

statements about appropriate conditions and in standards

for setting attributes—either for density or for variables

related to density. One of the important contributions of

Shelby and Heberlein (1986) is their set of rules for establishing social carrying capacity. To set carrying capacity, it

is critical to (1) decide which type of recreation experience to

provide, (2) define this experience with specificity, using

parameters such as appropriate numbers of encounters, and

(3) decide who should make these decisions (who the relevant groups are). Decisions about use limits, made for

individual areas, will enhance the experiences of some and

eliminate opportunities for others. Some of the criteria that

should be used when making such decisions include a concern for equity and consideration of aggregate benefits, both

of which are best considered within a systems context.

Consequences of Choice—When the consequences of

choices are made clear, current onsite visitors tend to support the current management regime and accept existing

biophysical and social conditions (unless the costs of a

change in management are all borne by some other user

group). Since density has little effect on experience quality,

few visitors are willing to forego the opportunity for access

in order to have fewer encounters when they do visit.

Although visitors tend to support the concept of limiting use

to avoid certain problems, they seldom conclude that problems are severe enough to warrant limits at this time—

perhaps because they recognize that such limits would

hinder their own access. Those who do not like the current

management program—either the existing regulations or

resultant conditions—are likely to have already gone elsewhere. They are not likely to make up a large proportion of

any sample of onsite users. Therefore, if use levels are

increasing and managers make decisions about tradeoffs the

way that empirical studies suggest most visitors would,

there will almost always be a constant evolution toward

higher density experiences. This suggests that the rationale

for use limits is more likely to come from some careful

evaluation of legislative and administrative mandates or

the unique value and purpose of any given area than from a

survey of current visitors.

Visitor Response—Most visitors are willing to answer

questions about appropriate experiences and setting attributes, including density and encounters. (However, there

is considerable disagreement about the extent to which such

responses provide an empirical basis for making decisions

related to use limits). Most visitors are willing to make

choices when asked whether a place ought to provide a

wilderness experience or an undeveloped recreation experience. Most will also state the maximum number of encounters that is tolerable or acceptable to them. However, these

numbers tend to increase dramatically when visitors are

informed of the consequences of their choices. As Manning

(this volume) argues, such judgments provide a rich resource for managers charged with making decisions about

appropriate use levels. Such data will be most useful if all

relevant interest groups are given a voice, if important

subgroups within the population are differentiated, and if

respondents are well informed about the possible management implications of their judgments. However, information

about the opinions of current onsite users is only one of many

types of information needed by decisionmakers.

What Information Should Managers

Possess When Making Decisions?

Most students of the use limitation issue agree generally

on the kinds of information and thought processes that

should lead to good decisions about use limits. Managers

need to decide which types of experience and which

recreationists to favor. They need to understand how use

density affects these favored experiences and to set use

limits accordingly. Processes such as LAC and VERP, with

their descriptions of appropriate conditions and experiences

and their indicators and standards, provide a framework for

documenting and implementing such decisions. Research
18 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Cole Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research

can contribute worthwhile information to such decisions.

Progress to date, however, has been limited.

The primary research contribution to such decisions has

been normative information about the opinions of current

onsite users about appropriate density-related conditions.

Information of this type has been gathered in innovative

ways and is of considerable interest. However, such information is only a small part of the information needed to make

good decisions. Consider that the range of potential use

limits is dependent on decisions about which groups should

make decisions, which experiences are most appropriate,

and which condition or impact levels are appropriate to

those experiences. Most normative research targets only the

last of these three decisions—the portion of the model that

probably explains the least amount of variation.

Over time, researchers have tended to forget many of the

suggestions of their elders. Wagar (1974) warned against

the trap of studying one area at a time. He and others

(Stankey 1974; Schreyer 1979) stressed the need to base

decisions on a regional perspective on recreation supply

and demand. Virtually every available study, however, is

confined to a single location. Several early researchers

warned about excessive reliance on visitor surveys, since

the validity of self-reports is difficult to verify (Alldredge

1973; Lee 1977) and because visitors are seldom likely to be

fully informed about the availability of resources (Wagar

1964) or the complexities and potential prescriptive consequences of their decisions. And yet, most available information comes from self-reports and assessments derived from

visitor surveys. Moreover, little attempt is made to inform

visitors of the likely consequences of the alternative choices

they are presented.

Wagar (1974) also warned that managers need the courage to override the prescriptive preferences of visitors who

“may have difficulty understanding that total recreational

benefits can be increased by limiting use on selected areas

and forgoing certain benefits” (p. 278). When we do inform

visitors of consequences and ask their opinions about prescriptions, they usually support the status quo. This raises

serious questions about how useful such information is to

deciding what is most appropriate. Heberlein (1977) stressed

the need to seek the opinions of various user and nonuser

groups and to keep the input of each group separate. Most

normative research, in contrast, is confined to current onsite

users and little attempt is made to identify the opinions of

different user groups. Shelby and Heberlein (1986) stress

the importance of tying standards to particular experience

types and yet this too is seldom done. When visitors are

asked their opinions about different experience types, the

vocabulary that is used to describe experience types is

impoverished. Respondents may conceive of the experience

type in completely different ways or in ways that are unrelated to proposed standards.

Needed Research

Traditional research approaches, based on the normative

tradition, have and can continue to contribute information

useful to managers making decisions about use limits.

Manning (this proceedings) describes some of the ways that

line of research can be refined and extended. However, more

attention needs to be given to alternative types of research,

particularly research conducted at different scales. Research

has focused almost exclusively on an intermediate scale of

analysis, assessing the community of onsite users at a single

protected area as if it were a single population. This is not

surprising since it is the community of onsite users that will

be managed and most research funding comes from individual parks or wilderness areas. However, this community

consists of numerous individuals who might usefully be

aggregated into subpopulations at a level of analysis below

that of the community. Moreover, the individual protected

area is part of a larger landscape of protected areas and other

lands. Just as our understanding of biological systems has

been enhanced by studying the biology of individual organisms, populations, communities and landscapes, our understanding of how best to manage recreation use will be

enhanced through complementary work at all these levels.

If managers are to choose between alternative experiences, they must understand more about the nature of

experiences and how density influences the nature of experiences. This requires more attention to the experience of

individuals. Qualitative research methods provide an opportunity to more fully explore dimensions of the experience of

wilderness (Borrie and Roggenbuck 1998; Patterson and

others 1998). In addition to effects of density on perceived

crowding, other effects of density need to be explored. Research on privacy has been initiated (Hammitt and Brown

1984), as has research on the achievement of solitude

(Hollenhorst and others 1994). Density affects experiences

through its effects on biophysical impacts, which represent

both evidence of others and evidence of inappropriate behavior by others. Density is also likely to influence the frequency

and nature of conflict between groups, which in turn influences experience.

A better understanding of visitor experiences is also likely

to create a richer vocabulary with which to articulate and

differentiate between alternative experiences. If we want to

gather opinions about the relative appropriateness of alternative experiences, it is not very helpful to simply describe

the alternatives as a wilderness experience or a semiwilderness experience. Such descriptors can be interpreted in

many different ways. Moreover, when those experiences are

described, the attributes used are largely confined to numbers of encounters or other density-related variables.

Finally, large-scale regional analyses of recreational supply and demand must be developed as the basis for individual areas deciding which experiences and user groups

they should favor. Stankey (1974) suggests a number of

criteria that might be used to make decisions about appropriate experiences: irreplaceability and relative abundance,

substitutability, demand-preference relationship, complimentary-competitiveness relationship, and costs. The emerging interest in the concept and importance of place—and its

implications for substitutability—has important implications for such work.

Limitations of Science

In his 1964 treatise, Wagar (p. 23) concluded with the

following comment on the ability of science to provide an

empirical basis for carrying capacity decisions and the

dangers of overvaluing the opinions of current recreationists:
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 19

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research Cole

Finally, it is concluded that, while research can provide

various types of information for guidance, final definitions

of recreational carrying capacity must be of an administrative nature. Ecological studies can show how biotic communities will change with use, but someone must decide how

much change is acceptable. Research surveys...can measure

current public opinion and analyze human motivation. But

such motivation and opinion will seldom be based on a

thorough understanding of availability and productivity of

the resource. Someone must decide which combination of

needs and desires it is most desirable to satisfy from our

limited resources.

On public lands...policy decisions should be by legislative

directives and by public servants striving to achieve the

public good. Recreational quality gained by limiting use must

be weighed against values lost when such limits reduce the

number of people served. Present values must be weighed

against values of future generations.

In other words, science can produce helpful descriptive

information. It can inform the evaluative and prescriptive

stages of the decisionmaking process but it cannot make

those stages any less subjective and judgmental in nature.

People must decide what ought to be and someone must

decide which people can participate in those decisions.

Managers are likely to continue to look to researchers for

help in providing a scientific basis for management standards and use limits. Given the value-laden nature of such

decisions, scientists need to be careful not to mislead

managers about the utility of their empirical research.

They should communicate the dangers of any analysis not

done at large spatial and temporal scales. They should

communicate the importance of understanding the needs

and interests of diverse user and nonuser groups. If they do

so and also give managers an increased appreciation of the

pros and cons of alternative choices, they should contribute

to better decisions.

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of three rivers. Journal of Leisure Research. 13: 129–138.

Shelby, B., Heberlein, T. 1986. Carrying capacity in recreation

settings. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press.

Shelby, B., Nielsen, J. 1975. Use levels and user satisfaction in the

Grand Canyon. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the

Rural Sociological Society, San Francisco.

Shelby, B., Vaske, J., Donnelly, M. 1996. Norms, standards and

natural resources. Leisure Sciences. 18: 103–123.

Stankey, G. 1973. Visitor perceptions of wilderness recreation

carrying capacity. Research Paper INT-142. Ogden, UT: U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station.

Stankey, G. 1974. Criteria for the determination of recreational

carrying capacity in the Colorado River Basin. In: Crawford, A.,

Peterson, D. eds. Environmental management in the Colorado

River Basin. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press: 82–101.

Stankey, G. 1979. Use rationing in two southern California wildernesses. Journal of Forestry. 77: 347–349.

Stankey, G., Cole, D., Lucas, R., Petersen, M, Frissell, S. 1985. The

limits of acceptable change (LAC) system for wilderness planning. General Technical Report INT-176. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research

Station.

Stewart, W., Cole, D. 2000. In search of situational effects in outdoor

recreation: different methods, different results. Leisure Sciences.

21: 269–286.

Stewart, W., Cole, D. [In press]. Number of encounters and experience quality in the Grand Canyon backcountry: a consistently

negative but weak relationship. Journal of Leisure Research.

Tarrant, M., Cordell, H., Kibler, T. 1997. Measuring perceived crowding for high-density river recreation: the effects of situational

conditions and personal factors. Leisure Sciences. 19: 97–112.

Vaske, J., Shelby, B., Graefe, A., Heberlein, T. 1986. Backcountry

encounter norms: theory, method and empirical evidence. Journal of Leisure Research. 18: 137–153.

Vaske, J., Donnelly, M., Shelby, B. 1992. Establishing mnagement

standards: selected examples of the normative approach. In:

Shelby, B., Stankey, G., Shindler, B., ed. Defining wilderness

quality: the role of standards in wilderness management—a

workshop proceedings. General Technical Report PNW-305. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific

Northwest Research Station: 23–37.

Wagar, J. 1964. The carrying capacity of wild lands for recreation.

Forest Science Monograph 7. Washington, DC: Society of American Foresters.

Wagar, J. 1974. Recreational carrying capacity reconsidered. Journal of Forestry. 72: 274–278.

Williams, D., Roggenbuck, J., Patterson, M., Watson, A. 1992. The

variability of user-based social impact standards for wilderness

management. Forest Science. 38: 738–756.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 21

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Robert E. Manning is a Professor, Recreation Management Program,

School of Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 05405.

Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”:

The Values of Science and the Science

of Values

Robert E. Manning

Abstract—Contemporary carrying capacity frameworks, such as

Limits of Acceptable Change and Visitor Experience and Resource

Protection, rely on formulation of standards of quality, which are

defined as minimum acceptable resource and social conditions in

parks and wilderness. Formulation of standards of quality involves

elements of both science and values, and both of these elements

must be integrated into “informed judgments” on the part of park

and wilderness managers. That is, managers must ultimately make

value-based judgments about the maximum acceptable level of

visitor-caused impacts to the resource base and the quality of the

visitor experience. However, such judgments should be as informed

as possible by scientific data on the relationships between visitor

use and resulting impacts, and the degree to which park and

wilderness visitors and other interest groups judge such impacts to

be acceptable. Such information represents the “values of science”

to managing carrying capacity in parks and wilderness. A growing

body of literature has begun to address the corresponding “science

of values,” and how this type of information might be integrated in

park and wilderness management. Visitor-based research has employed normative theory and techniques to explore the acceptability

of a range of social and biophysical impacts related to visitor use,

and findings from these studies are being integrated into a body of

knowledge and applied in management decisionmaking. Conceptual and methodological extensions of the normative approach are

currently being explored in a variety of park and wilderness contexts, and new theoretical and empirical approaches are being

adapted to address tradeoffs inherent in carrying capacity. In these

ways, the science of values is progressing to meet the opportunities

and challenges of the values of science to park and wilderness

management.

Crowding and Carrying

Capacity _______________________

Crowding constitutes a long-standing issue in the field of

park and wilderness management, and this issue often is

addressed within the context of carrying capacity. In its

most generic form, carrying capacity refers to the amount

and type of visitor use that can be accommodated within a

park or wilderness. Recent experience with carrying capacity suggests that it can be applied most effectively through

formulation of indicators and standards of quality for biophysical conditions (resource carrying capacity) and for the

visitor experience (social carrying capacity) (Graefe and

others 1990; National Park Service 1997; Stankey and

others 1985; Stankey and Manning 1986). Social carrying

capacity focuses principal emphasis on defining the type of

visitor experience to be provided and maintained. Indicators

of quality are specific, measurable variables that define the

quality of the visitor experience. Standards of quality define

the minimum acceptable condition of indicator variables.

By formulating indicators and standards of quality, carrying capacity can be defined and managed. Indicator variables are monitored over time, and if standards of quality

have been violated, management action is required. This

approach to crowding and carrying capacity is central to

contemporary park and wilderness management frameworks, including Limits of Acceptable Change (Stankey and

others 1985), Visitor Impact Management (Graefe and others 1990) and Visitor Experience and Resource Protection

(National Park Service 1997).

“Informed Judgment” ____________

The contemporary carrying capacity frameworks noted

above rely (either explicitly or implicitly) on a foundation of

“informed judgment.” That is, park and wilderness managers must ultimately render judgments about the level of

impacts and related visitor use levels that are acceptable.

A growing body of research illustrates that, while such

relationships may be complex, increasing use levels of

parks and wilderness may lead to increasing impacts to

biophysical resources and the quality of the visitor experience (Hammitt and Cole 1998; Manning 1999). To what

degree are such impacts and associated visitor use levels

acceptable?

This issue can be illustrated graphically as shown in

figure 1. In this figure, hypothetical relationships between

visitor use and impacts to the biophysical and social environments are shown. These relationships suggests that

increasing recreation use can and often does cause increasing impacts in the form of damage to fragile soils and

vegetation and crowding and conflicting uses. However, it

is not clear from these relationships at what point carrying

capacity has been reached. For relationship A, X1 and X2

represent alternative levels of visitor use that result in

corresponding levels of impact as defined by points Y1 and

Y2, respectively. But which of these points—Y1 or Y2, or

some other point along the vertical axis—represents the

maximum amount of impact that is acceptable?

To emphasize and further clarify this issue, some studies

have suggested distinguishing between descriptive and
22 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Manning Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science of Values

prescriptive components of carrying capacity (Shelby and

Heberlein 1984, 1986). The descriptive component of carrying capacity focuses on factual, objective data such as the

relationships in figure 1. For example, what is the relationship between the amount of visitor use and perceived

crowding? The prescriptive component of carrying capacity

determination concerns the seemingly more subjective

issue of how much impact or change in the recreation

environment is acceptable. For example, what level of

perceived crowding should be allowed?

From this discussion, it is apparent that carrying capacity

management requires a strong element of “informed judgment.” Park and wilderness managers must ultimately

render judgments about acceptable levels of biophysical and

social impacts, and associated use levels, but such judgments should be as “informed” as possible. Findings from

scientific studies represent an important approach to informing such judgments.

Values of Science _______________

Science can inform management judgments about carrying capacity in at least two ways. First, research findings

should serve as the basis of the descriptive component of

carrying capacity. As noted above, the descriptive component of carrying capacity concerns the relationships between visitor use and the biophysical and social impacts of

such use. A substantial body of scientific literature has been

developed on both the resource and social components of

carrying capacity, and recent meta-analyses have begun to

integrate and synthesize this growing body of knowledge

(Hammitt and Cole 1998; Manning 1999).

Second, research findings can also help inform the prescriptive component of carrying capacity. The prescriptive

component of carrying capacity concerns the maximum

acceptable level of biophysical and social impacts. Again, a

substantial body of scientific literature has been developed

on the degree to which park and wilderness visitors are

perceptive of such impacts and their subjective evaluations

of these impacts. This research explores the park and

wilderness-related values of visitors, and can be integrated

with other types of information (for example, legal and

administrative mandates, agency policy, historic precedent, interest group politics) to help inform management

judgments about carrying capacity.

Science of Values _______________

Within the context of carrying capacity, scientific approaches to park and wilderness-related values have been

applied primarily to formulation of standards of quality.

Earlier in this paper, standards of quality were defined as

the minimum acceptable levels of indicator variables. Research on visitor-based standards of quality has increasingly focused on normative theory and techniques.

Normative Approach

Developed in the disciplines of sociology and social psychology, the concept of norms has attracted considerable

attention as a theoretical and empirical framework in park

and wilderness research and management. In particular,

normative theory has special application in helping to

formulate standards of quality for park and wilderness

experiences. As applied in outdoor recreation, norms are

generally defined as standards that individuals and groups

use for evaluating behavior and social and environmental

conditions (Donnelly and others 1992; Shelby and Vaske

1991; Vaske and others 1986). If visitors have normative

standards concerning relevant aspects of recreation experiences, then such norms can be measured and used as a

basis for formulating standards of quality. In this way,

carrying capacity can be determined and managed in a

more informed manner.

Application of the normative approach to formulating

visitor-based standards of quality in park and wilderness

management is most fully described in Shelby and Heberlein

(1986), Vaske and others (1986), and Shelby and others

(1996). These applications have relied heavily on the work of

Jackson (1965), who developed a methodology—return-potential curves—to measure norms. Using these methods, the

personal norms of individuals can be aggregated to test for

the existence of social norms or the degree to which norms

are shared across groups. Normative research in outdoor

recreation has focused largely on the issue of crowding (for

example, Heberlein and others 1986; Patterson and Hammitt

1990; Shelby 1981a; Vaske and others 1996; Whittaker and

Shelby 1988; Williams and others 1991), but also has been

expanded to include other potential indicators of quality,

including ecological impacts at wilderness campsites (Shelby

and others 1988), wildlife-management practices (Vaske

and Donnelly 1988), and minimum stream flows (Shelby and

Whittaker 1995). Research findings from published studies

of recreation-related norms have recently been compiled in

Manning (1999).

A hypothetical social norm curve is shown in figure 2 to

illustrate the methodology described above. The norm curve

traces the average acceptability ratings of a sample of

recreationists for encountering a range of groups of other

Figure 1—Hypothetical relationships between use

and impact to the recreation environment.

Visitor Use

X1 X2

Y2

Y1

Impact

A

B
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 23

Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science of Values Manning

Figure 2—Hypothetical social norm curve.

visitors along a trail per day. The highest point on the norm

curve represents the optimal or preferred condition. The

range of acceptable conditions includes all points on the

norm curve above the zero point of the acceptability scale.

The minimum acceptable condition is defined by the point at

which the norm curve crosses the zero point of the acceptability scale. The degree of consensus among the sample is

indicated by the dispersion or variance of individual responses around the means that define the norm curve. This

issue often is referred to as “crystallization.” Finally, the

distance of the norm curve above and below the zero point of

the acceptability scale defines norm “intensity” or “ salience,” and is a measure of the degree to which the impact

under study is important to respondents.

Extending the Normative Approach

As research on normative standards has proceeded, several

approaches to measuring norms have evolved. Traditionally,

outdoor recreation-related norms have been measured using

a “numerical” or “narrative” approach. For example, respondents might be asked to evaluate a range of encounters (0, 5,

10, 15, and so forth) with other groups per day along trails.

The personal normative data derived are aggregated and

graphed (as illustrated in figure 2) to construct a “norm curve”

from which social norms might be identified. This numerical

or narrative approach often is shortened to reduce respondent

burden by simply asking respondents in an open-ended format to report the maximum acceptable number of encounters

with other groups per day. These two approaches might be

called the “long” and “short” versions of this measurement

technique.

More recently, visual approaches to measuring crowding

and other outdoor recreation-related norms have been developed. Two of these studies used photographs of wilderness campsites that illustrated a range of ecological impacts

(Shelby and Harris 1985; Shelby and Shindler 1990). Two

other studies have used artistic renderings of alternative

use levels and related impacts (Heywood 1993a; Martin and

others 1989). More recently, computer software has been

used to edit and produce photographs depicting a range of

use levels and environmental impacts (Hof and others 1994;

Manning and others 1996a,b, 1995). As with the numerical/

narrative approach described previously, long and short

versions of this measurement technique can be used. The

long version asks respondents to evaluate each image in a

series of photographs. The short version asks respondents to

select the photograph that illustrates the highest impact or

use level acceptable.

An issue implicit in all of these measurement approaches

concerns the evaluative dimension used in these questions.

When respondents have been asked to evaluate a range of

use levels and related impacts, the response scale has

included terminology specifying a variety of evaluative dimensions, including “acceptability,” “preference,” “pleasantness,” “desirability,” “satisfaction,” and “tolerance.” These

alternative evaluative dimensions may have substantially

different meanings to respondents, and may result in significantly different personal and social norms.

A related issue concerns the normative nature of evaluative dimensions. Application of normative theory and techniques to outdoor recreation has noted several important

elements of norms as they traditionally are defined (Heywood

1993a,b, 1996a,b; McDonald 1996; Noe 1992; Roggenbuck

and others 1991; Shelby and Vaske 1991; Shelby and others

1996; Williams and others 1991). One of these elements

suggests that norms have a strong obligatory nature. That

is, norms define what “should” be. This suggests that norms

might be measured by asking respondents about what recreation conditions or level of impacts they feel managers

“should” maintain.

Recent studies of crowding-related norms for several

national parks have allowed comparisons of findings among

the norm measurement approaches described above (Manning and others 1998, 1999a,b,c, 1997a,b,c, 2000). These

comparisons suggest that alternative measurement approaches can affect resulting norms in a statistically

significant and substantive way (Manning and others

1999d). The most powerful effects concern the evaluative

dimension used and more explicit introduction of the

normative notion of the recreation conditions that managers should maintain.

Examples of these findings are shown in table 1 and figure

3. Table 1 summarizes findings from several comparable

studies, and figure 3 presents findings from one study in a

graphic format. These findings suggest three important

points. First, a range of personal and social norms can be

estimated using a spectrum of evaluative dimensions that

range from “preference” to “absolute tolerance.” Second, the

“management action” evaluative dimension may be of special interest to park and wilderness managers because it

more explicitly addresses tradeoffs inherent in crowdingrelated issues (in other words, a desire to avoid crowding

while also maintaining public access), and therefore may

more closely approximate the traditional prescriptive nature of norms. For example, the “management action” question for the carriage roads of Acadia National Park, Maine,

asked respondents “Which photograph shows the highest

pattern of visitor use that the National Park Service should

allow on this section of the carriage roads? In other words,

at what point should visitors be restricted from using the

carriage roads?” (Respondents were given options to report

that visitor use should not be restricted at any point shown

in the photographs, or that visitor use should not be restricted at all.) It is important to note that “management

Optimal or Preferred Condition

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20

Number of Groups Encountered Along Trail Per Day

Acceptability

Range of Acceptable Conditions

Norm Intensity or Salience

Minimum Acceptable Condition

Crystallization (Dispersion

around points defining the

norm curve)
24 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Manning Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science of Values

Table 1—Alternative evaluative dimensions of crowding norms.

Evaluative dimensions

Acceptability Acceptability Management Absolute

Preference (short form) (long fom) action tolerance

Cariage roads, Acadia National Park

(persons/viewscape)

1995 (visitors) 10.7 12.7 17.8 25.2

1996 (visitors 5.4 9.7 17.5 20.9

1996 (residents) 7.0 10.1 15.6 19.1

Hiking trails, Grand Canyon National

Park (1997) (persons/viewscape)

Corridor Trails 3.4 6.9 9.0 9.1 12.8

Rim Trails 3.0 6.0 10.0 9.0 18.0

Threshold Trails 1.1 3.6 5.0 5.1 7.9

Attractions, Yosemite National Park

Trail to Yosemite Falls (1998)

(persons/viewscape) 18 32 40 46 60

Base of Yosemite Falls (1998)

(people at one time) 43 75 92 100 126

Trail to Vernal Fall (1998)

(persons/viewscape) 11.2 20.6 26 29.7 38.6

Trail to Bridalveil Fall (1999)

(persons/viewscape) 7 13 18 20 26

Base of Bridalveil Fall (1999)

(people at one time) 8 15 20 19 25

Glacier Point (1999)

(people at one time) 19 34 42 49 61

Trail to Mirror Lake (1999)

(persons/viewscape) 10.4 18.5 24 26.0 33.9

Statue of Liberty National

Monument (1998)

(waiting time in minutes

to get into the Statue of Liberty) 45 64 61

Alcatraz Island, Golden Gate

National Recreation Area (1998)

(people at one time in cell house) 25.1 36.0 44 43.9

Arches National Park

Delicate Arch (1997)

(people at one time) 12 33 37 49 67

North Window (1997)

(people at one time) 8 23 23 30 47

Devils Garden (1997)

(persons/viewscape) 6 13 13 8 23

action”-related norms are consistently and substantially

higher than “preference”- and “acceptability”-based norms.

Finally, the range of crowding-related norms developed in

the literature based in alternative evaluative dimensions

may be useful to researchers and managers as it facilitates

a more comprehensive understanding of the prescriptive

component of carrying capacity.

Beyond the Normative Approach

Data derived from the normative approach can be useful

in helping managers formulate crowding-related standards

of quality. However, such studies have also illustrated the

complex nature of this research, as well as the strengths and

weaknesses of normative theory and empirical techniques.

In particular, conventional studies designed to estimate

crowding-related norms may substantially underestimate

such norms because these studies fail to explicitly (or even

implicitly) introduce tradeoffs between the desire to avoid

crowding and the desire to maintain reasonable public

access to parks and wilderness.

Research on park and wilderness-related values might be

strengthened through adaptation of alternative theoretical

and empirical approaches, especially those that more explicitly address inherent tradeoffs in outdoor recreation. For

example, indifference curve analysis developed in the discipline of economics, provides a model representing the tradeoff

decisions an individual makes in allocating a fixed level of

income between two consumer goods (Nicholson 1995). There

are two primary components to the indifference curve model,
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 25

Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science of Values Manning

the individual’s indifference curves and their budget constraint. A single indifference curve represents all possible

combinations of two goods (for example, A and B ) that

provide the individual with the same level of utility (Pindyck

and Rubinfield 1995). The curves labeled IC1 and IC2 in

figure 4 are examples of indifference curves. The budget

constraint represents the possible combinations of goods A

and B the individual can purchase, assuming the individual

spends all of his/her income (Pindyck and Rubinfield 1995).

For example, the budget constraint labeled BC in figure 4

represents all possible combinations of the two consumer

goods A and B, for a fixed income level.

According to indifference curve theory, the optimal combination of goods A and B for a given income is located where the

budget constraint is tangent to one of the individual’s indifference curves (Nicholson 1995). This represents the highest

level of utility the individual can achieve from the consumption of goods A and B, given a fixed level of income. In figure

4, the optimal condition is represented by point X. A more

Figure 4—Indifference curve theory.

complete discussion of indifference curve theory is represented in Lawson and Manning (2001a,b, in press a,b,c).

An initial application of indifference curve analysis to

park and wilderness management was conducted within the

context of social carrying capacity at Arches National Park,

Utah, by substituting lack of crowding at Delicate Arch and

accessibility to Delicate Arch for consumer goods (in other

words, goods A and B in figure 4). Specifically, the number

of people at Delicate Arch was substituted for good B along

the y-axis, and the percent chance of receiving a hypothetical

permit to hike to Delicate Arch was substituted for good A

along the x-axis.

Indifference curves were estimated following a procedure

adapted from MacCrimmon and Toda (1969). In this procedure, respondents are presented with a series of pairs of

crowding and accessibility conditions. The first component

of each pair of conditions is a fixed reference condition,

against which respondents evaluate an alternative condition. Respondents are asked to indicate their preference

within each pair of conditions they evaluate. In the Arches

National Park example, respondents were asked to express

their preference between a first set of conditions—having a

100 percent chance of receiving a permit to hike to Delicate

Arch and seeing 108 people at Delicate Arch—and a second

set of conditions—having a 50 percent chance of receiving a

permit to hike to Delicate Arch and seeing 36 people at the

Arch. Study methods are described more fully in Lawson and

Manning (in press a,b,c).

Regression analysis was used to estimate an indifference

curve for each respondent based on the data points derived

from the respondents’ evaluation of a series of access and

crowding conditions at Delicate Arch. For each respondent,

a hyperbolic, semilog, or quadratic curve was fit to the data

points. The functional form for each individual indifference

curve was selected based on the goodness of fit (R-square) of

the regression equation, and the explanatory significance of

the access variable (chance of receiving a permit) on the

number of people at Delicate Arch.

A simulation model of visitor use at Arches National Park

was used to estimate points defining the budget constraint,

representing the possible combinations of visitor use levels

and accessibility at Delicate Arch. Computer simulation

Figure 3—Relationships among alternative evaluative dimensions (taken from 1996 Acadia National

Park community survey).

7.0

10.1

15.6

19.1

Preference

Acceptability

Management Action

Absolute Tolerance

IC2

IC1

X

Increasing amounts of good A

Increasing amounts of good B

BC
26 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Manning Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science of Values

models have been successfully applied to a variety of park

and outdoor recreation areas (for example, Potter and Manning 1984; Wang and Manning 1999; Schechter and Lucas

1978). Additional information about the inputs used to

develop the simulation model can be found in Lawson and

Manning (in press a,b,c).

The simulation model was run at three levels of daily

visitor use. The first level of use represented the Park’s

average daily use in the peak summer season, which was

used as a proxy for a 100 percent chance of receiving a permit

to hike to Delicate Arch. The second level of use was 50

percent of the Park’s average peak daily use, which was used

as a proxy for a 50 percent chance of receiving a permit to

hike to Delicate Arch. The third level of use was 25 percent

of the Park’s average peak daily use, which was used as a

proxy for a 25 percent chance of receiving a permit to hike to

Delicate Arch.

For each use level, the model was run multiple times to

account for variability in model parameters. The outputs

from the simulation model runs were used to estimate the

highest number of people any visitor would see at one time

at Delicate Arch, for each of the three accessibility conditions. A linear budget constraint was estimated from the

three resulting data points.

Lastly, each individual’s indifference curve was mathematically adjusted to find the point where the indifference

curve is tangent to the budget constraint. The point of

tangency between the adjusted indifference curve and the

budget constraint reveals the respondent’s preferred combination of visitor use and accessibility, given the possible

conditions at Delicate Arch.

Study data were gathered from a survey of 124 visitors to

Delicate Arch in September of 1999. The study used computer-generated photographs representing a range of the

number of visitors at one time at Delicate Arch (Manning

and others 1996b). The survey was administrated on a lap

top computer.

Study findings are shown in figure 5, which presents the

percent of respondents with each of the preferred combinations of access and visitor use at Delicate Arch. The budget

constraint for Delicate Arch is represented by the line

labeled BC. Each point noted along the budget constraint

represents a preferred combination of access and crowding

at Delicate Arch for at least one respondent (the point of

tangency between a respondent’s indifference curve and the

budget constraint). The number beside each point indicates

the percent of respondents with the corresponding preferred

combination of access and crowding. Data analysis and

study findings are described in more detail in Lawson and

Manning (in press a,b,c).

Study findings suggest that indifference curve analysis

may provide a useful tool for park and wilderness managers

to evaluate tradeoffs inherent in crowding and carrying

capacity decisions. This research approach gathers data

concerning crowding-related norms of visitors, but places

such norms within a more realistic and applied management

context regarding the tradeoffs inherent in such normative

judgments.

Conjoint analysis represents another research approach

to quantifying tradeoffs inherent in park and wilderness

management. Conjoint analysis is a statistical procedure

that has been developed in marketing research to measure

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

140

160

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 200 220 240 260 280 300

30.9

17.9

0.8

10.6

1.6

2.4

5.7

4.1

5.7

0.8

2.4

0.8

0.8

15.4

BC

Number of people at Delicate Arch

Percent chance of receiving a permit to hike to Delicate Arch

Figure 5—Findings from indifference curve analysis

for Delicate Arch.

consumer preferences and tradeoffs among such preferences

(Louviere 1988; Green and others 1988), and has recently

been extended to applications in nonmarket and environmental policy contexts (Opaluch and others 1993; Dennis

1998). A standard research design involves assigning a

range of performance levels to selected product or service

attributes, then developing alternative scenarios that represent permutations of such attribute levels. Respondents

then rate their preferences among scenarios and resulting

data indicate which attributes are most important. In the

context of park and wilderness recreation, indicators and

standards of quality can be substituted for performance

levels of product or service attributes (Lawson and Manning,

in press a,b).

Conclusion_____________________

Crowding and carrying capacity are important issues in

park and wilderness management, and they are likely to

increase in urgency as the popularity of parks and wilderness continues to grow. Research on these issues, along with

management experience, has developed a number of planning and management frameworks and research approaches

for addressing these issues. It is clear from the literature

that management of crowding and carrying capacity involves matters of both science and values, and that both of

these elements must be integrated into “informed judgments” on the part of park and wilderness managers. That

is, managers must ultimately make value-based judgments

about the maximum acceptable levels of visitor-caused impacts to the resource base and the quality of the visitor

experience. However, such judgments should be informed to

the extent possible by scientific data on the relationships

between visitor use and resulting impacts, and the degree to

which park and wilderness visitors and other interest groups

judge such impacts to be acceptable. Such information represents the “values of science” to managing crowding and

carrying capacity in parks and wilderness.

A growing body of literature has begun to address the

corresponding “science of values,” and how this type of

information might be integrated into park and wilderness
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 27

Carrying Capacity as “Informed Judgment”: The Values of Science and the Science of Values Manning

management. Visitor-based research has employed normative theory and techniques to explore the acceptability

of a range of social and biophysical impacts related to

visitor use, and findings from these studies are being

integrated into a body of knowledge and applied in management decisionmaking. Conceptual and methodological

extensions of the normative approach are currently being

explored in a variety of park and wilderness contexts, and

new theoretical and empirical approaches are being

adapted to address tradeoffs inherent in crowding and

carrying capacity management. The science of values is

progressing to meet the opportunities and challenges of

the values of science to park and wilderness management.

References _____________________

Dennis, D. 1998. Analyzing Public Inputs to Multiple Objective

Decisions on National Forests Using Conjoint Analysis. Forest

Science, 44(3), 421–429.

Donnelly, M., Vaske, J., and Shelby, B. 1992. Measuring backcountry

standards in visitor surveys. Defining Wilderness Quality: The

Role of Standards in Wilderness Management—A Workshop

Proceedings. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report

PNW-305, 38–52.

Graefe, A., Kuss, F., and Vaske, J. 1990. Visitor Impact Management: The Planning Framework. Washington, DC: National

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USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 29

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

William T. Borrie is an Associate Professor and Robert M. Birzell is a

Research Assistant, School of Forestry, University of Montana, Missoula, MT

59812.

Approaches to Measuring Quality

of the Wilderness Experience

William T. Borrie

Robert M. Birzell

Abstract—Wilderness is a special place that provides opportunity

for unique and profound experiences. An essential task for the

maintenance of these recreational opportunities is the definition

and monitoring of experience quality. Four approaches to the

measurement of the wilderness experience have developed in over

30 years of research: satisfaction approaches (which focus on evaluation of onsite conditions), benefits-based approaches (focusing on

psychological outcomes), experience-based approaches (describing

cognitive states experienced in wilderness), and meanings-based

approaches (documenting socially constructed meanings ascribed

to the experience). Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses. Given that the wilderness experience is a multifaceted

phenomenon, it is not surprising that no single method adequately

serves the needs of managers trying to preserve the quality of the

wilderness experience in the context of rising use density levels.

However, a linear and direct relationship between use density

conditions and experiential quality should not be assumed.

Introduction ____________________

Attempts to define the quality of the wilderness experience have varied. Managers have struggled to define the

unique qualities of the very opportunities they are charged

to provide and protect. While impact upon, or loss of, ecological qualities has received a good deal of attention, and

frequently initiates management agency response (Hammitt

and Cole 1998), the loss of experiential quality seems less

noticeable and less urgent. However, that Congress and the

public in general directed managers to secure the opportunity for quality wilderness recreation is clear in the Wilderness Act of 1964 (PL 88-577, Sec. 2(a)) where it defines the

National Wilderness Preservation System to be:

...administered for the use and enjoyment of the American

people in such a manner as will leave them unimpaired for

future use and enjoyment as wilderness, and so as to provide

for the protection of these areas, the preservation of their

wilderness character, and for the gathering and dissemination of the information regarding their use and enjoyment as

wilderness.

And while it is acknowledged that onsite recreation is only

a portion of the American public’s use and enjoyment of the

National Wilderness Preservation System and that offsite

benefits such as heritage, bequest, and option values deserve greater attention, it has been visitor use and user

characteristics that have dominated wilderness researchers’ attention (Roggenbuck and Lucas 1987; Cole 1996).

Wilderness legislation provides broad guidance for the

types of visitor use that is to be fostered in wilderness areas.

The most frequently cited is the Wilderness Act of 1964 (Sec.

2.(c)), which defines wilderness to be:

...protected and managed so as to preserve its natural

conditions and which (1) generally appear to have been

affected primarily by the forces of nature; (2) have outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined

type of recreation; (3) have at least five-thousand acres or

are of sufficient size to make practicable their preservation;

and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other

features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

The so-called Eastern Wilderness Act of 1975 (PL 93-622,

Sec. 2.(b)) further directs that wilderness areas be:

...managed to promote and perpetuate the wilderness character of the land and its specific values of solitude, physical and

mental challenge, scientific study, inspiration, and primitive

recreation for the benefit of all of the American people of

present and future generations.

Both of these pieces of wilderness legislation speak of the

need to secure the character of wilderness in the face of

large-scale industrial development, expanding growth and

settlement, and growing mechanization. Undoubtedly these

threats have increased in the intervening decades and

efforts to protect the quality of wilderness recreation are

urgent indeed. Wilderness use is increasing (Cole 1996) and

popular support and demand for the National Wilderness

Preservation System continues. The language used by Congress implies that wilderness is a special place, offering

unique recreational opportunities. Research into this area

has suggested that wilderness does indeed provide rare

experiences and outcomes (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989; Scherl

1990; Driver and others 1987). The challenge, then, for

researchers and managers is to more clearly define the

nature of the wilderness experience that produces these

benefits. Elsewhere in this proceedings, Cole discusses some

of the influences of levels of user densities on experience

quality, and stresses the need for a better understanding of

visitor experiences. In our paper we set out to provide a roadmap to more than three decades of inquiry into the nature of

the wilderness experience. Throughout this period of time

varying concepts or approaches to the composition of that

experience have evolved, much of it reflecting changing

perspectives of outdoor recreation research in general.

The earliest research in outdoor recreation tended to be

descriptive in nature (Manning 1999). During this initial

phase, researchers were primarily interested in the numbers
30 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Borrie and Birzell Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience

of outdoor recreation participants, the activities in which they

participated, and their basic socio-demographic makeup. Although this information provided a base line for use levels and

the beginnings of an empirical foundation, the lack of a

theoretical framework limited its contribution to our understanding of the recreation experience. In many ways, recreation research has been a search for the most effective

framework for representing the value of quality recreation

experiences and protecting that value through planning and

management actions.

It was perhaps LaPage (1963) and Wagar (1964) who first

called for a “logically consistent framework that will guide

us towards quality recreation” (Wager 1966: 9). In doing so,

they explicitly linked quality of the recreation experience

with the numbers of people seeking that experience, thus

initiating discussion of a recreational carrying capacity and

its usefulness for effective recreation management. Lime

(1976) and Hendee and others (1978), for example, described

the possible application of a carrying capacity model for the

planning and management of particular wilderness recreation resources. However, recent authors have questioned

the application of carrying capacities to protected area

planning and management (Borrie and others 1998). Thus,

in many ways much recreation research has been a search

for the most effective framework for identifying and protecting the experiential values of recreation given the numbers

of visitors wishing to enjoy those values. This paper discusses four lines of research that attempt to measure the

recreation experience: satisfaction approaches, benefitsbased approaches, experience-based approaches, and meaning-based approaches.

Satisfaction Approaches _________

It is not surprising that “the principle measure of quality

in outdoor recreation has traditionally been visitor satisfaction” (Manning 1999: 8). Visitors are the premier sources of

information concerning the conditions of the recreational

opportunity they experience, and their evaluations are an

important sources of feedback for managers. However, reliance on satisfaction measures assume a number of characteristics of the visitor, including their ability to deliberately,

accurately, and consistently perceive (and base evaluations

upon) the conditions experienced.

Most satisfaction measures in outdoor recreation have

been adapted from the expectancy-valence theory, with

users considered to be rational decisionmakers that evaluate satisfaction as a comparison between desired and actual

outcomes (Williams 1989). Outcomes that meet or exceed

expectations result in high satisfaction while those experiences that fall short of expectations are considered less

satisfying.

Initial hypotheses concerning satisfaction suggested that

it was solely correlated to use levels. Alldredge’s (1973)

model proposed that increasing numbers of users would

result in diminishing satisfaction for each individual user.

In the case of wilderness, it was suggested that the first

user in an area enjoyed the maximum satisfaction and

additional users reduced this level of satisfaction. One

survey of relevant research found little empirical evidence

for this intuitive relationship between actual use density

and satisfaction (Graefe and others 1984). These findings

suggested that a multidimensional model of satisfaction

that incorporates various setting and experience attributes

might be more appropriate.

Thus, the ability of single measures of visitor satisfaction

must be questioned. Single item measures assume the

respondent’s ability to cognitively combine all the various

components and evaluations of a visit into a single opinion.

Furthermore, since single item measures are a more genericlevel evaluation, they are more prone to generic level influences such as mood, self-presentation concerns, and strategic

responding. Finally, single item satisfaction measures, by

their very nature, fail to filter out the influence of experience

components such as the weather, group dynamics, and level

of visitor preparation over which the manager has little, if

any, control. This is understandable if the aim is to provide a

single measure of satisfaction, but less directly informative of

what is leading to that satisfaction. Single-item scales offer

little in the way of accurate description of the recreation

experience and the role that management plays in fostering

and encouraging satisfying experiences. Thus, in recognition

that satisfaction is a multidimensional construct, multipleitem scales began focusing on situational determinants of

satisfaction (Graefe and Fedler 1986). One of the most prominent multidimensional approaches is the use of importanceperformance scales, which is described below. However, no

standardized sets of multidimensional measures of satisfaction

have been developed or commonly adopted (Manning 1999).

Importance-Performance Measures

One popular approach to multidimensional measurement

of satisfaction is that of importance-performance (I-P) measures. This technique was developed in the field of marketing research as an approach to measure customer evaluations of service attributes and easily convey this information

to managers (Martilla and James 1977). In application,

customers are asked to report the importance they place on

an attribute as well as their perception of the service provider’s

level of performance in delivering that attribute. Scores from

all the respondents are then aggregated to find the mean

importance and mean performance rating for each attribute

measured. Thus, the link between expectations and evaluations is made explicit. That is, if visitors consider a particular attribute or condition to be particularly important to

their visit, visitors are likely to expect those attributes or

conditions to be satisfactorily present. Any discrepancy

between expectations and outcomes will clearly represent

their unmet motivations or expected satisfaction.

Particularly for managers, one of the desirable features of

the I-P approach is its presentation of the data. The mean

importance and mean performance scores are plotted on a

two-dimensional grid to graphically illustrate customer satisfaction with the service provider. For example, attributes

that receive high importance scores and high performance

scores would fall into the “Keep up the Good Work” quadrant, indicating that managers are effectively providing a

worthwhile service. On the other hand, high importance

scores with low performance scores indicate that management is failing to devote enough attention to a valued

attribute and should “Concentrate Here.” This graphical

depiction allows managers to easily identify the areas on

which they should focus their efforts (fig. 1).
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 31

Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience Borrie and Birzell

Mengak and others (1986) found the I-P approach to be a

valuable tool that makes use of easily obtained information

to guide land management efforts. Clear guidance is given as

to which facilities and conditions deserve attention given a

mismatch between expectations and experience. It should

be cautioned that respondents rather than reporting actual

conditions were reporting perceived quality. The fact that

visitors typically perceive the quality of national parks and

wilderness areas as high suggests that results may be

somewhat skewed and the range of variation not adequately

captured by these measures. (It is not surprising that visitor

evaluation of outdoor recreation experiences is high given

the voluntary nature, the high emotional and financial

commitment, and the social desirability typically associated

with them).

Hollenhorst and Gardner (1994) have proposed a modification of importance-performance measures called the indicator performance estimate (IPE). They note that the

relative nature of performance measures in the typical I-P

model do not offer managers guidance for improving conditions nor are they necessarily comparable because each

indicator is based on a different scale. For example, low

performance levels on the indicator “number of parties of

people seen each day” would not tell managers how many

parties were actually encountered or the preferred encounter level. Also, the different scales of the indicators such as

“number of fire rings per campsite” and “number of parties

of people seen each day” would confound any efforts to

compare the performance of these indicators.

To ameliorate these deficiencies, the IPE model reconceptualizes the performance dimension of the I-P model as the

standardized difference between visitor standards and actual or perceived conditions. In the case of physical indicators, such as number of fire rings or percentage of vegetation

loss, actual physical inventories were used to determine

status of the indicators. To determine the status of social

indicators, such as number of parties seen each day, respondents were asked to report their perceptions of current

conditions. For each indicator (i), the indicator performance

estimate (IPEi) is calculated by comparing the mean preference (pi) to the actual condition (ai) dividing by the standard

deviation of the preference rating (spi), for example,

IPEi = (pi – ai)/spi

Each IPEI represents a standardized performance level that

is comparable between various indicators and is plotted on

an I-P grid similar to that shown previously.

This model has been applied to the Cranberry Wilderness

in West Virginia (Hollenhorst and Gardner 1994) to better

understand the monitoring of indicators within the Limits of

Acceptable Change (LAC) process. The IPE method was

suggested to allow managers to prioritize management

actions based on the perceived importance of each indicator

and the amount of deviation from standard for each indicator. This study found that four of the five indicators that fell

into the “Concentrate Here” quadrant were related to social

conditions and perceived crowding. It is interesting to note

that although users felt that use level indicators were very

important to their overall experience, they typically chose to

hike and camp along the most highly used trails in the

wilderness area. Although visitors typically prefer low use

levels, it is unclear whether the departure from preferred

conditions adversely affects experience quality.

Another recent approach to measuring visitor satisfaction

is that of a “performance measures only” test (Absher 1998).

In that study, visitors were asked to rate the performance of

22 indicators developed across three performance domains:

facilities, services, and information. With visitors sampled

across two National Forests, it is interesting to note that

wilderness users, on average, reported higher performance

levels for the U.S. Forest Service than front country users

did. The three reasons offered to explain this difference

illustrate the difficulty of interpreting these sorts of studies:

(1) the Forest Service may be doing a good job of providing for

wilderness users, (2) the Forest Service may be ‘over-performing’ by providing services and facilities beyond the

expectations of wilderness users, and/or (3) wilderness users, who are generally more experienced, may have more

crystallized perceptions of conditions and services.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Although customer service measures were originally developed for use by private commercial service providers,

there is justification for its application in the area of wilderness management. First, as taxpayers, wilderness users can

be seen as “customers” that are paying for the “product” of

the wilderness recreation experience. Second, because wilderness recreation users are an important part of the constituency that supports wilderness, it is advantageous to

ensure that their needs are being met.

As a methodological concern, it should be pointed out that

satisfaction measures are rarely reported at the individual

visitor level and are therefore less informative of the quality

of individual experiences. In most satisfaction or I-P studies

the results are aggregated across visitor groups and averages are then used to guide management. Shafer (1969) first

cautioned that the "average camper" does not exist, and that

Concentrate Here Keep Up the Good Work

Fair

Performance

Low Priority Possible Overkill

Excellent

Performance

Slightly

Important

Extremely

Important

Figure 1—An example of an importance-performance

grid.
32 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Borrie and Birzell Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience

recreation managers should strive to maintain a diversity of

opportunities and experiences. The aggregated data may

fail to adequately guide the broad range of conditions the

visitors are seeking.

I-P approaches tend to focus on the facilities and setting

conditions that can play an important role in determining

both the type and quality of the recreation experience.

However, it has been questioned whether it is valid to

express settings as a collection of individual attributes

(Schreyer and others 1985). Alternatively, settings could be

viewed holistically, as “more than the sum of their parts.” In

which case, visitor satisfaction in respect to setting attributes does not equate to satisfaction with the recreation

experience. Furthermore, considering the unique emotional

and spiritual qualities of the wilderness recreation experience, customer service approaches would appear to be measuring only one component of the experience. However, it is

that component that managers may perceive to be most

under their control.

While this type of information can prove to be an efficient

evaluation of management performance, it does offer little

insight into the nature of the wilderness experience. Rather

than measuring the quality of the experience we gain information on perceptions of quality of various setting attributes.

Benefits-Based Approaches ______

An alternative to directly measuring visitor satisfaction

is provided by the benefits approach, which is based on the

foundations of Driver and Tocher (1970). The benefits

approach differs from the satisfaction approach in three

fundamental ways. First, instead of measuring visitor

satisfaction with attributes, the benefits approach focuses

on visitor satisfaction with the psychological outcomes of

the recreation experience. Second, the benefits approach,

as operationalized in the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum (ROS) framework, expands the notion of the setting

for recreation experience to include physical, social and

managerial conditions. Third, in acknowledging that management shouldn’t focus on “the average camper who doesn’t

exist” (Shafer 1969), the benefits approach focuses on a

diversity of recreation experience opportunities and less on

mean evaluations.

Along with the development of ROS, much work was done

to identify which components of the recreational experience

are most important to participants. The recreation experience preference (REP) scales, developed through the combined work of Driver, Knopf, Brown, and Haas, identifies 16

domains that are considered to be important to the recreation experience (Driver and others 1985). These scales have

been used to measure visitor preferences in a good number

of wilderness areas, undesignated wilderness areas, and

nonwilderness areas (Driver and others 1985). The results

indicated that visitors to wilderness areas consistently chose

“enjoy nature,” “physical fitness,” and “reduce tensions” as

the three most important preference domains. It is also

important to note that visitors to three nonwilderness areas

studied rated different experience preference domains as

most strongly adding to satisfaction. This is a key finding in

that it adds support to the claim that wilderness users are in

search of experiences that are unique from other outdoor

recreation pursuits and provides some insight into the

nature of the wilderness experience.

The benefits approach is still based on the expectancyvalence theory, in that satisfaction is defined as the extent to

which actual psychological outcomes of the recreation experience compare to those desired. Accordingly, it is suggested

that visitors are motivated to seek out particular activities in

specific settings in order to receive specific psychological

outcomes. It is this theoretical link between preferred experiences and recreation setting that have become both axiomatic

but also problematic for recreation research.

For example, a study of wilderness recreationists in the

Wind River Range of Wyoming examined this link between

setting preferences and desired experiences (Manfredo and

others 1983). The authors hypothesized that there exist

definable segments of wilderness recreationists and that

setting preferences and activity choices differ among these

various user segments. The findings of this study showed

limited support for the motivational model. Specifically,

only a slight degree of correlation was found between preferences for activities and settings, and experience preferences.

The differences between the defined user segments, while

not large, were also found to be significant.

Furthermore, the ROS management framework assumes

that similar groups of psychological outcomes are grouped

into “bundles” that represent “experience opportunities”

that can be arranged along a continuum generally ranging

from the urban to the primitive. As mentioned above, it is

assumed that visitors select the setting as the appropriate

experience opportunity to realize specific psychological outcomes. Yuan and McEwan (1989) examined the relationship

between visitor experience preferences and setting characteristics at four private and eight public campgrounds in

western Kentucky. Results from this study showed little

evidence of differences in mean experience preferences between the three ROS settings (rural, roaded, and

semiprimitive-motorized). In other words, it did not appear

that visitors were seeking out particular settings in order to

satisfy desires for particular experiences. Thus, support for

this key assumption of the benefits-based approach, as

operationalized in the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum, is

not as strong as it should be. REP scales, or other measures of expected benefits, would therefore appear to be

insufficient descriptors of the significance of the recreation

experience.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Although research has failed to conclusively confirm the

setting-experience preference relationship, managers have

found the ROS to be a useful management framework. ROS

has been useful in inventorying, classifying, allocating, and

evaluating recreational resources (Haas and others 1979).

Indeed, the ROS planning framework has been widely

adopted by the USDA Forest Service and the USDI Bureau

of Land Management (Driver and others 1987). The rationale for this approach is that while recreation managers

may not be able to manage experiences per se, they can

manage settings that provide opportunities for certain experiences (Driver and Brown 1978).

Furthermore, using ROS to describe and prescribe a

diversity of recreation opportunities, and similarly using
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 33

Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience Borrie and Birzell

REP scales to describe a variety of visitor motivations and

visitor groups, have been important developments in recreation research. However, difficulties in establishing a consistent link between setting and recreation experience

preferences indicate that this may not be an adequate

representation of the recreation experience. It is also unclear how social conditions, such as use density, relate to

the provision and attainment of recreation experience

preferences. Perhaps, in the same way that it may be more

appropriate to view settings holistically rather than as a

collection of setting attributes, it may be more useful to

envision experiences holistically rather than as a collection

of psychological outcomes.

Experience-Based Approaches ____

Another current line of recreation research focuses on

the nature of the experience as it is experienced. This line

of research has emerged from some of the most basic

questions about leisure and recreation, such as: What is

recreation? How is recreation different from other types of

human engagement? What are the cognitive and psychological processes involved in recreation experiences? How

do these processes shape our perceptions of the recreational experience? This approach more directly asks the

visitor to describe their experience instead of asking them

to evaluate components of the recreation setting. It assumes less cognitive processing on the respondent’s behalf

in that they are often questioned closer in time to the

experience and they are not asked to explicitly link setting

conditions with satisfaction. In doing so, it is argued that

respondents more accurately report the wilderness experience as it unfolds and are less influenced by bias and

assumed relationships (Borrie and others 1998). In addition, since the wilderness experience can change across the

course of the visit (Borrie and Roggenbuck, in press),

respondents are sometimes asked at multiple points in

time for their description of the experience instead of having

to collapse the entire experience into a single evaluation.

One of the foundations for this line of research is the

theoretical work of Clawson and Knetsch (1966) who proposed that recreation is a multiphase experience. Their

model of the experience includes five phases: anticipation,

travel-to, onsite, travel-back, and recollection. They propose

that various satisfactions can be achieved through each of

these phases and that each phase is important in determining the overall satisfaction with a recreational experience.

Although managers have traditionally focused on the onsite

phase of the experience, Clawson and Knetsch indicate that

by providing proper information managers can also influence the offsite phases of the experience. Noting the intuitive

appeal and the lack of empirical tests of this model, Hammitt

(1980) conducted a study of a university field trip to Mud

Lake Bog in Michigan and found significant changes in mood

across the five phases of the experience.

While the five-phase model of the recreation experience

has been widely known (and to some degree widely accepted)

for some time, only more recently have researchers begun to

investigate the multiphasic nature of the onsite experience.

In this way, cognitive and psychological states have been

found to ebb and flow over the course of the onsite experience

(Hull and others 1996). In a study of brief leisure experiences

of university students in Italy, Hull (1996) found support for

the dynamic and complex nature of the recreation experience. Over a 7-week period, participants were asked to

report their moods (at 20-minute intervals) when engaging

in any one of four leisure activities: walking in a natural

setting, walking within a city center, sitting indoors with a

panoramic window view, and sitting in a room with no

windows. It was found that regardless of the activity participated, mood dimensions changed across time, thus confirming the dynamic nature of the experience.

Another study examined the experience patterns of day

hikers in the White River National Forest bordering the

Maroon Bells Wilderness Area, Colorado (Hull 1992). In this

study, hikers were asked to respond to items measuring

mood, satisfaction, and perceived scenic beauty at 12 predetermined points along the trail. Analysis of the experience

patterns indicated that both mood and satisfaction varied

over time. Much of this variation was explained by the

perception of landscape beauty indicating that the natural

setting is an important factor effecting both mood and

satisfaction. However, the direction of causality is not clear.

For instance, is it the perception of landscape beauty that

influences mood, or is it mood that effects the perception of

landscape beauty?

As the focus of recreation research efforts change towards

a greater emphasis on the experience itself, the methods

used have also had to change (Stewart and Hull 1996;

Stewart 1998). In particular, the techniques of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) have been investigated. For

example, ESM techniques were used to examine the multiple aspects of the wilderness experience in the Okefenokee

National Wildlife Refuge of southern Georgia (Borrie and

Roggenbuck 1995). This method calls for participants to

carry beepers throughout a recreation experience. At random times the beeper sounds, indicating that the respondent

should complete a survey describing the content of the

experience at that point in time.

In doing so, the wilderness experience was viewed as a

multidimensional event. Not only does the experience change

across time, but these changes can be observed across a

number of dimensions. While some studies have focused on

solitude as the dominant indicator of the wilderness experience, the Okefenokee study examined five other dimensions

of the wilderness experience (primitiveness, humility, timelessness, oneness with nature, and a caring relationship

with nature). Kaye (1999) has also called for the description

of salient wilderness experience characteristics such as

humility, mystery, sacredness, and restraint. Searching for

defining wilderness experience characteristics is a natural

extension of the work of Roggenbuck and associates who

were searching for potential indicators of a quality wilderness experience (Williams and others 1992; Roggenbuck and

others 1993).

Not only has there been effort to better dimensionalize

and measure important and essential qualities of the wilderness experience, but attention has also turned to a broader

range of factors, conditions, and modes of experience that

may be influencing the experience the wilderness visitor

gets. As Watson and Roggenbuck (1998) mention, in much

wilderness research “we measure very little about the experience beyond crowding influences (encounters along trails

or at campsites). In this case we believe there are other
34 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Borrie and Birzell Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience

aspects at least as important or more important than crowding, and the effects of management actions on these aspects

of the experience should be monitored” (p. 269). One of the

challenges facing researchers is to explicitly demonstrate

the influence of wilderness conditions on the experiences

received. Borrie and Roggenbuck (in press) and McIntyre

(1998) both measured focus of attention at multiple points in

the wilderness experience, mapping the influence of others

in the group, activity being undertaken, and degree of focus

on the environment. Similarly, Jones and others (2000)

measured nine dimensions of the flow experience, including

concentration on the task at hand, on a whitewater river in

West Virginia. Extending analysis to include the influence of

focus of attention upon the wilderness experience should

yield a richer analysis of the person-environment transaction and of the internal dynamics of the wilderness experience

itself (Roggenbuck and Driver 2000). The influence of setting

conditions at specific times and places throughout the wilderness experience, and the interrelationship of the various

dimensions, remains a promising path of investigation.

Strengths and Weaknesses

Experience-based approaches have expanded our concept of the visitor experience. Rather than viewing experiences as mere responses to setting attributes, the research

into the multiphasic nature of the wilderness experience

indicates that participants are continually interpreting

and incorporating various aspects of the experience. In

other words, emotions and cognitive functions, such as

mood and focus of attention, shift and change throughout

the flow of the experience. Furthermore, as our attention

has shifted closer to the experience itself, greater attention

can be given to the qualities that define that experience.

Not only does this turn to better conceptualization of the

wilderness experience, the relationships between situations conditions and experience dimensions may become

more apparent, as Stewart and Cole (1999) have demonstrated. Thus, three separate contributions have been a

focus of experience-based approaches: first, mapping different phases of both the offsite and onsite wilderness

experience; second, documenting the dimensions of the

experience and the ebb and flow of those dimensions; and

third, the inclusion of cognitive and affective attributes of

the experience such as mood and focus of attention.

However, three managerial cautions emerge from these

approaches. First, attention to the offsite phases of the

experience may not only improve the quality of the onsite

experience, but also produce satisfaction that extends beyond the spatial and temporal boundaries of a wilderness

experience. Managing and preserving the quality of only

the onsite experience may be insufficient to protect the

meanings and influence of that experience. Second, attention to the multiple phases and dimensions of the onsite

experience may suggest that many of the determinants of

quality experiences are beyond the control of management.

Third, it could be argued that even as we gain a greater

understanding of the internal dynamics of the wilderness

experience that wilderness managers may wish to be less

prescriptive or controlling of those very dynamics. Perhaps

an overly reductionistic approach to understanding and

managing the wilderness experience robs the experience of

some of its mystery, meaning, and profound significance.

Meaning-Based Approaches ______

Unlike the previously discussed approaches, which focus

on discrete recreational engagements, meanings-based approaches attempt to understand the wilderness experience

in terms of the role that it plays in the broader context of the

participant’s life (Arnould and Price 1993). It has been

suggested “that what people are actually seeking from their

recreation experiences are stories which ultimately enrich

their lives” (Patterson and others 1993: 449). That is to say,

satisfaction is not the result of positive comparisons between

desired and actual outcomes nor the actual multidimensional, multiphasic experience, but rather the extent to

which the experience produced a fulfilling narrative that is

consistent within the context of the participant’s life. Thus,

it may be that the visitor contributes more to the significance

of the experience than the setting or manager ever does. This

is not to lessen the importance of the experience, but rather

to acknowledge the transaction that occurs between the

participant and the environment when they visit the wilderness area. Neither is the transaction prescribed entirely by

the setting, nor is it predictable given the visitor’s motivations. Rather, the meaning and significance of the experience is constructed before, during, and after the experience

and only has relevance within the overall condition and lifecourse history of the wilderness visitor. Meanings-based

approaches have generally become apparent through the

investigation of two closely related concepts, self-affirmation

and sense of place.

Self-Affirmation

Self-affirmation refers to a process through which individuals come to confirm aspects of their identity that they

perceive as positive (Haggard and Williams 1992). Recreation and leisure are considered to be the ideal situations

in which identities can be confirmed. As Kelly (1983)

states, “There is something about the activity that produces the ‘right’ context for the working out of identities”

(p. 97). Just as the lack of constraint inherent in leisure can

facilitate self-affirmation, the unrestrictive nature of the

wilderness experience can provide a context that is especially conducive to development of the self. “Wilderness

affords the individual maximum opportunity to perform

one’s selected activities in order to create one’s personal

opportunity structure” (Schreyer and others 1987: 24). In

this way, wilderness can be seen to play an important role

in the development of the self-concept. It seems that in

order for wilderness recreation participation to improve

self-concept, it involve a long-term relationship and some

sense of centrality to the participant’s life (Schreyer and

others 1987). Thus, for both leisure in general, and for

wilderness recreation in particular, recreation experiences

can be seen as more than just satisfaction with activity,

experience, setting attributes, or fulfillment of unmet psychological needs and wants. Instead, recreation experiences are viewed as significant components of a person’s

identity, and perhaps relationship to place.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 35

Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience Borrie and Birzell

Sense of Place

Sense of place refers to the meanings ascribed or endowed

to a specific place, including the feelings and subjective

perceptions an individual has to that place. It is suggested

that participants develop a sense of place that becomes

intertwined with their sense of self. Tuan (1977), for instance, described place as space with meaning constructed

upon experience. In other words, the place becomes a part of

the self and the self becomes part of the place. Williams and

others (1992) note that “attachment is likely to be stronger

among individuals who focus on the setting itself relative to

other aspects of the recreational engagement” (p. 33). Moore

and Graefe (1994), for example, studied the attachment to

place of rail-trail users at three locations in Florida, Iowa,

and California. This study demonstrated that, over time,

recreationists did develop attachments to familiar trails. It

also confirmed both functional and affective dimensions of

place attachment.

Williams and others (1992) suggested that just as people

can develop an attachment to, or dependence on, a particular

place, they may also become attached to a certain type of

place such as wilderness. This study, which included four

wilderness areas (in Arkansas, Georgia, Montana, and Texas),

found that place attachment was directly related to use

history of a particular place while wilderness attachment

was dependent on both experiences with a particular place

and general wilderness experience. These findings suggest

that long-term wilderness recreation participants create

unique meanings for wilderness that may not be available in

nonwilderness areas and that these meanings are a result of

both specific place-based experiences and attachments, but

also the development of attachment to the general concept

and values of wilderness.

Strengths and Weaknesses

If we accept that the goal of wilderness recreation management is to provide quality wilderness experiences, then

the meanings that people associate with those experiences

may be one of the best measures of that quality. In the

context of these approaches, “quality is better understood as

the extent to which a recreation engagement succeeds as an

expression of one’s self” (Williams 1989: 433). If we are to

more fully understand the relationship between the visitor

and the wilderness environment as Williams and Patterson

(1999) argue, we need better efforts at identifying those

wilderness and landscape meanings. Outside of such documentation of subjective and symbolic meaning, the assessment of the quality of the wilderness experience may be

superficial or reductionistic at best.

While meanings-based approaches may offer important

insights into the values that people hold for wilderness and

recreation in general, this kind of knowledge has yet to be

widely accepted. Current planning frameworks and paradigms call for knowledge that is prescriptive and predictive.

Within such a framework, meanings-based information is of

limited value. It could be suggested that meanings-based

information is most useful in identifying emergent issues

that are then best examined in detail with rigorous, quantitative research. Given less of an emphasis on generalizability,

meanings-based approaches instead prioritize higher levels

of validity for the information gathered. Meanings-based

research cannot give us prescriptive directions, but perhaps

having more valid information is better than having exact,

yet less valid, information. Certainly, the strengths of the

meanings-based approach complements those of other approaches and the application of more than one approach to

any situation (as Watson and Roggenbuck 1998 describe for

Juniper Prairie Wilderness in Florida) can yield greater

insight into the experience provided than a single approach.

Conclusion_____________________

This paper has summarized four broad lines of current

recreation research in an attempt to provide an overview of

measurement of the wilderness recreation experience. While

each approach can offer useful information, each is best suited

to answer particular kinds of questions. With this in mind,

however, it becomes clear that certain approaches, although

providing useful information to managers, do not begin to

unearth the nature of the wilderness recreation experience.

The customer service measures seem to be especially

appropriate for front country recreational areas. Their focus

on facilities and service provision is most suited to situations

of intensive site and infrastructure management. However,

this approach may not be as effective in the context of

wilderness. For example, what are the “services” provided in

wilderness? Even more to the point is the question of what

customer service measures tell us about the wilderness

recreation experience. In other words, can customer service

measures help us to define the qualities of recreation experiences that are unique to wilderness? We believe that they

cannot. Instead, they distill a multifaceted and unique

experience to a very small subset of its parts. Furthermore,

they reduce the visitor into a consumer or consumptive role

that equally seems at odds with the notion and symbolism of

the wilderness experience.

The benefits approach comes one step closer to describing

the nature of the wilderness experience. By conceptualizing

recreation as experience rather than activity, it recognizes

the dynamic nature of recreational engagement. This approach also recognizes that people may choose to participate

in certain activities in certain settings for a variety of

different reasons. In particular, the ROS has proven to be

particularly useful to managers in terms of allocation and

inventory of a diverse array of recreation resources. However, research into the personal benefits of wilderness recreation have not been able to conclusively identify those

benefits that are wilderness dependent (Driver and others

1987). If confirming evidence were found, then it would be

reasonable to conclude that the wilderness experience can be

characterized by an aggregate of certain motivations, however such confirmation continues to elude.

Experience-based approaches have explored the dimensions of various emotional and cognitive states within the

context of wilderness. This research has shown that evaluation of the experience does not necessarily follow a rational/

logical expectancy-valence model. Recreationists’ conceptions

of quality and satisfaction may be so subjective and individual-dependent that they defy prediction. The fact that the

quality of the experience may be more dependent on mood or

functioning of the social group than on setting attributes

indicates that managers may have little control over the
36 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Borrie and Birzell Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience

psychological outcomes of recreation participation. While

these are important insights into the dynamics of the wilderness experience, these aspects of human experience are not

necessarily exclusive to wilderness. Thus, experience-based

approaches that focus on aspects such as mood and degree of

social interaction offer less guidance for managers in the

provision of quality experiences. However, the potential for

development of indicators and standards based upon other

measurable dimensions of the experience that are more

wilderness-dependent holds much promise.

The meanings-based approaches also seems well suited

for capturing the unique elements of the wilderness experiences. The complexity that is assumed in these approaches

reflects the idea that wilderness experiences are special

merely because they occur in wilderness. As people carry

with them their socially constructed meanings of wilderness, the entire experience is viewed through a lens that has

been shaped by the same ideas and philosophies that lead to

the creation of the National Wilderness Preservation System in the first place. This is not to say that other approaches

cannot offer important information about managing wilderness, but rather that meanings-based approaches look

more specifically at the nature and quality of the experience. Understanding the multiple meanings that people

have for wilderness can help us to identify the activities,

benefits, and experiences that managers should aim to

provide. However, the development of quality indicators

for those meanings provides one of the most challenging

tasks for recreation researchers.

Wilderness Experiences and Managing

Use Density

There is a clear need for knowledge of the wilderness

experience when managers consider implementing use limits. It is quite possible that by implementing a use limit

policy, perhaps as a move to influence crowding densities,

that important qualities of the wilderness experience are

altered in the process. Without thorough identification and

documentation of those qualities, managers may be less

aware of the compromises and tradeoffs they are making.

Cole and Hammitt (2000) argue, for instance, that management of wilderness is faced with two such choices: to either

emphasize wildness of conditions or to emphasize naturalness, and the choice between wildness and solitude. It is

hoped that the explicit identification and prioritization of

dimensions of the wilderness experience, and the subsequent development of indicators and standards to match

those qualities, that managers will be better able to monitor

the improvement or deterioration in recreation opportunities. Wilderness research can help not only with both the

identification of dimensions of the wilderness experience

and with the development of indicators and standards to

help protect those qualities, but also with an examination of

the impacts of management actions on the same dimensions.

In contemplating the link between maintenance of the

quality of recreation experiences in wilderness and the use

of management tools such as limits on the numbers and

distribution of visitors, there are two particular relationships research should help clearly demonstrate:

1. A clear link between use density conditions and experiential quality.

2. A clear link between implementation of use limits and

experiential quality.

In the absence of such documented relationships, implementation of use limit policies may have a range of untoward

consequences without necessarily improving the recreational

experience in wilderness.

One of the comments made in discussing the strengths

and weaknesses of satisfaction approaches to measuring

the quality of the wilderness experience was that they

tended only to measure visitor perceptions of the quality of

various setting attributes. This evaluation of conditions is

only one factor that influences the evaluations that visitors

make of their experience in wilderness. Other determinants might include the influence of personal characteristics such as mood, the influence of others within the

visitor’s group, and the influence of the activities that the

visitor undertakes in wilderness. That is, the evaluation of

the wilderness experience may have less to do with site

conditions and more to do with the self, with others in your

group, and with the physical challenges and tasks of the

visit. Further, it could be expected that the evaluation of

the experience quality will itself influence the evaluation of

conditions encountered (fig. 2). We suggest, therefore, that

when bringing research findings to management decisions

that care be taken to represent the specific domains that

have been measured and the relationships that have been

shown or assumed. The link between evaluation of use

density and experiential quality may not be as simple or

influential as assumed.

The second link that research information can help with

is the relationship between use limits and experiential

quality. It is sometimes assumed that high levels of visitor

use leads to a decrease in experiential quality. And yet, in

some circumstances, visitors do not seem to change their

behavior in response to this supposed decline in the quality

of the visitor experience. We might expect, for instance,

that fewer visitors would return to a wilderness they found

to have high levels of use. However, changing the location

of their visit is not the only behavior that visitors can

employ to cope with a mismatch between expectations and

conditions. Visitors may, for instance, alter their expectations or they may tolerate the mismatch given the significance of other aspects of the experience. In which case, use

limits designed to lower levels of use density may not be

loudly welcomed by those visitors the policy is supposed to

serve.

Figure 2—The inter-relationship of experience

quality and condition evaluation.

influences

Experience

quality

OTHER DETERMINANTS

(self, social, task, etc.) 

influences

Condition

evaluation
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 37

Approaches to Measuring Quality of the Wilderness Experience Borrie and Birzell

Based on some research in Yellowstone National Park

(Davenport 1999) a four-stage model may help explain why

visitors are not necessarily supportive of management actions such as the implementation of use limit policies. Each

stage represents a test or filter through which proposed

management actions need to successfully pass:

1. Is there sufficient evidence of an impact that justifies

management action?

2. Is there a causal link between visitor behavior and the

impact that justifies management actions that directly

impact visitors?

3. Is the proposed management action the best way to

solve the impact?

4. Can the proposed management action be successfully

and fully implemented?

Considering each of these questions in turn, use limits

may not be the best approach to maintaining the quality of

the wilderness. At the first instance, the visitors may not

perceive there to be a problem needing management intervention. That is, in their perception and evaluation of use

density levels, visitors may not be as concerned as managers

might assume them to be. Furthermore, depending on how

the wilderness experience is conceptualized, use density

levels may not be a significant influence on the quality of the

experience. This flows into the second question, in that there

may not be a simple and direct relationship between use

levels and experiential quality. There may be other temporal, spatial, and behavioral components of visitor use that

impacts experiential quality that use limit approaches do

not address. Thus, as illustrated by the third question, use

limits may not be effective at ameliorating the impacts of use

density. Indeed, there may be other, more significant, causes

of a decline in experiential quality. However, managers do

implement use limit policies in the hope they help maintain

visitor experience quality. Lastly, as Borrie and others

(1998) have suggested, the management agency must have

the authority, support, and resources to successfully administer a use limit policy. Given a tradition of free and unfettered access to their wilderness lands, the American public

may not be entirely willing to grant the management agencies active support and endorsement of use limit approaches.

Logistically, too, it may be difficult to implement such an

approach with dispersed patterns of use typically associated

with wilderness areas.

Finally, then, it becomes apparent that not just one of the

four approaches to documenting the wilderness recreation

experience will completely meet the informational needs of

wilderness managers. A satisfaction/importance-performance approach may be useful for the measurement of

perceptions of onsite conditions and their influence on subsequent evaluation of those conditions. The benefits-, experience-, and meanings-based approaches may be most useful

in defining qualities of the wilderness experience and for

documenting the link between experiential quality and the

impact of proposed or recently implemented management

actions. Given that the wilderness experience is a complex

and emergent phenomenon, it is not surprising that multiple approaches are needed to best serve the needs of

wilderness managers as they act to preserve the quality of

these profound and important recreational experiences.

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USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 39

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Troy E. Hall is an Assistant Professor, Resource Recreation and Tourism,

University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844.

Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions

and Gaps in Knowledge

Troy E. Hall

Abstract—As wilderness use levels have changed, managers have

often considered implementation of use limits to control the impacts

of use density. Use limits are generally intended to protect natural

qualities and/or to ensure opportunities for solitude, although the

second goal appears to have become more common over time, and

may be the central use-related concern for certain high-use wildernesses. The goal of this paper is briefly to review the evolution of use

limit systems in wilderness and then raise three key questions

about use limits, with which managers and researchers must

grapple before setting use limits. In posing these questions, unquestioned assumptions that have guided policy are revealed, and gaps

in knowledge are highlighted. The first question concerns which

users benefit from use limit policies. One common response to this

question—choosing to favor wilderness-dependent users—has been

openly debated, but another very common judgment, to apply use

limits only to overnight users has not. The second question concerns

selection of the appropriate scale for deciding whether use limits are

needed. As managers consider whether outstanding opportunities

for solitude exist and whether natural systems have been unduly

compromised, and therefore whether to limit use, the scale of

analysis has a critical effect on their decision. Policy provides little

guidance for the choice of scale, but looking at a single site, an entire

wilderness, or an entire land base within a region may change the

decision of whether to limit use. The final question asks whether

existing use limit systems achieve their intended goals and objectives, and concludes that evidence is largely absent. This review and

set of questions demonstrates that the decision to limit use entails

a number of important value judgments, many of which are not—

but should be—explicitly discussed.

Since early in the history of the National Wilderness

Preservation System (NWPS), managers and researchers

have debated the merits of imposing limits on wilderness

visitation. Although many types of regulations on use have

been implemented, including group size restrictions, prohibitions on stock, or area camping closures, this paper

focuses on restrictions on the number of entrants permitted

in a wilderness. Such regulations may be termed use limits

or quotas. This paper reflects critically on use limitations, in

an attempt to uncover basic assumptions, gaps in knowledge,

and needs for future research. The paper begins with a brief

description of the history of use limit regulations in Federal

wildernesses, concentrating primarily on the rationales that

have been articulated for implementing such limits. The

paper then turns to a discussion of two basic questions

managers must answer as they implement use limits,

namely decisions about which experiences to favor in management decisions and on what analytic scale such decisions should be formulated. Because management should

learn from past action, the next section raises the question

whether use limits achieve their intended short-term and

long-term goals. The paper concludes with possibilities for

future research.

Many authors have described the complex details of implementation of use limit policies, rationing, and allocation

methods, and those are not discussed here. The reader may

wish to consult Bates (1992), Cable and Watson (1998),

Shelby (1991), Shelby and others (1982), Stankey and Baden

(1977), and Wikle (1991) for discussions of rationing and

allocation techniques.

Evolution of the Rationale for Limits

on Recreation Use_______________

During the 1970s, wilderness use everywhere appeared to

be skyrocketing (Lucas and Stankey 1988). As a Federal

land designation, wilderness was rather new, and interpretation of the Wilderness Act had not yet been formalized into

specific, uniform policies. Various researchers stepped in to

help articulate a vision that could guide management decisions. Pointing out that wilderness is a unique land classification, they suggested that policy should permit certain

recreation uses, so long as natural conditions or natural

forces remained unimpaired (Hendee and Stankey 1973).

Because wilderness was mandated to be managed at the

most primitive end of the spectrum of public lands, managers and researchers feared that increasing use would compromise the goals of naturalness and primitive experiences

of solitude that were mandated by the Wilderness Act.

Furthermore, they feared that a common response among

recreation managers to increasing demand, that is, increasing developments to accommodate such demand, would

change the basic character of wilderness. They argued that

use limits might be a better way to protect the unique

conditions and experiences of wilderness than other types of

regulations or approaches (Bury and Fish 1980). Hendee

and Lucas (1974: 100) argued that

...one can let unregulated, free access to an area destroy its

wilderness character through physical impacts of heavy use

and loss of opportunities for solitude, or one can regulate use

and preserve the chance for a wilderness experience...We

feel, as do most wilderness visitors we have sampled, that

regulation is the better of the two options.

In response to increasing use and such philosophical

stances, some wilderness managers began to put ceilings
40 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Hall Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge

on use levels. The rationale for these limits was usually

twofold: to help prevent deterioration of biophysical resources (usually camping-related impacts such as soil compaction, erosion, and vegetation loss) and to help maintain

the unique quality of the wilderness experience, especially

solitude. Many assumed that it was merely a matter of time

before limits were imposed everywhere: “Rationing of wilderness use will become increasingly common. In our judgment this will be necessary if the significant ecological and

social values of such areas are to be fully protected” (Stankey

and Baden 1977: 15).

During the 1970s, use limits were imposed in several

areas, including the Desolation, Okefenokee, Boundary

Waters Canoe Area, Linville Gorge, and Isle Royale Wildernesses. Limits became especially common on whitewater

rivers, such as the Selway and Colorado. By the time

Washburne and Cole (1983) conducted their system-wide

study of the NWPS in 1980, 10 percent of the wildernesses

in their study limited the number of overnight users, and

3 percent were limiting all use. An additional 5 percent

planned to limit use within the next few years. However,

there were significant differences among management agencies. For example, 36 percent of National Park Service

areas limited overnight users, compared to only 4 percent

of Forest Service areas. Generally, limits took the form of

trailhead or travel zone quotas (or, on rivers, daily launches).

Almost without exception, use limits were imposed only on

overnight visitors (only six units had limits for all day

users, and four others limited one type of day use). Often

the initial quota was based upon use occurring during the

previous year or years. Though such numbers were arbitrary (Cole, this proceedings), the rationale was that such

limits were an immediate and necessary measure to prevent deterioration and would give managers time to develop

more systematic, defensible ways to manage problems.

Of course, use limits were not the only management

technique used to cope with density-related problems. Half

of all areas in 1980 attempted to deal with perceived highdensity problems by encouraging people to disperse throughout the wilderness, and 24 percent encouraged dispersal to

other areas (Washburne and Cole 1983). Many campsite

restoration techniques were also pioneered and many educational programs were developed. Nevertheless, use limits

were an important tool, especially in high-use areas. Rapidly

accelerating use levels, and the availability of few other

proven methods to slow that growth, left managers with

little choice but to consider imposing use limits.

A shift in thinking about the need for and purpose of use

limits began in the 1980s. Although existing limitation

systems were typically continued, some managers began to

feel that limits were not needed, and the number of units

implementing new limits dropped off. For example, as of

1991, 38 percent of National Park Service units used permits

to limit any kind of use, a number virtually unchanged from

1980 (Marion and others 1993). As discussed below, the

change was brought about by several factors, including

slowing growth in wilderness use, articulation of a managerial preference for indirect management approaches, research on the relationship between recreational use and site

impacts, and declining budgets.

First, in the 1980s use levels appeared to be stabilizing

or declining, lessening the apparent immediate threat to

wilderness values (Lucas and Krumpe 1985; Stankey and

McCool 1991). Consequently, some managers may have felt

either that problems would not deteriorate further or that

they had gained some breathing room to consider alternative approaches. Moreover, debates among the research

community, public, and managers had led to a more fully

articulated, and somewhat different, philosophical position serving as a foundation for evaluating the need for use

limits. Many researchers had begun to argue that indirect

(nonregulatory) techniques should be attempted before

regulatory measures, because indirect methods might succeed in alleviating problems and would maximize visitor

freedom, an important wilderness value. Although they

still maintained that limits were the only alternative in

some cases, many researchers now felt that “direct rationing of use should be a last resort after every other appropriate approach has been exhausted” (Hendee and others

1990: 406). Consistent with this philosophy, planning processes such as Limits of Acceptable Change directed attention away from use limits as an automatic or necessary

response to increased density.

Research was beginning to show that other approaches

were likely to be superior to use limits in preventing unacceptable impacts, giving managers another reason to reconsider whether use limits were appropriate. For example,

Cole’s (1982, 1986) research demonstrated that the relationship between use and many impacts such as vegetation loss

was curvilinear, with most impact occurring at relatively

low levels of use. By the time use levels at a site reached, say,

25 nights of camping per year, the impacts were substantial,

but generally stable. Use levels would have to be cut considerably to bring about noticeable improvements. Such dramatic cuts were difficult to endorse and might lead to the

displacement of problems to other areas. At the same time,

other research (for example, Krumpe and Brown 1982;

Roggenbuck and Berrier 1982) offered hope that education

might be equally as effective, and more acceptable, than use

limits in reducing use or impacts from use. If so, this might

present an effective indirect way to alleviate environmental

impacts or impacts to visitors’ sense of solitude.

In addition to these arguments weighing in against use

limits, management budgets became inadequate to undertake expensive programs such as permits and rationing

needed to implement a use limit policy. Continued shrinking

budgets through the 1990s effectively prohibited the option

of use limits for many units, even where managers might

believe they were necessary or justified. Use limits require

long term planning, adequate resources for allocating and

delivering permits, and staff for enforcement, among other

costs. Managers must have sufficient resources to implement a program comprehensively and must have confidence

that future budgets will be sufficient to continue the program. These conditions were increasingly difficult to meet.

For at least these four reasons, new use limit programs

were less common in the 1980s and early 1990s. However, by

the late 1990s, use levels had again risen (Cole 1996), and

questions about declining experience quality and loss of

naturalness are again common today. In the Pacific Northwest, for example, public debate has often been heated

regarding whether or not quotas are needed to maintain

experience quality. Managers of several wildernesses, including the Alpine Lakes, Mt. Hood, Mt. Adams, Three
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 41

Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge Hall

Sisters, and Mt. Jefferson Wildernesses, have considered

use limits, especially as monitoring has revealed that site

impacts and encounter levels are out of compliance with

standards specified in wilderness plans (Hall and Cole 2000;

Hall and others 1998).

Today’s discussions about use limits include many of the

points and positions that have conventionally been argued,

but there are some differences. In particular, the issue of

solitude, and the role of day users in affecting solitude, is

more central than in the past. Recent wilderness planning

documents from Mt. Hood, for example, note that, although

total use of the wilderness has increased by as much as 100

percent in recent years, 85 percent of visitors are day users,

and overnight use has actually declined (Mt. Hood National

Forest 2000). As day use has increased, encounters have

increased at popular destinations and trails. In parts of the

Alpine Lakes Wilderness, a hiker may meet another group

every few minutes throughout the day (Cole and others

1997). Responding to such conditions, and mindful of the

mandate to provide opportunities for solitude, managers of

Three Sisters and Mt. Jefferson Wildernesses in Oregon

implemented use limits at two popular areas in 1995, after

a prolonged process of monitoring and public involvement.

There, use limits were implemented expressly for the purpose of reducing encounters and improving opportunities for

solitude, and were applied to day users as well as overnight

users.

The Pacific Northwest movement to take a fresh look at

use limits has sparked larger questions about the desirability of limits when those limits are based explicitly and solely

on the goal of providing solitude, as opposed to ecological

protection. Articles in regional newspapers, even in Backpacker Magazine (Nelson 1997) and the Washington Post

(September 5, 1997), have challenged Forest Service reasoning. Concern about proposals for Alpine Lakes Wilderness

was so widespread that congressional representatives threatened to take action to prevent the agency from managing for

solitude. Research and management leaders responded by

convening meetings to try to craft a uniform, defensible

policy, but the issue remains unresolved.

Given that use continues to rise, resolution of this conflict

between goals of access and solitude is needed. Managers

need a clearer understanding of the effect of rising use levels

on social conditions and on the experiences of visitors who

have different motivations for their trips. Focused deliberation is also needed about whether management policies such

as use limits should differ depending on the users’ length of

stay.

Another way in which dialog about use limits today differs

from earlier discussions concerns the use of rhetoric justifying use limits on the basis of their ability to accommodate all

users by dispersing them more equally throughout a wilderness. Virtually all wildernesses receive highly uneven use,

with a few trailheads or destinations receiving most of the

use. Early use limitation systems were praised for their

ability to increase overall use of a wilderness, while reducing

use of problem areas, that is, for their ability to redistribute

use (Hennessey 1991; Hulbert and Higgins 1977). This

objective—described as increasing the overall efficiency of

the system—was a clearly stated goal for systems including

the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and Yosemite

National Park: “The manager’s objective is to decrease use

at overused locations and to avoid excessive levels of various

types of encounters...while reducing total use as little as

possible” (Schecter and Lucas 1980: 12).

Today, this sentiment appears to be undergoing reconsideration, and managers and researchers are questioning the

desirability of policies that disperse use, either within a

small area or across larger areas. In fact, some have suggested that the total amount of use should be unlimited in

popular zones (for example, climbing routes on Mt. Shasta

and Mt. Hood), with use limits to protect experiences at lowdensity areas. The reasoning underlying this reversal in

policy is that, at high-use areas, limits would have to be

remarkably stringent to achieve meaningful reductions in

encounters or improvements in environmental conditions

(Cole and others 1997). The net effect would be considerable

inconvenience to users and probable displacement of the

“problem” to new areas. On the other hand, low-density

areas still offer the opportunities for solitude and pristine

conditions mandated by the Wilderness Act and, therefore,

should be protected. Experience has shown that proactive

actions may be easier to implement than reactive measures

that adversely affect large numbers of devoted users who

have become accustomed to access. Thus, the reasoning

goes, one should consider use limits only at low-use areas.

This section has shown how the rationale for use limits has

evolved over time, retaining the over-arching concerns about

ensuring wilderness solitude and protecting naturalness.

Debate has deepened thinking about the processes and

criteria to be used in deciding whether to adopt use limits.

However there are a number of unresolved issues, and some

unexamined assumptions, that require open discussion and

ultimate resolution. As managers respond to increasing user

density, they deliberately or instinctively resolve a series of

questions. Among the more important and difficult questions are: (1) Which types of experiences (and thus, which

user groups) should be the focus or beneficiaries of management? (2) What temporal and geographical scales should be

relevant in analysis and planning? and (3) What can be

learned from use limit systems already in place in other

areas about the ability of use limits to accomplish the

objectives for which they are established? These issues are

discussed in the next section.

Three Key Questions Regarding

Use Limits _____________________

1. For Whom Should the Wilderness

be Managed?

Any time managers choose to take action or not to take

action, they favor some users at the expense of others.

Decisions about use limits are no different. Choosing not to

limit use when use levels rise may favor those who enjoy

higher density recreation, but may disenfranchise those who

seek solitude. On the other hand, imposition of use limits in

the same situation may favor those tolerant of regulation

and desirous of solitude, but displace those who value

freedom or spontaneity (Hall and Cole 2000). Sometimes

managers have made explicit statements about the users

whose experiences they wish to protect through use limits,

but other times they have not. Two examples illustrate the
42 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Hall Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge

issues involved: so-called “wilderness dependent” users and

day users.

Wilderness-Dependent Users—One example of an explicit commitment to benefit one type of user is the case of

“wilderness-dependent” users. A continuing theme in wilderness policy and management has been the importance of

these lands in providing rare experiences. From quite early

on, many researchers argued that management should benefit those who can only find their desired experiences (for

instance, solitude, challenge, or primitive settings) in designated wilderness (Bultena and others 1981; Hendee and

Stankey 1973; Lucas and Krumpe 1985). This judgment has

even become a primary wilderness management principle in

a leading wilderness management textbook: management

should ensure that “people who prefer a wild and pristine

setting [are] not displaced in favor of users whose tastes can

be met in many other locations” (Hendee and others 1990:

20). Management actions (including use limits) are therefore commonly justified by being able to point to at least

some segment of the public that requires the type of solitude

or naturalness that can only be found in wilderness. Use

limits ensure that such conditions will persist and thus that

opportunities for this segment of the user population are

protected. Presumably, those who object to use limits but

whose tastes can be met elsewhere suffer little net adversity,

whereas those who require low-density areas will still have

such places available, albeit at the cost of having to obtain a

permit.

As McCool (personal communication) has noted, managers probably have no choice but to favor wilderness-dependent use or users, given the types of experiences described in

law as appropriate in these areas. However, managing for

these uses in not straightforward, and a discussion about the

issue is needed. Surprisingly little attention has gone into

understanding what “wilderness-dependence” means. Are

there experiences that can only be found in designated

wilderness? To begin to address the question, one must

examine wilderness users and their goals, evaluate what

types of settings and opportunities are available for those

users, and identify where those settings are. This necessitates a perspective that goes beyond a single wilderness and

beyond a single land classification, because one can only

answer the question when one knows if other settings exist

that can provide the same opportunities.

Even if one is able to define wilderness-dependence adequately, managing according to this criterion is still difficult, because wilderness-dependent uses may be in conflict

with one another. An illustrative example can be found at

Mt. Hood Wilderness. There, managers developed policies

that were intended to protect the wilderness-dependent

experience of solitude. Because use was increasing rapidly,

the only action deemed likely to achieve this objective was to

limit use, and thus a quota was proposed for several trails,

including the primary climbing route up the peak. In this

case, solitude-seekers were to be privileged. However, the

action would at the same time disenfranchise two other

types of users (those seeking freedom from regulation and

mountain climbers seeking the challenges of climbing glaciated peaks). Interestingly, this dilemma was not mentioned

or discussed; solitude was assumed to take precedence. One

could reasonably argue that the challenge of climbing glaciated peaks is a wilderness-dependent experience, especially

in the Northwest, where all such peaks are in Federally

designated wilderness. Similarly, freedom (although perhaps not explicitly mentioned by name in the Wilderness

Act) is a value very much in harmony with the intent of the

Act. In this example, a case could probably be made that

experiences of climbing are more difficult to obtain than

experiences of solitude within the region. One might also

argue that the day users bearing the brunt of the proposed

use limits might value freedom and spontaneity more than

solitude during their trips to Mt. Hood. Weighing and resolving these competing values of wilderness will not be easy. An

open discussion of opportunities, and their dependence on

wilderness, is needed.

Day Versus Overnight Users—Despite the lack of clarity and direction regarding how to manage for wildernessdependent users described above, at least the philosophical

rationale for doing so has been explicit. In the case of

disparity in treatment between day and overnight visitors,

no clear rationale has ever been explicitly articulated or

defended. In virtually all permit systems, even where the

issue at stake is solitude and a majority of users are on day

trips, use limits are set for overnight visitors only. We seem

almost to have a collective blind spot in this regard, if the

titles of research studies are any indication. For example

van Wagtendonk and Coho’s (1986) paper “Rationing use to

keep wilderness wild,” Bultena and others’ (1981) “Closing

the gates: A study of backcountry use-limitation at Mt.

McKinley National Park,” and Fazio and Gilbert’s (1974)

“Mandatory wilderness permits: Some indications of success” all dealt exclusively with overnight users. These titles,

however, simply refer to “use,” suggesting to the reader that

they encompass all types of use. Similarly, Hendee and

others (1990: 416) asserted that “considerable evidence suggests that recreationists often accept regulations [on use

levels] fairly well, particularly if their necessity is explained,”

but they failed to mention that the studies forming the basis

of this conclusion were usually of and about overnight

wilderness use. The point is not that these authors have been

somehow negligent or careless, it is rather to show that

researchers and managers alike have generally—for whatever reason—not considered day users to be a threat to

wilderness values.

Given the concerns about protecting rare wilderness experiences, it is troubling that virtually all use limitation systems

focus exclusively on overnight users, and it is even more

troubling given the high proportions of day use and the

relative growth in day versus overnight use (Hall and Shelby

1998; Marion and others 1993). Even in 1980, across the

NWPS as a whole, almost half of all parties were day users

(Washburne and Cole 1983), yet limits rarely applied to them.

It seems plausible (but should be tested) that those staying

overnight in wilderness might seek experiences more dependent on wilderness than those out for a day hike, who may be

motivated by factors other than being in wilderness. Thus,

using “dependence” reasoning, overnight visitors might deserve preferential treatment, rather than being the sole focus

of restrictions. It is true that use limits have often been

implemented to address ecological concerns, and overnight

users may have disproportionate per capita impacts on sites.

If so, differential limits on overnight users might be justified.

However, when limits are considered for the purpose of

ensuring solitude, there seems no a priori reason to exclude
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 43

Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge Hall

day users. Encountering day users may have as much impact

on solitude as encountering any other user.

The issue of limiting day use raises a number of practical

concerns. Although data are sparse, it appears that visitors

do not support limits on day use to the extent that they

support limits on overnight use. For example, Watson

(1993) reported that 67 to 95 percent of day and overnight

visitors supported “restrictions on use if the area is used

beyond capacity,” but only 17 percent of day users and

about 30 percent of overnight users supported limitations

on day use. Bultena and others (1981) reported that although 91 percent of overnight permit holders supported

the existing limits on overnight use, 71 percent opposed

limits on day use. Such findings suggest that managers

may face serious opposition if they attempt to impose limits

on numbers of day users, at least for social reasons. (Other

research suggests that there may be greater levels of

support for limits based on biological need.) Indeed, this is

precisely what has happened in some Forest Service wildernesses in the northwest.

2. What Scale Is Relevant When Deciding

Whether Opportunities for Solitude Exist

and, Therefore, Whether Use Limits Are

Needed?

Once managers decide on the experience or experiences

they will attempt to facilitate through management, they

must then judge whether or not opportunities for those

experiences are available. These management decisions

always entail a temporal and geographic scope. Rarely is the

scope articulated or defended, but decisions about scale have

important implications for judgments about whether to

impose use limits.

Temporal Scales—Several issues surround temporal

scale. First, there is a fundamental debate about whether

the managerial definition of a “wilderness experience” should

evolve as public tastes and attitudes change. Many managers assume that solitude was definitively characterized as

what those who drafted the Wilderness Act felt was solitude.

For such managers, it does not matter whether today’s

visitors believe they are experiencing solitude; what matters

is whether that experiences meets the test of consistency

with historical definitions. Management culture, at least

within the Forest Service, has tended to perpetuate this type

of permanent, inflexible definition. For example, in the

Pacific Northwest Region of the Forest Service, there are

regional standards for what is acceptable in terms of numbers of encounters, and those standards have not changed in

over 20 years. The Wilderness Act is notably silent in

specifying the meaning of “solitude” or how it should be

measured, leaving it up to managers to provide a definition

as management plans are written. When considering whether

opportunities for solitude exist and, therefore, whether to

limit use, the manager must decide this temporal issue:

should one adopt a strict historic definition or standard

(whatever that might be), or should one allow the definition

of solitude (and other experiences) to evolve over time?

An unchanging standard will inevitably lead to use limits

at least in some locations. This has the merits of ensuring

that a truly primitive experience will always be available,

despite increasing population and development, but if

society’s “tastes” evolve, the proportion of people desiring

such experiences may be declining. This could mean that

more and more people bear negative costs associated with

managing for a smaller and smaller segment of the public.

Furthermore, rigid standards can be difficult to defend to

visitors, who may truly feel that they experienced solitude,

despite having numerous encounters. On the other hand,

allowing standards to evolve alongside society’s tastes means

that use limits may not be imposed. Wilderness visitors will

encounter more other people and the impacts of their cumulative use, and those who seek very low-density experiences

will presumably be increasingly displaced. Judging from

discussions among managers in recent years, there appears

to be little consensus about which position to adopt.

Another important issue of temporal scale surrounds the

Wilderness Act requirement of “outstanding opportunities

for solitude.” Hendee and others (1990: 21) contend that the

Act should be interpreted to mean that there “should be

places and times within the NWPS and within individual

wildernesses where visitors find little or no contact with

others.” This is useful guidance, but managers are still left

to decide several questions: Does a wilderness that is

heavily used every weekend, but lightly used on weekdays,

meet the intent of the Act? Does heavy summer use but

light fall use violate policy? One’s stance on these matters

will obviously have considerable effect on whether one

would decide to impose use limits in a given situation.

Planning documents generally have not provided explicit

direction, and individual managers are left to make these

critical value judgments.

Geographic Scales—One of the most perplexing issues

in deciding whether to limit use is interpreting the geographical scope of the Wilderness Act provisions (McCool

and Lime 1989). Are managers charged with providing

solitude on all acres in all wildernesses? If there are substantial trailless sections of wilderness where no one goes, does

that wilderness provide “outstanding opportunities for solitude?” Behan (1976: 23) argued 25 years ago that “our

wilderness land, with some significant exceptions, is not

crowded today—only our wilderness facilities are: the trails,

campsites, trailhead accommodations.” Is this position still

viable? Most of the acres of most wildernesses receive virtually no use, because visitors almost never leave the trail. Is

that sufficient to meet the solitude mandate, even if there

are extremely heavily used destinations in the same wilderness? One might answer “yes,” and conclude that no use

limits are needed in specific destinations or entire wildernesses. Alternatively, one might argue from a national scale

that wilderness—all wilderness—is the anchor point on a

continuum of primitiveness, and every acre should be managed for solitude. Again, there appears to be little consensus

among managers, researchers, and the public about this

critical issue.

The need to specify, geographically and temporally, what

constitutes “outstanding opportunities for solitude” should

be dealt with explicitly before imposing use limits, because

most wildernesses have highly uneven use (Lucas and

Krumpe 1985). Although many have at least a few high-use

destinations, there are usually many acres of trailless
44 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Hall Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge

wilderness, and many acres of low-use trailed wilderness.

These areas probably do provide outstanding opportunities

for solitude. If users choose, on their own volition, to visit

a high-use destination, that does not necessarily mean that

opportunities for solitude do not exist. Sometimes, the way

issues of use density are discussed can blur this distinction.

For example, when we assert, as we often do that “wilderness use is increasing,” we rarely clarify whether use is

increasing on all trails and acres equally. In the Three

Sisters Wilderness, where total visits have risen dramatically, the increases have been primarily on a limited number of trails and primarily within five miles of trailheads

(Shelby and Hall 1992). Therefore, many destinations have

not experienced use increases. Such factors should be

taken into account when considering the need for use

limits.

Although managers must weigh many factors besides

public opinion in reaching a conclusion about such matters,

visitor input is one important consideration. Standard

approaches to surveying visitors have not provided much

insight into their views on the scale at which “opportunities” should be provided. One study of Shenandoah National Park wilderness hikers investigated attitudes about

the geographic scale at which solitude should be provided

in wilderness, by asking visitors to select the optimum from

four possible ways to “balance visitor freedom with opportunities to experience solitude” (Hockett and Hall 1999).

That study found that wilderness visitors did care about

solitude, but that most did not support adopting a single

course of action everywhere:

• Nine percent said the NPS “should provide outstanding

opportunities for solitude everywhere in the wilderness,

even though this may mean that use will be restricted at

several trails and some people will be turned away.”

• Twenty-five percent of day users and 35 percent of

overnight users said the NPS “should provide outstanding opportunities for solitude at a majority of wilderness

trails. The number of people using some trails will be

limited, but a few will have unrestricted use. Use levels

might be very high at these trails.”

• Fifty percent of day users and 38 percent of overnight

users said the NPS “should provide outstanding opportunities for solitude along a few trails, in the more

remote areas of the wilderness. The number of people

allowed to use these few trails will be limited, but the

majority of trails will have no use limits.”

• Fifteen percent of day users and 19 percent of overnight

users said the NPS “should not manage for outstanding

opportunities for solitude by restricting use anywhere.”

Apart from these issues about the appropriate geographical and temporal scales from which to judge whether opportunities for solitude (or other experiences) exist, when use

limits are proposed, there arise additional issues of geographical scale. For example, there are questions about

whether use should be limited at all trails/zones or just

where problems occur. Early use limit systems, such as the

Boundary Waters Canoe Area, Yosemite, and Kings Canyon

Wildernesses limited overnight use everywhere. But research appears to suggest that people support limits where

problems exist, not where there is no “need.” On the grounds

of desiring to maximize freedom, Hendee and others (1990)

argued that attention should focus on threatened sites only.

This has led some managers (for example, Willamette and

Mt. Hood National Forests) to implement or propose limits

at problem areas only.

This approach raises concern, because of the potential for

the displacement of problems to new areas (Cole 1993). Use

limits are an implicit displacement strategy—users who are

denied access must find somewhere else to go. There is

strong evidence that, at least at the destination level, other

management policies that displace users cause biophysical

impacts to worsen, because recovery occurs so much more

slowly than deterioration. Although there is little or no

direct evidence about whether use limits lead to widespread

displacement and therefore to increased biophysical impacts at other locations, such outcomes seem possible. It also

seems highly plausible (though specific examples are generally lacking) that displacing large numbers of users to new

areas will cause social conditions to worsen at those other

areas, without providing meaningful improvements at the

destination itself (Cole and others 1997). Such factors have

caused some to recommend just the opposite of others’

advice, namely consideration of use limits at low-use areas,

but not at high-use destinations, to prevent low-density

areas from becoming highly used in the first place.

3. Have Use Limits Been Employed

Effectively to Achieve Short and

Long-Term Objectives?

The first two questions above—which experiences to provide and at what scale to assess provision—must be addressed before use limits can be adopted. The final question

discussed in this paper is also critical for managers to

ponder: Have use limits achieved their purpose(s)? In general, evaluation of the efficacy of wilderness use limits has

been minimal. Indeed, so little is known that much of this

section serves primarily to highlight gaps in knowledge.

Among the immediate objectives for which use limits are

imposed are protecting experience quality, managing so that

wilderness-dependent users have priority, and protecting

natural resources. Longer term goals include having an

efficient management decisionmaking process and maximizing net benefits. Each of these is discussed briefly below.

Protecting Experience Quality—Many questions can

and should be asked about the efficacy of use limits in

protecting experiences. In a general sense, many researchers and managers believe that use limits can and do ensure

experience quality. For example, the limits on use for the

Selway and Colorado Rivers must surely have protected

rare, high-quality experiences. Despite this general faith,

many other concrete, localized questions should probably be

asked. For example, campsite solitude is a very important

aspect of overnight wilderness trips, probably more important than solitude along the trail. Does solitude at campsites

improve when use is reduced? Or do people still tend to

congregate by choice, thereby “defeating” the purpose of the

regulation? Another very basic question might be whether

people feel that—overall—they have a substantially more

“wilderness” type of experience with limits than without.

The attitude that use limits are a last resort has led to a

mindset that limits are the best or only way to resolve most
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 45

Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge Hall

types of problems when other techniques fail. This has

impeded critical examination of whether use limits are more

effective at protecting certain kinds of experiences (for

example, campsite solitude) than others (for example, solitude along the trail, or reduction in visitor conflict). To be a

useful tool, there must be a strong relationship between use

density (the variable directly manipulated by use limits) and

the experience to be protected. Research to date has shown

that the relationship between density and experience quality is weak, at least within the range of use levels and

experiences studied (Cole, this proceedings). Lowering use

may lower the number of contacts, but wilderness visitors

may have several motives or desired experiences, and solitude may not be the most significant component. Even

solitude is affected by much more than just the number of

encounters one has (Hall, in press). Other experiences may

be even less tightly linked to use density than is solitude. In

an environment in which wilderness managers readily admit that they do not or cannot establish a carrying capacity,

and few monitor for use levels or experience attributes

(Marion and others 1993; Washburne and Cole 1983), intuition, rather than science, informs quotas.

The previous remarks cast doubt upon whether use limits

are likely to be effective in achieving at least some of their

intended experiential objectives. An additional consideration, related to the specific limits or quotas adopted, deepens that doubt. In most wildernesses, when limits are

imposed, they are established at existing use levels. If limits

tend to be adopted after problems arise and other efforts

have failed, then it seems likely that maintaining current

use levels will not resolve the problems. For example, in

Three Sisters Wilderness, use limits were adopted because

encounter rates exceeded those deemed to provide opportunities for solitude. As one would expect with limits set at

approximately the prior year’s number of trips, encounter

rates were largely unchanged the following year. One is

forced to wonder, at least in the short term, whether the

imposition posed by rationing use outweighed any experiential benefit.

Favoring Wilderness-Dependent Users—Although

many have discussed the issue of wilderness-dependence, it

is unclear whether the form of existing use limit systems

actually serve the needs of wilderness-dependent users.

Consider the following. If wilderness-dependent users should

have first priority, then, when limits are imposed, permits

should be given to these users before other, nondependent

users. Otherwise the system cannot be accomplishing its

intended function. However, in practice this does not happen

(Hennessey 1991). Indeed, it is difficult to envision a system

in which such priority would be practicable and publicly

supported. Although merit systems exist that serve to eliminate unqualified visitors, no systems exist that categorize

expected benefits, determine whether these are uniquely

available in wilderness, and then allocate permits to those

seeking such benefits. Presumably the commitment to wilderness-dependent users in theory, but the abandonment of

this commitment in practice, reflects a conflict between the

desire to protect the needs of the minority across an entire

land base, but to treat all equally (rather than equitably) in

a particular circumstance. Certainly there is a reluctance to

differentially limit those who could find their desired experiences elsewhere.

Protection of Natural Resources—Use limits may

also be implemented to protect biophysical conditions. Although there is little published evidence, it seems likely that

use limits by themselves are relatively ineffective at reducing impacts to vegetation and soils. Unless additional regulations are in effect to concentrate use or alter impactful

visitor behaviors, even low levels of use can maintain impacts across a large number of sites. Thus, limits probably do

not lead to recovery of sites in many situations. However,

many managers contend that quota systems have helped

prevent further deterioration of conditions, particularly at

campsites, and this outcome seems plausible, especially if

the limits put a halt to rapidly increasing use. In cases where

impacts are linearly related to use density—human waste

accumulation, for example—use limits probably do have a

notable effect on environmental impacts. Certainly use limit

systems, such as area closures, can be designed that have

clear positive effects on natural conditions.

At broader scales than the site or destination, little is

known about how recreational use levels affect natural

processes across larger landscapes, and it is unknown whether

existing use limitation systems have discernible effects on

naturalness, especially when taken in the context of all other

anthropogenic induced changes that are occurring across

the land.

Efficient Management and Maximization of Net

Benefits—One possible goal of public land management is

efficiency—to maximize benefits (improved experience quality and protection of naturalness) relative to costs (including

staff and funding, but also costs to visitors) over the long run.

Depending on the era and the author, various arguments

have been advanced about the efficiency of use limits. Some

have claimed that they are cost effective and benefit users

and managers alike. Others have claimed the impositions to

visitors outweigh any benefits. Not surprisingly, given the

broad scope and multiple dimensions of the question, there

has been little research on whether limits accomplish this

goal. Various researchers and managers have raised the

issue over time (for example, Lucas 1983), but few have

devoted attention to studying it.

Today’s conventional wisdom that use limits should be

used only as a last resort, if nonregulatory alternatives exist,

demonstrates a belief that the costs of use limits are high

relative to their benefits (Cole 1995; Hendee and others

1990; Lucas and Krumpe 1985). In theory, this admonition

recognizes an array of possible management alternatives,

each of which should be evaluated in turn, beginning with

the least intrusive, for its likelihood of resolving a particular

problem. Managers would select the least intrusive actions

capable of achieving objectives with relatively high assurance. In practice, however, one can rarely be certain a priori

whether an action will be effective or not, and the reluctance

to regulate leads managers to try indirect actions even if the

chances that they will work are remote. Ultimately, this may

lead to an inefficient investment of resources and inconsistency in management year-to-year. For example, at Green

Lakes in the Three Sisters Wilderness, increasing use levels

caused encounter rates to exceed Forest Plan standards. In

response, managers tried various indirect techniques, such

as removing a highway sign and stationing a trailhead host

at the trailhead to inform visitors that the area was heavily

used. Neither effort was successful in reducing visitation. In
46 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Hall Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge

hindsight this is not terribly surprising—visitors love this

particular area and do not go with an expectation of being

alone. Nevertheless, the reluctance to regulate meant that

indirect, but ineffective efforts were made.

In evaluating the overall efficiency and costs of use limits,

one must ask whether other management actions are more

effective, cost less, or have other benefits when compared to

use limits. Consideration of certain types of site manipulation as an alternative to use limits, and a systematic evaluation of the respective costs and benefits, is conspicuously

absent from the literature (Hennessey 1991). When use

limits are proposed for high-density areas, this assumes that

limits are “better” (more effective, efficient, and/or acceptable) than closing roads, removing trails, or building new

trails, which ideas tend to be readily dismissed. Hendee and

others (1990) sensibly caution against site manipulation, for

fear that areas might lose their unique wilderness character

and become like front-country campgrounds. But fear about

these rather extreme possibilities forestalls important discussions about less obtrusive measures. If trails (themselves

engineered) are acceptable and legal in almost all wildernesses, and shelters, fire grates, and toilets are accepted in

many, then site hardening approaches may be reasonable,

unobtrusive alternatives whose costs and benefits should be

systematically weighed in contrast to the costs and benefits

of use limits. Survey research has consistently shown that

the majority of visitors are accepting or even desirous of at

least some site manipulation techniques (Cronn and others

1992; Hockett and Hall 1999). Managers might ultimately

decide to impose use limits, but the decision should be based

on a careful, rational weighing of all factors and possible

tools.

Finally, there is the question about whether use limits

achieve their longest-term aim, “maintenance of the natural

order” (Hendee and others 1990: 20). For this goal there is

the least evidence. It seems difficult to know where to begin

to evaluate achievement of this goal, as laudable as is the

goal itself. The value judgments and data required to establish limits of acceptable change for individual campsites are

difficult enough; how much more difficult it would be to

establish a limit of acceptable change for wilderness-wide

natural processes.

Paradoxically, though, this is probably the criterion for

which managers have the strongest faith regarding use

limits. Many feel that limits are the best or perhaps only

effective way to maintain areas with little evidence of human-caused impacts that provide outstanding opportunities

for solitude or primitive and unconfined recreation over the

long run. Thinking long-term, if wilderness use were to

continue to rise indefinitely, it seems that there would come

a point at which few of us would deem an area “wilderness”

any longer. Use limits—whatever their immediate outcomes—can prevent such a scenario.

Conclusions____________________

Since the first wildernesses were established, the rationale

for limiting use has undergone refinement and evolution.

Early use limit systems were conceived as necessary, almost

desperate, steps to address rapidly escalating pressures on

wilderness, and it was hoped that they would ameliorate

both the social and biophysical impacts associated with use.

Today, managers have many more tools available to them and

have begun to recognize that in some cases these other tools

may be more effective or acceptable than use limits. Nevertheless, as use—especially day use—continues to rise, some

managers have felt that the only tool that can effectively

ensure opportunities for solitude is a limit on use.

However, the foundations of use limits have not been

sufficiently well articulated or defended, so that managers

who are considering use limits face a host of challenges from

highly involved wilderness enthusiasts. Whereas many visitors could evidently accept the “need” for limits on overnight

use in the past, today public reaction demonstrates that, at

least in some areas, visitors are unwilling to sacrifice access

for experiences of managerially-defined solitude on day

trips. These issues, provoked initially by discussions of day

use, raise more general questions about value-laden decisions

that managers will be increasingly called upon to make.

Many of the issues raised in this paper hint at the lack of

an adequate framework for deliberation and decisionmaking about wilderness use limit policies. When limits are to be

imposed for the protection of experiences, managers and

researchers need to explore the development of specific

policies that state which groups are to be favored by management and why. Use limits will by their very nature benefit

some and inconvenience others; the rationale in each case

should be clearly reasoned and defensible. A first step in this

process is for managers to identify which experiences are

dependent on wilderness. This will require examination of

visitors’ motives and the opportunities provided within the

wilderness itself, nearby wildernesses, and probably other

adjacent lands. It will also entail decisions about who should

be entitled to define the protected experiences and how those

experiences can be measured.

When one asks whether outstanding opportunities for

solitude (or other experiences) exist, one implicitly demarcates the relevant time and place. Therefore, a next step for

managers considering use limits will involve deciding upon

the geographical and temporal scale of analysis. Wilderness

planning approaches such as the Recreational Opportunity

Spectrum and Limits of Acceptable Change that involve

zoning embrace flexibility to adopt different objectives and

standards for different areas (Haas and others 1987). This

guidance implies that not all acres must supply the same

opportunities. Beyond that, however, managers are left to

grapple with deciding how one decides whether “outstanding opportunities” for solitude or other experiences exist.

A third step will involve gaining a better understanding of

how use limit systems do or do not achieve their aims and

what their relative costs and benefits truly are. Lessons

about successes and failures are important inputs to ongoing

planning efforts. In cases where experience opportunities

are deemed to be sufficiently impaired as to warrant managerial intervention, this information will help managers

decide if use limits are the appropriate and most efficient,

effective solution.

In each of these three steps, there is a role for research.

One critical need is for a deeper understanding of the nature

of the wilderness experience, and how that experience may

differ from other types of recreation experiences. Managers

need to understand how different factors contribute to the

quality of a wilderness experience, and how visitors themselves define and value experiences such as solitude. Linked
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 47

Use Limits in Wilderness: Assumptions and Gaps in Knowledge Hall

to this basic research should be research investigating the

extent to which wilderness-dependent experiences (including solitude) are enhanced or affected by use limits.

Managers generally operate under a policy that indirect

management is preferable to direct management techniques

such as use limits. A number of assumptions about visitor

preferences and experiences underlie the promotion of indirect techniques with use limits as a last resort, and these

could also be the subject of research. Some have explicitly

stated that externally imposed limits that allow complete

freedom within the wilderness are more protective of the

“wilderness experience” than a myriad of behavioral controls within the wilderness (Cole 1995). (Interestingly, many

use limit systems combine an external limit with internal

controls on behaviors—fire bans, designated site camping,

and so on—which arguably presents the most intrusive

situation, because it mixes direct and indirect controls.)

Such statements suggest that the wilderness experience

begins and ends at the boundary of the wilderness, so that

difficulties imposed before the trip do not influence the

wilderness quality of the trip itself. Furthermore, there is an

assumption that externally imposed use limits are more

acceptable to the public than a myriad of behavioral controls.

Neither of these assumptions has been well-tested. One

could make the case that use limits improve the quality of a

wilderness experience by highlighting the rare, valuable

nature of the experience; alternatively one could argue that

limitation itself is anathema to the sense of freedom intrinsic to wilderness.

Much existing research has been sponsored by individual

management units, and therefore has been of limited utility

in helping address questions of scale, especially geographical scale. Recent attempts to synthesize findings from diverse studies (for example, Cole and others 1997; Watson

and others 1992) have made important steps in this direction. However, additional research is needed, particularly to

understand wilderness visitors in relation to people who

recreate on other lands, to learn how wilderness visitors

(and others) define and value wilderness, and to understand

whether differential motivations underlie trips to different

types of places. Useful research might ask whether, when

informed about the nature and extent of the NWPS, wilderness visitors endorse different management regimes for

wilderness and what tradeoffs they would be willing to

accept.

One of the areas where research could make its most

immediate impact is in evaluation of existing and proposed

use limit systems. Unfortunately, beyond studies of the

acceptability and functioning of allocation methods, little

research or even documentation has occurred to evaluate

existing use limits. There is a strong need for quasi-experimental designs that involve baseline research to characterize visitors, experiences, and biophysical conditions before

use limits are imposed and then evaluate changes after the

imposition of limits. Other research might test the effects

and effectiveness of use limits versus other techniques in a

comprehensive, systematic way.

As our population grows, incomes rise, and wildernesstype experiences are increasingly in demand, wilderness

managers must make difficult decisions about how to carry

out their mandate to protect wilderness values. This will

entail, among other things, addressing and balancing short

term visitor interests and long term societal needs. These

decisions will be made in an arena of increasing public

divisiveness. There is a need for researchers, managers, and

citizens to come together to forge a workable framework for

making such decisions.

Acknowledgment _______________

The author would like to thank Dr. Steve McCool for his

helpful comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.

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recreational use. In Proceedings, Benchmark 1988: A national

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and practices in backcountry recreation management: A survey

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problems, and guidelines. Research Paper INT-192. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service.

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wildland manager’s continuing dilemma. Western Wildlands.

16(4), 2–7.

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California. Research Note INT-414. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station.

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Journal of Park and Recreation Administration. 9(3), 73–80.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 49

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Stephen F. McCool is a Professor, School of Forestry, University of

Montana, Missoula, MT 59812.

Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness:

Research Issues and Management

Challenges in Appraising Their

Effectiveness

Stephen F. McCool

Abstract—Limits on the overall number of recreationists permitted to enter or visit wilderness, national park backcountry or

whitewater rivers have been formally established for about 30

years. Such limits have usually been established to protect biophysical or social conditions from unacceptable impacts in the face of

rapidly rising amounts of visitation. Use limits are one of a number

of tools available to managers, but represent a particularly intrusive and controversial one. Use limit policies may have significant

negative displacement effects, are implemented within a regional

context—even if not recognized in the decision—and must meet the

criteria of effectiveness, efficacy, and efficiency in order to be useful

in managing impacts. Unfortunately, evaluations of use limit policies using these criteria do not exist within the literature. The paper

suggests that evaluations encompass four major domains, consider

effects within a regional context, and research move from one-shot

case study experimental designs to those that are more conducive to

better understanding of the consequences of use limit policies.

Introduction ____________________

The development of policies that limit access to recreational resources is one of the most controversial actions

implemented for managing recreation on the public lands

but one of the least understood. Some managers, confronted

with a seemingly insatiable demand for high quality recreational opportunities occurring in magnificent natural environments with little evidence of human use and influence,

have responded by restricting access to these settings through

a variety of means, but frequently through a use limit policy

based on a conception of an area’s carrying capacity. Implementation of a use limit policy leads to development of use

rationing and allocation regimes once demand exceeds the

limit.

A use limit policy is a formalized regulation that restricts

the number of visitors that may enter an area over a given

time period—day, week, month, or season. Such policies

became popular with accelerating growth of whitewater

river recreation in the 1960s and 1970s. These limits were

aimed at controlling or preventing impacts either to the

biophysical setting or to the recreational experience. While

whitewater river managers dominated the initial implementation of use limit policies, terrestrial wilderness managers have also adopted limits on recreational use. Use

limits administered in terrestrial areas often come in forms

different from those used on rivers (which usually involve

limits on the number of groups launching per day), often

featuring limited campsite availability. Regardless of the

form, use limit policies remain controversial as they carry

significant distributional consequences that are often viewed

as unfair by visitors. Following their initial implementation

in the 1970s, they were repeatedly accompanied by litigation

and civil disobedience, recurrently triggered by important

issues of equity.

Despite their widespread application and a rapidly growing interest in many venues, questions about the efficacy of

use limit policies remain. Do such policies really control,

confine, or reduce impacts? Does their implementation provide for higher quality experiences? Are they the “best” way

of reducing or controlling impacts? How do their positive and

negative consequences compare? Since people are directly

affected, how do visitors respond to them? What issues are

confronted by managers when they are implemented?

A large number of studies have examined visitor preference for use limit policies (see McCool and Christensen 1996

for a brief review of some of this research). In general, this

research shows that when given a reason for limiting use,

visitors sampled at individual areas agree to such limits—

hardly a startling conclusion (see Hall, this proceedings for

additional comments about such preference studies). However, such research has avoided evaluations of how visitors

view the acceptability of use limit policies within the context

of the potential tradeoffs between the quality of the experience (or biophysical character) and access restrictions involved. For example, mitigating biophysical impacts through

a use limit policy may achieve a gain in resource quality, but

comes at the expense of restricted access to the area. The

extent to which visitors would perceive biophysical or social

conditions so objectionable that they would find a use limit

policy acceptable has not been reported in the literature.

Reports evaluating the effectiveness of use limit policies

in confining, controlling and reducing visitor-induced impacts do not appear in the literature. While implementation of a use limit policy raises an abundant number of

managerial (Warren 1977), economic (McCool 1978), experiential (Schreyer and Roggenbuck 1978), political (Dew

1984), and philosophical issues (McAvoy and Dustin 1983),

the lack of evaluative mechanisms, frameworks and reports evoke still others.
50 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

McCool Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Research Issues and Management Challenges in Appraising Their Effectiveness

The growing, apparently inevitable, implementation of

recreation use limit policies occurs within the context of

accelerating demand for recreation opportunities that are

rapidly declining in availability, a poorly developed scientific arena, and a reduced institutional capacity to manage

recreation. A widening interest in privatization of public

recreation opportunities fueled primarily by conservative

political agendas also serves to magnify the complexity of

use limit policies. These conditions all suggest that a significant, critical examination of recreation use limit policies is

not only appropriate, but essential to addressing many of the

fundamental issues currently confronting wildland recreation managers. Such an assessment could assist in developing a policy-relevant research agenda for scientists. Implementation of use limit policies raises several additional

questions: Under what conditions are such policies appropriate? What benefits may accrue and what costs ensue?

What pragmatic barriers and issues are elicited when use

limits are proposed? How can the success of these policies be

appraised?

These are important questions; they can be addressed

only within the context of appropriate scaffolding that outlines general issues and evaluative frameworks. The overall

goal of this paper is to advance our understanding of these

issues and frameworks. The paper is organized around three

major themes. First, I advance several questions that stem

from the application of use limits. In general, use limit

policies are both controversial and costly; we should be clear

about the benefits to both recreational experiences and

resources prior to their implementation. I will briefly outline

three principal questions arising out of their implementation. Second, I suggest a framework that would be productive for evaluating use limit policies as tools for controlling

biophysical and social impacts resulting from recreation.

The current lack of evaluative frameworks severely limits

the social and managerial learning needed to advance the

state of the art. This framework can serve as a starting point

for evaluation of existing use limit policies through development of policy relevant research and may serve as a foundation for considering limiting use in areas where such policies

don’t currently exist. In both cases, a rich field of research is

indicated. Finally, I review potentially useful elements of a

framework to guide research on use limit policies and to

refocus their implementation at the regional level.

Important Questions in Use Limit

Policy Implementation

There are three significant questions raised when use

limit policies are under consideration, in addition to their

overall effectiveness in controlling, confining or reducing

impacts from recreational use. How these questions are

addressed in the design of a specific use limit policy suggests

what social costs are potentially involved when implemented.

Again, these questions are addressed in reference to the

potential benefits that such policies are designed to achieve

and represent differing potential tradeoffs.

Distributional Consequences of Use Limit Policies

Are Unclear—Restricting access to public recreation opportunities leads to significant distributional consequences

that raise fundamental questions about the equity of use

limit policies and how those restrictions are implemented.

Restriction of access, particularly in how such restrictions

are implemented through design of rationing systems, affects different groups differently. A major issue here is the

potential mismatch between the recreational opportunities

an area offers and the opportunities visitors seek. Stankey

and Baden (1977), in their early evaluation of issues associated with implementation of use limit policies, identified

this question as one of suboptimization. Suboptimization

occurs when there is a mismatch between the preferences of

recreationists for particular settings and the settings they

are actually allowed to visit as a result of a use limit policy.

Thus, some visitors are seeking an experience in a specific

place while others may be seeking an experience anywhere.

Suboptimization results when the latter replaces the former,

which can occur in some rationing systems. When

suboptimization occurs, visitors receive some, but not all,

the benefits a particular recreation setting can offer.

Suboptimization is not only an efficiency question, it is an

equity one as well. Allocations that are suboptimal result in

a smaller flow of benefits to the public because access is

denied to opportunities sought by segments of the recreating

public.

Use limits are accompanied by rationing and allocation

mechanisms when demand exceeds the supply defined in the

limit. Each mechanism (for example, lottery, queue, reservation) discriminates against a certain type of user, thus

raising the question of what specific goals should be established for these policies (Stankey and Baden 1977). For

example, a queue discriminates against those who don’t

have time to wait in the line while a reservation systems

favors those who can plan ahead.

In addition, implementation of a use limit policy in the

face of growing demand cannot be considered separate

from the decision of how to ration and allocate use, if only

because such decisions are inevitable. These decisions are

inextricably linked and are inherently political in character (McCool and Utter 1981). Shelby (1981) has suggested

four goals of rationing systems: (1) equality—every one has

the same chance for entry; (2) social efficiency—people

willing to pay the highest price have a better chance to

enter; (3) equity—rationing favors those individuals favored by society; and (4) need—visitors with expectations

closely aligned with area goals or who are members of a

special class have a higher chance of entry. The distributive

effects on expected wilderness experiences of the mechanisms to attain each goal are different.

Use Limit Policies Occur Within Regional and Managerial Systems That May Not Be Well Defined or

Accounted for When Decisions Are Made—Two types of

systems are involved in use limit policies: a spatial system,

in which different Wildernesses are spatially related within

a specific region and a management system centered on the

decision and implementation procedures for use limit policies. Both types of systems interact and will be discussed

below.

Regional System ________________

Recreational use of Wilderness and other similar backcountry areas occurs within the context of a system of areas.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 51

Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Research Issues and Management Challenges in Appraising Their Effectiveness McCool

The operative system is neither obvious because recreation

user preferences are not known nor easy to manage because

adjacent protected areas may be administered by agencies

with differing objectives. For example, the Glacier National

Park backcountry is administered by the National Park

Service while the adjacent Great Bear Wilderness is managed by the Forest Service. Both agencies have distinctly

different approaches to managing backcountry use.

While each wilderness is managed under the mandates of

the Wilderness Act to provide “outstanding opportunities for

solitude and a primitive and unconfined experience,” because of existing use patterns, administrative traditions and

resource characteristics, this does not necessarily translate

into exactly the same value of setting attributes among and

within wildernesses. Each wilderness is different enough to

justify varying standards of solitude and human-induced

impacts; thus, each wilderness provides opportunities for

somewhat different experiences that include, but are not

limited to solitude or primitive and unconfined experiences.

Wildernesses therefore are not necessarily substitutable,

yet management actions in one area have effects on another.

These effects may not be visible for some time, and may

affect different types of recreationists, displacing some while

others replace them. For example, a use limit policy (implemented through rationing) that is excessively bureaucratic

and potentially restrictive may negatively affect visitors

seeking escape from the pressures of society, and thus they

may choose not to enter that particular Wilderness but

another one instead. Others who are not as sensitive to

bureaucratic procedures may replace these visitors. Thus,

use limits may inadvertently lead to visitor successional

processes, leading to not only development of dissatisfaction, but to differing expectations of what each of the areas

should provide in terms of setting attributes.

While all Wildernesses are governed by the same legislative mandate, each is managed under plans that frequently

recognize idiosyncratic characteristics, are influenced by

individual manager philosophies toward recreation, and

reflect the specific institutional capacity to manage. Since

the notion of a system is not explicitly recognized, wilderness

plans—and the use limit policies contained within them—

developed independent of each other carry the potential of

duplicating goals, objectives and standards or of leaving

gaps in the range of wilderness related experiences that

recreationists seek, leading to unanticipated surprises, and

encouraging unplanned visitor succession.

This system is complex, involving areas, as well as users,

managers, agencies, outfitters and so on. Effective management can occur only with an understanding of each element

of the system, the behaviors of each element, and how

management actions and the response of visitors affect these

elements. Lime (1977) recognized the relevance of regional

studies nearly 25 years ago. In a river management context,

the importance of regional analysis has been well-stated by

these managers:

We now do our planning on a river-by-river basis. Alternatives are usually selected without consideration of opportunities afforded by other rivers; the planning process is often

locally oriented...It is doubtful that our present river-by river

approach can effectively cope with an increasing demand for

a decreasing resource. Should we evaluate viable management alternatives for a specific river without considering

management on other rivers? (Yearout and others 1977: 191).

A variety of other authors have recognized that management of recreational use must occur within the context of a

regional system of opportunities, and that limiting recreational use in one of these areas without considering the

management regime in others carries a variety of significant

negative consequences (for example, Stankey 1977; Schreyer

1977).

The notion of a system of areas suggests that fundamental

decisions about what areas should provide what kinds of

experience opportunities need to be made. While this is an

intrinsically political question, science plays an important

role in providing information to decisionmakers. Some of

that information would revolve around better understanding the population of wilderness users, their motivations,

expectations and willingness to make the tradeoffs between

protection of biophysical/social conditions and access that

use limit policies imply. Since a system exists, data collection to be helpful to management of the system must be

conducted at the system level, rather than at the individual

area level, which is highly susceptible to visitor succession

and replacement biases.

Management System ____________

Anticipation of the distributional and regional consequences of use limits requires that we have a better understanding of the management system within which use limit

policies are implemented. Implementation of a use limit

policy triggers effects that occur, as argued earlier, elsewhere in a geographical sense, and often are identified only

after a significant time delay. Such decisions are systemic

in character, and dealing with them requires a systemic

process.

Senge (1990) has classified different decisionmaking systems that confront organizations. A use limit policy, implemented without reference to the regional context within

which the area is situated, is representative of a “shifting the

burden” type of system. In a shifting the burden type of

system, an underlying problem generates issues that need

attention, but for a variety of reasons, confronting symptoms

of the problem is easier than dealing with the root causes. So,

shifting the burden of implementing an underlying solution

to something that is easier and more visible to implement

takes place. The underlying problem remains unsolved. In

some respects, there may not be awareness that there is a

fundamental underlying problem—managers may view use

impact problems as simply an operational issue associated

with wilderness management. If so, then they are more

likely to adopt an operational remedy (Caldwell 1990). If a

problem is defined at an operational level but is in reality a

systemic one, then managers will continue to be confronted

with new versions of the problem, and the burden of solving

the problem may be shifted to others.

Use limit policies represent a shifting the burden type of

system in that the questions of underlying causes of impacts,

the acceptability of impacts and how they can be managed

are never really addressed. Limiting use focuses on only one

of the causes of human-induced impacts—and probably a

minor one at that. When use limit policies are implemented,

visitors denied access shoulder the burden of management

that has not addressed fundamental problems. Visitors

granted access are not necessarily selected on the basis of
52 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

McCool Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Research Issues and Management Challenges in Appraising Their Effectiveness

merit (in this case ability to engage in minimum impact

behaviors) and thus benefit from the burden shouldered by

others.

By shifting the burden, the problem appears solved in the

short-run, but in the long-term, it resurfaces. Visitors

desiring experiences dependent on the wild character of

wilderness may be displaced (and thus endure the burden)

as more and more rules on entry are implemented. Other

areas—as noted above—may see increases in use as visitors seek other places without the restrictive environment.

As Senge argues, following implementation of a symptom

solution when the problem reoccurs, “there is increased pressure for symptomatic response. Meanwhile, the capability for

fundamental solutions can atrophy” (p. 104).

A major issue here is that the problem—human-induced

impacts—may never be framed in a way that leads to

fundamental solutions being considered. Bardwell (1991)

insists that much of land management activity is directed

toward solving solutions, solving the wrong problem, defining problems in such a way that they cannot be solved, and

solving non-problems, simply because not enough attention has been paid to framing the problem. As Clark and

Stankey (1991) suggest, asking the right question is critical to developing responses to real problems and issues.

Use limit policies generally emanate from a problem framed

as “how many are too many for this area?” when the more

fundamental problem can be succinctly stated as “what are

the appropriate or acceptable conditions for this area,

given its regional context and legislative mandate?” Once

that question is addressed, managers can turn to the more

pragmatic, yet still controversial decisions of what management tools are appropriate. Reframing the question in

this manner is consistent with legislative and policy direction to protect important biophysical characteristics and

experiential values, and may eventually lead to implementation of a use limit policy, but only following extensive

analysis.

Use Limit Policies May Displace

the Problem

The net effect of implementing use limit policies without

understanding the regional context is to initiate

suboptimization effects or to displace the problem spatially.

The problem (of unacceptable impacts) has been displaced to

other places (most likely to other wildernesses or protected

areas) or to other users. The other places may not have the

institutional capacity to respond to increased use-induced

impacts, and the other users may be unfairly restricted in

access to their favorite sites, resulting in suboptimization as

they seek opportunities in settings that are not necessarily

preferred ones. Use limit policies as now implemented provide no incentive for visitors to reduce impacts (since merit

is generally not a basis for rationing use), thus exacerbating

the problem. This now occurs in some wildernesses where

some areas are closed to camping because of impacts, so

people camp elsewhere. Generally, the places that are closed

show some level of impact, so visitors are forced to camp in

other places where impacts are relatively low. This leads to

increased overall degradation, because new places are impacted and the old places are not adequately restored.

Wilderness managers are faced with a difficult job. Cole

and Hammit (2000) argue that the Wilderness Act mandates

three competing objectives: wildness (untrammeled character), naturalness (unmodified environments), and solitude

(being alone with others). Use limit policies represent attempts to achieve naturalness and/or solitude (depending on

the rationale for their implementation), but hamper achievement of the wildness objective. Since not all three objectives

can be fully achieved under the demand and supply conditions facing most wildernesses, choices have to be made.

What is important is explicitly identifying what goals managers are seeking, recognizing that tradeoffs are occurring

and identifying the rationale for those tradeoffs.

Frameworks and Considerations

for Evaluation and Implementation

of Use Limit Policies

The above discussion raises significant questions about

the efficacy of use limit policies, but was not intended to

suggest they should never be employed. Use limit policies

may lead to distinctive and improved changes in biophysical

and experiential quality. Properly implemented, they protect, maintain or create unique, highly valued and increasingly rare experiences. Their implementation reflects a

growing scarcity of recreation opportunities, and thus point

to the need for fundamental change in how society may wish

to change its behavior or allocates resources.

A Proposed Framework for Evaluation

Largely, implementation of a use limit policy, as with

other land management practices, is an experiment. As a

management experiment, the outcomes, in terms of biophysical impacts, visitor satisfaction, and problem displacement need to be monitored and evaluated to determine the

success of the policy. Such evaluation would help managers

understand the effectiveness of use limit policies (for example, do they work?), as well as provide a needed perspective on their efficiency in accomplishing management objectives. Without evaluation to go along with their

implementation, managers have no idea if the tool worked,

the consequences of it on other dimensions of management,

and effects at larger temporal and spatial scales.

A proper framework for evaluation requires not only

specification of objectives, but also a monitoring system that

focuses on outputs, rather than inputs. This is particularly

important with respect to policies that restrict access since

this is one of the most intrusive and potentially harsh

actions that an agency can take.

What might such a framework look like? One suggestion proposed by Brewer (1973) is to address four major

questions:

1. Conceptual soundness—is there a defendable theoretical foundation?

2. Technical—is it translated into practice well?

3. Ethical—who wins and who loses?

4. Pragmatic—does it work?

What is outlined below represents the types of issues,

questions and potential approaches such an evaluation
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Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Research Issues and Management Challenges in Appraising Their Effectiveness McCool

may involve. It is designed to be suggestive rather than

definitive.

1. Conceptual soundness—is there a defendable theoretical foundation? Here a defendable theoretical foundation

would involve scientifically sound assumptions underlying use limit policies. Listed below are several such

assumptions:

a. There is a definitive relationship between use level

and impact. There must be a definitive, predictable relationship that demonstrates the amount of impact caused by a

given level of recreational use. This is particularly important for use limit policies that are directed toward reducing,

limiting, or controlling recreation induced biophysical or

social impacts.

b. Social and biophysical conditions are stable. An

implicit assumption is that the social and biophysical

conditions are, or should be stable. Since use limits lead to

a single capacity, such a capacity assumes that both conditions are stable (Seidl and Tisdell 1999). If such conditions

are not stable, multiple capacities and, therefore, multiple

use limits exist, suggesting that such limits are informed

by science but are social judgments.

c. A specific normative definition of carrying capacity has been established. As use limits have been proposed

and implemented, they carry the implication that a specific

definition of carrying capacity for recreation has been

established.

2. Technical—is it translated into practice well? Implementation of use limit policies leads to a large number of

practical problems that managers have traditionally been

ill-equipped to address. These problems include the type of

rationing system to use to administer use limits when

demand is in excess of the limit, how to implement the

rationing system (for example, mail, telephone), staffing and

enforcement resources, legal resources needed to respond to

challenges to the system, and so on.

3. Ethical—who wins and who loses? As indicated earlier,

there are significant issues about equity and fairness. Some

argue that highly regulatory actions are fairer than voluntary adoption of appropriate behavior (Dustin and McAvoy

1984). What is important though is developing a better

understanding of how use limit policies affect different types

of visitors and how might those effects be mitigated. While

some research on this question has been conducted, it is

primarily conceptual in focus and needs to be examined

within the context of real people responding to real use limit

policies. Because of the lack of research on these questions,

the current state-of-knowledge about these effects is highly

speculative.

4. Pragmatic—does it work? Here, we are interested in

the practical utility of use limit policies. Such pragmatism

can be assessed by using three criteria developed by

Checkland and Scholes (1990): efficacy, efficiency, and effectiveness. Efficacy, in this sense, means does a use limit

policy confine, control, or mitigate human-induced impacts?

This criterion suggests that monitoring of key impact variables is an essential—not optional—component of a use

limit policy. Without such monitoring and evaluative action,

managers have no idea if the use limit policy worked and

visitors and others interested in wilderness will have paid

certain costs without the advantage of understanding the

benefits. Efficiency deals with relationship between inputs

(usually defined as staff and funding) for a given output

(reduction in impacts). Generally speaking, managers and

citizens want tools to be efficient so that waste is minimized.

Effectiveness concerns whether a given management activity meets a longer term aim—in this case a wilderness that

shows little evidence of human-induced impacts.

This type of appraisal process would seem to be incredibly

informative to managers and would lead to a better understanding of not only what conditions lead to successful use

limit policies but also would speak to their design as well.

Research and Managerial Considerations

Understanding the overall value of use limit policies

requires a regional approach that would be integrative in

character and involve assessments at several scales. Research would occur on both biophysical and social aspects at

both regional and local scales to better understand how use

limit policies control, mitigate, or influence impacts of recreational use, how people make decisions about what sites

they visit, and the objectives for which areas within the

region are established. Such a research project would need

to address several questions:

1. What is the region of interest? Scientists would need to

define the region—the set of interacting areas and the population upon which they draw for recreational use. This is made

difficult because many areas draw upon a national population

for visitation. The region would be defined, not so much by

administrative characteristics, but by the areas that provide

the roughly similar types of recreational opportunities.

2. What choice mechanisms are involved in selecting areas

to visit? Visitors go through some type of process to make

decisions about what areas to visit (Stankey and McCool

1985). In this process, solitude and other expectations dependent on use density play varying roles in site selection.

Scientists would determine how significant such motivations or expectations were in anticipated experiences, how

these are related to other expectations, the perception of how

well a specific area provides opportunities to meet these

expectations, and the willingness of visitors to make tradeoffs.

3. What recreational opportunities exist? Research would

inventory existing management policies and objectives to

determine the supply of density dependent opportunities

and access to them. This would help identify how such

opportunities are related to the demands established earlier, the appropriateness of use limit policies in achieving

these objectives, and the potential impacts of implementing

a policy in one area on others.

4. How much change in biophysical conditions has occurred? In this component, scientists would inventory conditions—impacts—across all the areas involved in the regional

system. This component provides scientists and managers

with the data necessary to determine the biophysical effects

of use limit policies and to make the necessary tradeoffs that

will occur explicit in management.

5. What criteria will be used in determining what opportunities will be provided and management actions will be

implemented where? Once we know how the system works,

then the next question concerns how decisions will be made.

This component requires that explicit criteria be developed

so that they can be debated.
54 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

McCool Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Research Issues and Management Challenges in Appraising Their Effectiveness

Given the above, what alternative frameworks might

there be to examine use limit policies at a regional scale? The

Limits of Acceptable Change framework (Stankey and others 1986) and its derivatives (such as VERP), implemented

at a larger, system wide scale, could help managers identify

the potential issues and consequences of implementing a use

limit policy. Specifically, the notion of wilderness recreation

opportunity classes, applied to several wildernesses connected in a systems context can help identify specific goals

and priorities for protecting wilderness threatened by recreational impacts. An example might help describe how this

would work. A region might contain several wildernesses,

some heavily used and impacted, others showing little relative evidence of human-induced impacts. The current management approach is to limit to protect the heavily impacted

wildernesses first, and then develop plans for those that

show less impact. This approach has the consequence of

doing nothing to limit and control impacts in the heavily

used wilderness (because those impacts have already occurred), but potentially endangering less impacted wildernesses as visitors—engaging in suboptimizing behavior—

seek alternatives. Using an approach based on the notion of

a system in a regional context, the wildernesses with the

least impact may receive management attention first, then

those with the most impact, assuming of course, development and acceptance of appropriate goals (Cole 1997).

Conclusion_____________________

Recreation use limit policies are but one alternative in the

manager’s box of tools to limit, control, and mitigate humaninduced biophysical and social impacts in wilderness and

similar protected areas. They have been adopted in a variety

of situations, beginning initially with whitewater rivers in

the West, but often with little attention to the validity of

their theoretical foundations, distributional effects on users,

and displacement of problems to other similar regional

resources. Their implementation without formal evaluation

leads open a number of questions, particularly those dealing

with their efficacy in confining, controlling, and limiting

impacts and their effects at larger temporal and spatial

scales.

Protected areas exist and should be managed within a

regional context, a proposition well established in the outdoor recreation management and research literature. Continuing to ignore this proposition will have potentially severe impacts on relatively pristine resources as visitors

attempt to find acceptable substitutes for the places they

originally sought to access. Most problematic is the lack of

knowledge that prevents definitive conclusions about the

efficacy of use limit policies.

The academic community has been slow to study the

efficacy of recreation use limit policies. Substantial research

has been conducted on visitor perceptions of use density and

encounters and how these relate to feelings of satisfaction.

Other scientists have examined relationships between visitor use and biophysical impacts. The literature in these two

areas has increased our knowledge about the character of

recreational use, experiences and impacts with accompanying generic implications for management.

Scientists have important roles in management decisions,

ranging from helping to identify the acceptability of the

various tradeoffs involved in use limit decisions through

identifying appropriate frameworks for their use, implementation and evaluation to advising managers on the

regional system affected by a use limit policy. We also need

science to help managers (and their affected publics) pursue

venues that will determine what wilderness experience

opportunities will be provided where.

Overcoming these issues requires that not only management understand and account for the regional context, but

that research be conducted at a regional level too. Doing

things at a regional level requires that a number of barriers

be overcome—conflicting mandates, differing agency cultures, academic territories, functionalism and disciplinariasm,

and inadequate funding. But in the long run, it is the only way

in which the functionality of use limit policies can be adequately assessed.

References _____________________

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settings. Corvallis, OR: Oregon State University Press.

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river recreation management and research symposium, edited by

D. W. Lime and C. Fasick. St. Paul, MN: North Central Forest

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methods, problems, and guidelines. Ogden, UT: USDA Forest

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Frissell. 1986. The limits of acceptable change (LAC) system for

wilderness planning. Ogden, UT: USDA Forest Service Intermountain Research Station.

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recreation choice behavior. USDA Forest Service, Intermountain

Research Station Gen. Tech. Rep. INT-184. Ogden, UT.

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In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Steven J. Hollenhorst is Professor and Chair, Department of Resource

Recreation and Tourism, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 43844-1139.

Christopher D. Jones is an Assistant Professor, Department of Physical

Education and Recreation, Utah Valley State College.

Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the

Social-Spatial Perspective

Steven J. Hollenhorst

Christopher D. Jones

Abstract—The current scholarly and management approach to

wilderness solitude has relied on substitute measures such as

crowding and privacy to measure solitude. Lackluster findings have

been only partially explained by additional social-spatial factors

such as encounter norms, displacement, product shift, and rationalization. Missing from the discussion has been an exploration of the

meaning of solitude and a questioning of the basic assumption of its

social-spatial structure. In this paper, the concept of solitude is

approached from an attitudinal perspective that emphasizes psychological detachment from society. We argue that solitude may

result more from lack of management regulation and control than

from low visitor use density.

Introduction ____________________

Scholarly treatment of solitude in the natural resource

and leisure literature has been approached from a largely

ahistorical perspective. Our intellectual framework for

solitude is grounded almost exclusively in the socialspatial perspective of privacy, crowding, and encounter

norms. From this perspective, solitude is assumed to be

either: (1) physical isolation, seclusion and withdrawal, or

(2) the ability of the individual to control what, how, and

to whom information about the self is communicated.

Similarly, wilderness managers and researchers faced

with interpreting the “outstanding opportunities for solitude” clause in the Wilderness Act have focused on setting

attributes assumed to be conducive of solitude. This approach assumes that solitude is a psychological response to

social conditions experienced in the wilderness setting. If

crowding is low or encounter norms are not exceeded, opportunities for solitude are presumably high.

We suggest that this approach only hints at the complex

symbolic and metaphoric meaning that has historically

linked solitude with wilderness. Outside of the natural

resource literature, the intellectual framework for solitude

is rooted in philosophical elements of the romantic and

transcendental movements, which in turn were passed down

from classical antiquity. Within this framework, solitude is

viewed as a striving for independence and detachment from

social constraints, norms, and expectations.

As the wilderness idea became a means for exploring the

relationship between nature and industrial society, so too

solitude has been a powerful theme for exploring the role of

the individual self in relation to society. Drawing on this

tradition, we suggest an alternative definition of solitude

that captures this contemporary meaning:

Solitude is psychological detachment from society for the

purpose of cultivating the inner world of the self. It is the act

of emotionally isolating oneself for self-discovery, self-realization, meaning, wholeness, and heightened awareness of

one’s deepest feelings, and impulses. It implies a morality

that values the self, at lease on occasion, as above the common

good.

In this paper we explore the contemporary meaning of

solitude in relation to wilderness. We begin by looking at

social-spacial treatment of solitude that has predominated

the natural resource literature. We then present a humanistic perspective of solitude and describe how our contemporary understanding of solitude is informed by this tradition.

Implications of this perspective for policymaking and management are then discussed.

A Social-Spatial Perspective

of Wilderness Solitude ___________

Conceptualization of solitude in the natural resource

literature has focused primarily on the examination of social

conditions experienced in the wilderness setting, including

concepts such as territoriality, personal space, crowding,

social carrying capacity, social norms, encounter norms, and

structure of the built environment (Patterson and Hammitt

1990; Shelby and Heberlein 1986; Shelby and Vaske 1991).

A key assumption of this perspective was that the ability to

achieve solitude is a function of onsite social conditions and

the acceptability of these external conditions. If the conditions are unacceptable, the result is psychological distress in

the form of a crowding perception and dissatisfaction, which

in turn are assumed to be indicative of a lack of solitude.

In the early recreation research, it was suggested that

solitude was dependent upon relatively low numbers of

encounters with other visitors, and later as the lack of

negative reaction to the densities encountered (in other

words, “not at all crowded”; Hammitt and others 1993).

Typically, these measures have been correlated against

other social-spatial variables such as demographic characteristics and the resource and social conditions of the site in

an attempt to identify recreation carrying capacities. However, contrary to expectations of both resource managers

and researchers, inconsistent findings have been reported

(Graefe and others 1984; Manning 1986; Shelby and
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 57

Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective Hollenhorst and Jones

Heberlein 1986). Some studies report that social and psychological factors explained more of the variance in crowding

than use levels while others revealed that use levels explained an equal or greater proportion of the variance in

crowding as compared to user evaluations and expectations

(Heberlein and Vaske 1977; Shelby 1980; Hammitt and

others 1984).

In response to these inconsistencies, the focus of study

shifted to encompass a normative explanation of solitude

(Shelby 1981; Vaske and others 1986). Investigators have

proposed two types of norms that influence wilderness

solitude: social norms and encounter norms. Social norms

are defined as rules of acceptability shared among members

of a social group (Shelby and Heberlein 1986). A large

number of studies have revealed that social norms do exist

for social conditions in wilderness-type settings and include

some degree of consensus (Lucas 1964; Stankey 1973, 1979;

Shelby and others 1993; Whittaker and Shelby 1988). The

concept of encounter norms concerns the question of whether

people will be able to express a norm when asked whether

the number of encounters is acceptable. Stronger consensus

for encounter norms has been found among certain subgroups, with these norms being more crystallized for lower

density wilderness experiences (Shelby 1981).

Despite previous generalizations about wilderness solitude from normative consensus data, recent evidence of

considerable inconsistency among normative assessments

has been argued by a number of researchers. Roggenbuck

and others (1991) found that an overall lack of encounter

norms and low consensus among norms for whitewater

rafters was in contradiction to the preponderance of normative research findings and explain that underlying methodological and theoretical issues may have accounted for these

results. Furthermore, Patterson and Hammitt (1990) suggest that encounter norms may not actually predict perceptions, behavior, or experience in wilderness. They found that

61 percent of the visitor sample whose encounter norms

were exceeded, failed to react negatively when actual encounters exceeded personal norms. They interpret that

these results reflect the notion that wilderness users are

unable to express a salient conception of encounter tolerance, visual-social encounters are less relevant to overall

solitude, and that, while encounter numbers may be important, predicting behavior by a hypothesized adherence to

norms is a less than clear relationship.

A number of researchers have suggested that solitude is

not simply the opposite of perceived crowding, but rather a

multidimensional construct more closely related to privacy

(Hammitt 1982; Patterson and Hammitt 1990). As an alternative to the social-spatial perspective, researchers have

investigated solitude through the concept of privacy, which

includes a number of dimensions that are characterized by

societal detachment as discussed below (Hammitt 1982;

Hammitt and Brown 1984; Hammitt and Madden 1989).

Westin (1967) defines privacy as “the claim of individuals,

groups, or institutions to determine for themselves when,

how, and to what extent information about them is communicated to others.” For example, privacy in wilderness may

involve an adjustment of one’s perceptions of the experience

as a contrast or reflection of social experience in daily life and

a voluntary and temporary societal withdrawal. Defining

the dimensions of literal solitude, intimacy, anonymity, and

reserve, Westin states that societal withdrawal may be

reflected in one’s privacy when engaging wilderness alone,

as a small intimate group or while one is reserved among

larger groups.

Adapting Westin’s concept of privacy to the wilderness

setting, a study by Hammitt and Brown (1984) revealed

dimensions of wilderness privacy that are characterized by

societal detachment including emotional release, personal

autonomy, reflective thought, and limited communication.

Furthermore, Hammitt and others have identified a number

of cognitive benefits of wilderness privacy that focus more on

introspection of the self than concerns for direct social

conditions including: cognitive freedom, self-evaluation,

personal autonomy, self-identity, emotional release, and

reflective thought (Hammitt and Brown 1984; Hammitt

1982; Westin 1967; Altman 1975).

Beyond the notion of “literal solitude,” benefits of sharedsolitude have included feeling alone while sharing the experience with special others and feeling alone mentally

(Marshall 1974). For example, this notion of a shared form

of solitude has been described by the concept of intimacy. Lee

(1977) found that intimacy with others in wilderness was

more definitive of privacy than experiencing aloneness.

Recently, Hollenhorst and others (1994) set out to actually

measure solitude and explore its relationship with various

social-spatial and attitudinal variables. Relying on earlier

work by Hammitt (1982), Hammitt and Brown (1984), and

Hammitt and Madden (1989), the researchers developed a

Wilderness Solitude Achievement Scale (WSAS) with five

ordered levels, beginning with the physical and proceeding

through the emotive, volitional, intellectual, and spiritual.

Unlike the earlier work, however, the levels were used to

measure the amount or degree of solitude experienced during a single wilderness outing. The hierarchical structure

was confirmed using a Guttman scaling approach. No relationship was found between solitude achievement and social-spacial variables like crowding and encounter norms.

Significant relationships were identified between solitude

and attitudinal variables such as wilderness involvement.

These findings cast further doubt on the social-spatial perspective and give tentative credence to the need for a more

attitudinal approach.

A Humanistic Perspective ________

Outside of the natural resource literature, the intellectual

framework for solitude is rooted in philosophical elements of

the romantic and transcendental movements, which in turn

were passed down from classical antiquity. From the Greeks,

Romans, early Christians, and Medieval writers, to the

European Romantics and American Transcendentalists,

solitude has been a powerful theme for exploring the tension

between two forces: the idealization of the state and the

individual’s duty to the common good, versus the importance

of the private, inner world of the individual.

To the Greeks, social solidarities and attachments were

profoundly important. To be solitary (eremos) was the worst

of all curses, and forests, deserts, open seas, and isolated

islands were the eremia of Greek literature—dangerous and

foreboding. This general revulsion of both solitude and wild

nature was held by Roman, early Christian, and Medieval
58 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Hollenhorst and Jones Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective

writers, although a minority recognized solitude as a means

of retreat from a corrupt world to find direct contact with

God.

Petrarch secularized the idea of contemplative solitude,

seeing it not as a means to a religious end, but as an end in

itself. For Petrarch, solitude symbolized an affirmation of

the individual as self-contained, intrinsically valuable apart

from society. He argued that the inner world of the mind was

of greater importance than a sense of community. He regarded the demands of public and familial life as activity

that conflicted with solitude.

While Petrarch still recognized that God was one route to

self-fulfillment, he recognized two other favorable paths:

(1) self-examination and cultivation of the inner self through

solitude, and (2) love and kinship. He formulates this view

in the first words of De Vita Solitaria (trans. 1978):

I believe that a noble spirit will never find repose save in

God, in whom is our end, or in himself and his private

thoughts, or in some intellect united by a close sympathy

with his own.

Three aspects of Petrarch’s solitude distinguish him

from both the Medieval perspective and the earlier classical attitude: (1) the idea that motivation could be found

purely in the desires of the individual independent of

external social influences, (2) the valuing of individual

preference and independence above collective morality and

duty to society, and (3) the absolutely secular nature of the

solitude he sought (Dillon 1981). This was truly unconventional thinking for the fourteenth century. Steadfast in

their view that society was the only way to personal fulfillment, Medieval writers thoroughly reject Petrarch’s ideas

on withdrawal from the active social life. Yet a small cult of

intellectual elites repeated and perpetuated his ideas

through the Elizabethan and Renaissance periods.

Metaphorically linked with solitude, wild nature in these

writings is construed first negatively but eventually more

positively (see Nash 1982 for more on this transformation)

as that part of the world not encompassed by the dominant

human culture. Varieties of this “other” generally include

wild animals, dark forests, barbarians, and indeed, women

(Roberts 1991). It should be pointed out that the European

natural landscape was by this time largely pastoral—improved over thousands of years of agrarian activity. For the

European Romantic, the result was a general resignation to

the fact that even what appeared to be wild nature had

largely been humanized, and the dismal proposition that the

self is unavoidably socialized (Ferguson 1992).

In the New World, however, the European mind encountered what was truly vast wilderness, inspiring a radical

reinterpretation of not only the wild, but the potential for the

truly autonomous individual. The opportunity presented by

freedom from societal constraint through voluntary isolation in wilderness has been a powerful theme in American

literature. In fact Schopenhauer’s statement “One is free

only when one is alone” became an idea attached almost

exclusively to works from or about America. Isolated from

civilization, the solitary pioneers of the American wilderness assume the vitality and moral superiority of the untamed landscape surrounding them (Nash, 1982).

In North America, romanticism found philosophical expression through Transcendentalism. To the Transcendentalists, wilderness was synonymous with psychic solitude.

The passion with which they argued for wilderness can only

be understood by recognizing that wilderness was in essence

a metaphoric focus for a metaphysical solitude, or a spiritual

state of detachment from human society in order to experience a deep connection with the natural world. (Clough

1964). While there are of course other important justifications, the fight to protect wilderness from the incremental

and insidious pressures of expanding civilization can be seen

at least in part as a plea for the freedom and autonomy of the

individual as against the overwhelming influences of social

life.

Nash (1982) and Allin (1982) have written extensively

about the psychological and political transformation of the

wilderness idea from a place of waste and evil to a place of

beauty and goodness. Solitude underwent a similar transformation from a physical place of isolation, alienation and

loneliness to psychological space in which the individual is

not answerable to others. Wild nature—by definition a place

that is not answerable to society—is valued both as a

metaphor for the solitary mind untrammeled by society, and

as a place to escape from the increasing demands of society.

At the same time, wilderness is no longer simply “unimproved land” indicative of an inferior culture, but a place,

maybe the only place, where one can retreat in solitude in

order to achieve a true sense of self. Thus the two concepts—

wilderness and solitude—become intricately linked as either in binary opposition to, or in their independence and

detachment from society.

The writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David

Thoreau illustrate the symbolic meaning of solitude in

relation to society and wilderness. For Emerson (1883), the

essence of the American experience was resistance to the

past and the formulation of a new idealism based on the

private intuition of the self-reliant individual. Emerson

was resolute in his protest of “externals”: old systems, old

thoughts, old institutions, old families. He looked instead

to new confirmations and validations that might emerge

from individual intuition and from nature’s universal laws

as interpreted by those intuitions. In his first book, entitled

Nature, he asks “Why should we not also enjoy an original

relation to the Universe?” Also, his essay Self Reliance not

only focuses on Americans being fiercely independent, but

on the self as a fortified source of intuition and resolution.

Solitude became one of the most important sources of

simile and metaphor for Emerson to extend these ideas.

Believing in the “infinitude of the private man,” Emerson’s

solitude embodied the inner world of self-reliance and ingenuity. Diverging from the elitist rhetoric of the romantics,

Emerson’s solitude was not for the rare individual, but the

democratic privilege of each individual to seek their own

potential. In a frequently reoccurring summons, he admonishes us in Self Reliance to listen to “the voices which we hear

in solitude,” and to believe that “nothing is at last sacred but

the integrity of your own mind.”

Metaphor and analogy were the means by which Henry

David Thoreau (1893) explored the inner worlds of the self.

For Thoreau, foremost among these metaphors was the

isolated individual facing the solitudes of the vast North

American Wilderness. The solitude of the frontier contained

the requisite elements to make it isomorphic to everyday

experience. These included the positive elements of opportunity and hope on one hand, and loneliness, isolation, despair,
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 59

Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective Hollenhorst and Jones

fear on the other. Thoreau found unique resolution for the

solitude metaphor in characteristics of the individual:

courage, self-reliance, survival against all odds, and the

irrepressible human spirit. His conclusion to Walden (1893)

is in essence a declaration of this frontier metaphor.

Be...the Lewis and Clark and Frobisher, of your own

streams and oceans...explore your own higher latitudes...be a

Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you,

opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought...there are

continents and seas in the moral world, to which every man

is an isthmus or an inlet, yet unexplored by him, but that it

is easier to sail many thousand miles, than it is to explore the

private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being

alone...Explore thyself...Start now on that farthest western

way.

The other unique element inherent in Thoreau’s solitude

is found in its social-moral dimension. It is not solipsism

Thoreau seeks. In his Solitude treatise he writes, “I never

found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” He purposely distances himself from human civilization not to be alone, but in order to develop deeper relations

with the “indescribable innocence and beneficence of Nature.” The relationship of humans and nature was for him

the supreme union towards which we should be concerned.

Through solitary experience with nature, Thoreau anticipates Leopold’s moral extension of “community” by including the nonhuman world in his definition of society. Thus, it

is not aloneness, but the forging of relationship and connectedness with something of equal or even superior moral

stature that he is after. Listen to these expressions from

Solitude.

The most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object...There

can be no black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of

Nature...I enjoy the friendship of the seasons...I have never

felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude.

I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society

in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every

sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at one like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant...Every little pine needle expanded and

swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to

me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and

dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest

was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could

ever be strange to me again.

Yet Thoreau is no antique Stoic, defiant of all humanity. He

had faith in human potential though little respect for the

small extent to which this potential had been realized. Thoreau

does not seek solitude to disconnect the self from communication with all forces external to the self. Rather than contraction from the external world into the self, he desires a moral

expansion that allows the individual to find communion with

the nonhuman world. “Shall I not have intelligence with the

Earth?” he asks near the end of Solitude. “Am I not partly

leaves and vegetable mold myself?” Like Aquinas before him,

Thoreau believed that the individual and society were complimentary. He simply sought a broader understanding of society that included Nature. The beautiful irony of Thoreau’s

solitude path is that it ultimately leads to this broadened

sense of belonging and community.

Contemporary Perspectives

on Solitude_____________________

What of solitude in the twenty-first century? In Solitude:

A Return to the Self (1988), Anthony Storr draws a fascinating psychological picture of solitude and its role in the post

industrial world. Never mentioning wilderness, and making

only passing reference to nature, Storr argues that modern

society is preoccupied with intimate personal relationships

as the “touchstone of health and happiness,” and that this

preoccupation is a relatively new phenomenon. Earlier generations would not have rated this focus on attachment so

highly. Basic concern for survival and earning a living left

little time for the subtleties of human relationships. Storr

builds an anthropological argument to support this point,

proposing that members of modern affluent societies are

insulated from disease, poverty, hunger, and other natural

hazards to an extent not fathomable by former generations.

Needing to be preoccupied with something, he suggests that

our present day concern for, and anxiety about, human

relationships has displaced the former preoccupations with

the uncertainties of the natural world. In essence, the

physical environment has been replaced by an abstract

environment—a “virtual world” of human relationships as

the realm of most pressing concern.

Storr argues that the dominant theme in psychology,

sociology, and social work is the belief that intimate personal

relationships are the chief source of human happiness.

Conversely, those who do not develop such relationships are

neurotic, immature, or in some other way abnormal. This

leads to Storr’s next supposition. While he does not deny the

importance of social attachments in our lives, he believes the

preoccupation grossly underestimates the importance of the

inner mind of the individual separate from the influences of

external attachment. In particular, capacity for imagination

and creative achievement hold a central place in the inner

world of the mind, yet are relatively independent of external

social forces. While recognizing that “Intimate attachments

are a hub around which a person’s life evolves,” he is

adamant that they are “not necessarily the hub.”

Our culture, Storr argues, is preoccupied with the capacity of the individual to make mature relationships as the

criterion of emotional maturity. Conversely, we fail to

consider the capacity to be alone as an equally important

criterion. He suggests that the need for solitude is organic,

but that the capacity to experience it positively is a learned

trait that begins in infancy. Referencing the iconoclastic

work of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, Storr contends

that building of the capacity to be alone in adult life begins

with the infant’s experience of being “alone in the presence

of the mother.” It is through this environment of secure (the

mother) aloneness (the infant) that Storr and Winnicott

believe the individual begins to develop an authentic sense

of self based on true feelings and instinctive needs. Later,

the capacity to be alone in the mother’s absence must be

cultivated. “It is only when the child has experienced a

contented, relaxed sense of being alone with, and then

without, the mother,” Storr writes, “that he can be sure of

being able to discover what he really needs or wants,

irrespective of what others may expect or try to foist upon

him.” Development of a “false self,” that is an inauthentic
60 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Hollenhorst and Jones Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective

self based upon compliance with the wishes of others, may

occur in the absence of such formative experience.

Storr’s notion of solitude thus becomes “the capacity to be

alone” for the purpose of “becoming aware of one’s deepest

needs, feeling, and impulses.” It is also conceptually parallel

to the notion of solitude as a means of self-discovery and selfrealization—previously explored by the likes of Petrarch,

Aquinas, Thoreau, and Emerson—although it does not appear that Storr consciously builds his theory from this

intellectual base.

Phillip Koch, in his work Solitude: A Philosophical Encounter (1994), reiterates Storr’s theme of solitude as social

disengagement. He identifies three features associated with

solitude: (1) physical isolation, (2) social disengagement,

and (3) reflection. Thus unlike Storr, Koch explicitly recognizes the potential role of physical isolation as a catalyst for

solitude. However he warns us to not place too great attention on it, arguing that while solitude may be easier to

achieve in physical isolation, it is not requisite. Rather, he

suggests the most promising place to look for the core

experience of solitude is in the realm of social disengagement

combined with contemplative reflection.

Koch goes on to identify five virtues or benefits of solitude:

1. Freedom from the social norms and constraints that

control interpersonal life;

2. Attunement to self as compensation for the scattering

and submersion of the self that occurs in social life;

3. Attunement to Nature, as opposed to our daily preoccupation with social attunement;

4. Reflective perspective, including introspection, recollection, and contemplative analysis; and

5. Creativity, or the “programmatic ordering” of the first

four benefits/virtues into original expression.

 Lastly, discussion of solitude in modern society should

be placed in the context phenomena particularly characteristic of modern life; that of mass alienation, isolation and

loneliness. Defined as a response to the absence of a

particular type of relationship, loneliness results from the

lack of or loss of intimate relationships and a sense of

community in the individual (Bowlby 1982; Koch 1994). A

vast and wide-ranging literature suggests that loneliness

is an extremely common experience in contemporary society. While modernity creates the most complex and globalized social relationships between actors, it also tends paradoxically to alienate them from each other. We suggest that

preoccupation with social attachment, combined with a

generalized fear of alienation and loneliness, have served

to effectively marginalize solitude as a legitimate form of

experience in modern life. This radical mass de-emphasis

on solitude has serious implications for wilderness policy

and management.

Policy and Management

Implications ____________________

The 1964 Wilderness Act defines wilderness as containing “outstanding opportunities for solitude.” By including

this phrase, it appears that Howard Zahnizer understood

that wilderness and solitude were metaphorically bound

together in the American psyche as physical and mental

regions untrammeled by society. Ostensibly, the Wilderness Act counterbalances the relentless forces of “increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and

growing mechanization” on the natural world. Yet in a

deeper symbolic sense, the Wilderness Act also affirms the

humanistic notion of individual will and self determination

in the face of ever greater pressure to become “socialized.”

Drawing on this symbolic tradition, we have argued that

solitude is psychological detachment from society. This detachment serves two primary functions: (1) affirmation of

individual will and self-determination, and (2) cultivating

the inner world of the self. As such, the wilderness solitude

experience compensates for the limitations of social interaction and social institutions in the search for meaning, happiness, self-awareness, and emotional maturity.

Such a perspective has significant wilderness policy and

management implications. First, we have generally assumed that a relationship existed between solitude and

spatial variables such as density, encounters, and perceptions of crowding and privacy. Yet we have shown here that

solitude may have little or no theoretical relationship with

these variables. While managers have some control over

use density, crowding, and encounters, and recognizing

that management of these variables is defendable for other

reasons, we probably need to look beyond such management tools in our efforts to enhance opportunities for

solitude.

Secondly, while we recognize that limited encounters may

help catalyze the solitude experience, there are other important factors related to social disengagement and opportunities for contemplative reflection that demand more managerial and research attention. What can we do to enhance

visitor freedom, to maximize opportunities for attunement

with self and nature, and to promote reflective thought and

creative expression?

Thirdly, it seems that the paradox of wilderness management extends to a “paradox of solitude management.” Solitude is a psychological condition that by definition implies

freedom from social influences and constraint, yet management implies intervention from the very social institutions

and mechanisms that solitude is supposed to be free from.

Ironically, to the extent that we impose social controls on

wilderness visitors, opportunities for solitude may be diminished. In our effort to provide outstanding opportunities for

solitude, we may have overemphasized the impact of encounters with other visitors, while ignoring the greater

threat of government control and regulation.

If we are truly interested in providing solitude benefits,

we should turn our management and research gaze away

from crowding and encounter norms towards our own

management tendencies to impose constraints on visitor

freedoms and independence. Wilderness visitors have always stood apart from the general run of American life. It

is critical that we recognize and accommodate their need

for independence in their personal and social lives. A

management culture that resists all deviations, or even

attempted deviations, from its uniformities is antithetical

to solitude. It seems the great challenge we face is to find

the means of respecting visitors’ need for freedom and

independence while protecting the ecological values of the

wilderness resource.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 61

Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective Hollenhorst and Jones

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62 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density

and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1–3; Missoula, MT. Proc.

RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service,

Rocky Mountain Research Station.

Alan E. Watson is the Research Social Scientist, Aldo Leopold Wilderness

Research Institute, P.O. Box 8089, Missoula, MT 59807, and U.S. Fulbright

Scholar, Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland.

Goal Interference and Social Value

Differences: Understanding Wilderness

Conflicts and Implications for Managing

Social Density

Alan E. Watson

Abstract—Wilderness conflict research has mostly followed the

direction of recreation research in the U.S. An interpersonal recreation conflict model proposed in the late 1970s has guided much of

the conflict research in wilderness, with emphasis on determining

the amount of interpersonal conflict resulting from goal interference and how much one or more hypothesized contributors actually

influence the occurrence of conflict. This approach is heavily rooted

in expectancy-valence theory explanations of human recreation

behavior and may contribute to an understanding of how social

densities influence perceptions of conflict. The contributions of

activity style, resource specificity, mode of experience and lifestyle

tolerance to understanding interpersonal conflict arising from crowding largely comes in the form of understanding the role of expectations and importance attached to social density preferences. Today,

however, wilderness conflict extends beyond recreation within the

boundaries of wilderness, beyond interpersonal interaction, and

beyond the boundaries of wilderness to competing demands for the

wilderness resource. Understanding of the causes for differences in

attitudes toward wilderness and the meanings various subpopulations attribute to wilderness resources will be critical to developing

solutions for conflict management and managing the social mix

among all demands in the future.

In contrast with the days of early explorers, when wilderness travel was often a solitary activity, the wilderness

resource is now shared by many interests, representing both

recreation and nonrecreation uses. Interaction among the

various user groups, often with contrasting views on wilderness values, leads to varied amounts of conflict. Much of the

research on conflicts in wilderness has centered on conflicting

recreational uses. There are other values of wilderness described in the U.S. Wilderness Act besides recreation, however, and these other values and uses can often conflict with

recreational use and with each other. The most basic conflict

in wilderness may be between the mandate to provide opportunities for all of these various human activities while maintaining the natural conditions also mandated by law and upon

which some human experiences depend.

Conflict research in outdoor recreation in the U.S. has

extended from early speculation about causes (Jacob and

Schreyer 1980) to many studies of extent and influences on

conflict. Lucas (1964) documented the asymmetrical conflict

(one-sided) between canoeists and motor boaters in the

Boundary Waters Canoe Area of Minnesota before it was

part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. Entry

to the system did not preclude this conflict since some

established motor boat routes were retained when it was

designated wilderness. Research on the conflict between

motorized and nonmotorized uses was extended beyond the

wilderness boundaries to snowmobilers and cross country

skiers by Knopp and Tyger (1973). Perhaps Stankey’s (1971)

early studies on visitor perceptions of crowding also contributed more to conflict research than usually acknowledged

because they illustrated visitors’ differential responses to

the types of encounters they had in wilderness. While Stankey

was focusing on the reaction to the number of people visitors

saw in the wilderness, these responses were influenced by

whether the people encountered were hiking or riding horses.

From that time forward, most crowding research has mistakenly ignored this finding, focusing too much on density of

people and not enough on the interaction between number of

people, their behaviors, and their orientation toward the

place, including method of transport.

Bryan (1977) described the potential for conflict between

anglers of various specialization levels, demonstrating that

conflict was not just between motorized and nonmotorized

groups or differing forms of access in the out-of-doors. Some

people sought very pristine places to fish and enjoyed the

special skills accumulated while moving from very simple

angling techniques to more advanced. When more specialized anglers encounter novices, we would expect conflict to

occur. This conflict may arise from interference with fish

catching objectives or with enjoyment of a pristine place, but

it may also rest with basic differences in how members of the

two types of anglers value fish and the environment.

In more recent times, a renewed interest in conflict research has accompanied an apparent growth in conflict

issues. Watson and others (1991) published the first study of

conflict between National Forest hikers and mountain bike

riders, Baird (1994) studied conflict on the ski slopes between skiers and snowboarders, Gibbons and Ruddell (1995)

studied conflict between cross country skiers and those

skiers dropped off in the backcountry by helicopters, Blahna

and others (1995) studied the growing conflict between

llamas and horse users in the wilderness and backcountry,

and Vaske and others (1995) moved to the general public in

a study of conflict between hunters, those who previously

hunted, and nonhunters. Watson and others (1993, 1994)

refocused conceptual thinking through studies of the conflict
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 63

Goal Interference and Social Value Differences: Understanding Wilderness Conflicts and Implications for Managing Social Density Watson

between hikers and horse users by bringing some organization to the variety of measurement methods being employed. Conflict had been measured in several different

ways and substantial progress had occurred over the years

in measuring variables that had been hypothesized to

influence conflict.

The primary purpose of this paper is to explore the extent

that knowledge from recreation conflict research can help us

manage recreation use density in wilderness. In this effort,

however, we cannot ignore the growth of conflict research in

recent years to include conflict between such different orientations to the wilderness as subsistence users and recreation

visitors, commercial interests and wilderness protection,

and biodiversity protection and human meanings. The focus

taken here is broadly on management of social densities in

order to understand how conflict research can affect the way

we think about proactively managing numbers of people and

types of activities in wilderness.

Review of Past Progress _________

Past research on conflict in wilderness and outdoor recreation has mostly been reactive and focused on groups with

obvious differences in orientations toward recreation. Some

studies, for instance those investigating growing complaints

by canoeists about motorboats, by skiers about snowmobiles, by skiers about heli-skiers, and by hikers about mountain bikers, involved groups with differing levels of motorized or mechanized support for travel. Downhill skiers were

threatened with a nontraditional use of the ski slopes when

snowboarding began to grow in popularity, as horse users

felt invaded by llamas, a nontraditional method of access to

wilderness in the U.S. The conflict between hikers and horse

users was noted on public land in the U.S. well before our

National Wilderness Preservation System was established,

but has grown even as the percentage of users visiting on

horse back has generally decreased (Lucas 1985). There is

also concern about impacts of horses on trails and campsites,

much as some hikers are concerned about the impacts of

mountain bikes on trails. Safety is often a concern when

llamas meet horses and mules on narrow mountain trails,

and speeding bicycles have also caused some injuries and

frightened people and pack stock. Jacob and Schreyer (1980)

proposed that the common element in all of these recreation

conflict situations is goal interference; one person or party is

not able to realize the positive aspects of a visit to the out-ofdoors because of the behavior of someone else.

This commonality is somewhat constrained by our awareness of conflict between groups who may or may not directly

interact in the wilderness. A study of hunters and nonhunters

(Vaske and others 1995) has suggested that conflict can be

based on differences in values, represented by differences in

meanings attached to a resource or differences in attitudes

towards management policy to protect these meanings, held

by opposing groups, encouraging us to extend our conceptual

conflict model to include a more broad range of conflicts.

Implications for social density exists within the study of

conflict between tourism promotion and wilderness protection, or between placing high value on biodiversity restoration and personal attachment to a place. Social value differences offer us additional understanding of conflicts and the

ways we might address them through wilderness policy.

Goal Interference Conflict

Jacob and Schreyer (1980) suggested that conflict is caused

by goal interference attributed to the behavior of another

person. Arising from the popularity at the time of adapting

expectancy-valence theory concepts to outdoor recreation

issues, recreation was described as a goal oriented behavior

and interference with achieving that goal would cause negative emotional response. The more value visitors place on

finding naturalness while on a trip to wilderness, and the

higher their expectations are that they will indeed find it at

the chosen time and place of a trip, the more likely conflict

will be felt if this goal is not realized. It is interpersonal

conflict if the visitor can attribute this loss of goal attainment to the behavior of someone else (for example, the

person who has damaged the vegetation with livestock, or

violates the natural quiet of wilderness with a radio, or

crosses the bow of a canoe with a motorized boat), not to the

weather, car trouble, or illness. In the traditional school of

cognitive psychology followed by many recreation researchers at the time, the assumption that all recreation participation is goal oriented was very natural.

Incompatibility of goals is not a requirement for conflict.

While conflict may arise when wilderness travelers seeking

solitude encounter those seeking challenge and risk but

place no value on solitude, or when those whose relation to

wilderness is for subsistence encounter those there for

recreation, sometimes conflict exists among those with common goals. A local, subsistence user of the wilderness with a

long history of association with a place may be skiing merely

for the enjoyment of being alone in the wilderness, or

enjoying being the first one to travel over newly fallen snow.

Encountering a tourist with the same goal might result in

conflict.

Goals can be similar or different between conflict groups,

and the conflict may include groups differing in levels of

impact, traditional or invading practices, and mechanical or

nonmechanical methods of travel. All of these types of

recreation conflict have been hypothesized to be at least

partially fueled by perceived differences in four ways to

describe recreation visitor groups: activity style, resource

specificity, mode of experience, and tolerance of lifestyle

diversity.

Activity Style—The concepts of activity specialization

and the level of importance placed upon participation in the

activity have come to represent the intensity with which

visitors participate in selected activities. A backcountry

skier may be extremely specialized in cross-country skiing

and place substantial importance on the activity as a demonstration of a primitive skill or for maintaining cultural

identity. A tourist participating in the same activity as

another person and in the same place could unknowingly

contribute to conflict due to differences in their activity

styles. Similarly, in a remote U.S. wilderness, an angler who

places high importance on tying flies and luring wild cutthroat trout to a barbless hook will likely experience conflict

with spinning or bait anglers sharing the same resource.

Numbers of people present could also interfere with the

specialized angler’s goal, no matter what level of intensity

their activity style, with conflict most likely for those who

place the greatest importance on this type of angling and

have the greatest expectations for accomplishment. Low
64 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Watson Goal Interference and Social Value Differences: Understanding Wilderness Conflicts and Implications for Managing Social Density

numbers of people will not necessarily create less impact on

the less specialized angler, depending upon the expectations

and valence attached to social density. Watson and Cronn

(1994) have found that less experienced wilderness visitors

have less ability to determine trends in resource and social

conditions and therefore are less likely to evaluate conditions as unacceptable or declining in quality.

Resource Specificity—Some people are more dependent upon a particular place or resource than others or are

attached in different ways. Mountain bikers at the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area in Montana reported less

substitutes for the kind of biking they liked to do there than

hikers reported (Watson and others 1991). They were more

dependent upon the place than hikers. Hunters were believed to visit the Upland Island Wilderness in Texas mostly

for the functional values it offered; they believed it was a

reservoir of large deer, and therefore they exhibited relatively low place and wilderness attachment scores (Williams

and others 1992). An identifiable portion of visitors to the

Caney Creek Wilderness in Arkansas came for the symbolic

values it represented; “wilderness” demonstrates the social

values Americans place on protecting a network of wild

areas across the country for this and future generations.

Some residents of North Georgia frequently visited the

Cohutta Wilderness not at all because it was part of a

national wilderness system or for some set of functional

reasons, but because it was a place that had always been

available to them as a natural place, and they had attached

emotional values to it many years ago. The more visits

people had taken to the Cohutta Wilderness, the greater the

attachment to the place.

People with a strong level of dependence, strength of

attachment, or relationship with a place may feel conflict

when encountering people who they perceive have weaker

or different relationships with that place. Visiting a place

with low numbers of people could be a functional purpose

for those urban dwellers needing to escape the crowds of the

freeway or community. Rural residents may see the lack of

people in wilderness as symbolic of the values associated

with rural lifestyle. Traditional users may find the presence of other humans threatening to hunt or fishing success. In any case, encountering social densities that extend

beyond expectations for those who value the lack of people

may change the experience from that of wilderness. Numbers of people can influence achievement of wilderness

character for different reasons, potentially as a result of

different relations with the place.

Mode of Experience—Originally, Jacob and Schreyer

(1980) hypothesized that those more focused on the environment have more rigid definitions of acceptable aspects of

their experience there and are less tolerant of the behaviors

of others that change these aspects. More recently, this

potential contributor to conflict has been expanded to the

belief that not only strength of focus on the environment is

important, but that other points of focus exist and that

different points of focus between groups can contribute to

conflict. Mountain bikers at the Rattlesnake National Recreation Area were found to be most focused on the activity

itself, while the hikers who were feeling conflict were more

focused upon their social group or the environment (Watson

and others 1991). The hikers probably accurately perceived

that the bikers, while moving quickly over mountain trails,

had little ability or interest in an intense focus on either the

natural surroundings or the intense companionship felt by

hikers during a walk there.

Tolerance of Lifestyle Diversity—Some earlier work

suggested that people of different socio-economic groups

could be in conflict partly because of differences in lifestyle

preferences (Knopp and Tyger 1973). Later work by Watson

and others (1993) acknowledged that these differences in

lifestyle preferences could only contribute to conflict if they

were perceived by the group feeling conflict. Hikers perceived many more differences in lifestyle factors between

them and bikers than really existed (for example, some

hikers stereotyped all bikers as university students) or than

the bikers perceived, potentially a contributing factor to the

asymmetry of this conflict situation. Saarinen (1998) suggests that backcountry and wilderness hikers in Finland

distinguish between Finnish and non-Finnish tourists when

deciding on how to greet them while hiking. Stereotypes of

people who participate in a particular activity or who come

from a particular place can contribute to conflict by either

directly interfering with experience goals or by conflicting

with goals not specifically related to the outdoor recreation

experience.

A private rafter might encounter a commercially outfitted

group during a trip down the Salmon River in Idaho, and

that raft of people should not interfere with goals for the

private floater any more than encountering another private

party. However, conflict can occur if the private rafter knows

or believes that commercial users are the dominant user on

that river, nearly half of the commercial users have annual

household incomes over $100,000 (compared to only 12

percent of noncommercial floaters), they are novice river

floaters, they have high expectations for nature but attach

low value to solitude, they tend to come from distant large

urban centers, and they do not have to compete in a lottery

system like the private floaters to obtain a permit to float the

Salmon River (Hunger and others 1999). Categorization of

individuals as members of an “outgroup” is closely related to

evaluations of goal interference by many people (Ramthun

1995). Stereotyping seems to lead individuals to make assumptions about the probable behavior of outgroup members, or to simply equate their presence with interference in

goal attainment. Commercial floaters could represent any of

several aspects of civilization that the private floater worked

so hard to escape by taking a wilderness float trip.

Social Value Conflict

While not as well represented in the recreation or wilderness literature, a more broad approach to understanding

conflict necessarily entails understanding social value differences. Watson and Landres (1999) have proposed that

attitudes toward wilderness are diverse and constantly

changing as a result of changes in society and specific things

we are doing to protect the wilderness resource. In turn, the

ecological and human values (meanings) we derive from this

protection and contribute to higher order personal and

societal benefits are often in conflict. Sometimes this conflict

is between the two types of values and sometimes within one

type of value.
USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001 65

Goal Interference and Social Value Differences: Understanding Wilderness Conflicts and Implications for Managing Social Density Watson

It is true that predator control to protect reindeer herding

in Finland (Sippola 2000) or livestock grazing allocation in

the U.S. may conflict with purposes of biodiversity maintenance, pitting ecological values against human meanings

(Watson 2000), but differences can also exist among incompatible human values attached to the wilderness resource.

Hunters can attach meanings to the trophy values associated with remote wilderness wildlife populations, or they

can value the meat and by-products for their subsistence or

ancestral meanings. Nonhunters can value the scenic qualities of seeing large, wild animals. These different values

placed upon the wildlife resource are believed to be the

primary contributors to the increasingly visible social debate over hunting and trapping in the U.S. (Vaske and

others 1995).

Conflicts which do not necessarily involve onsite interaction and which can be ascribed to these value differences

may be partly caused by some of the same contributing

factors as in the goal interference model (particularly resource specificity and lifestyle tolerance). However, greater

emphasis is placed on societal changes and specific sources

of influence in understanding this type of conflict. The

conflict between hunters and nonhunters (Vaske and others

1995) mostly stems from differences in social values, not

interpersonal interaction. One group possesses a set of

values (attitudes) that accepts killing of wildlife by humans

for sport or consumption, and the other does not. They also

differ in the meanings attached to wildlife, with one group

placing high value on seeing wildlife and acknowledging

their right to exist, while the other group attaches additional

meaning to consumptive uses. This approach allows us to

look at more broad conflict issues like the conflict between

subsistence use and tourism promotion, not just subsistence

activities and the tourist. A complex set of values exists

across an array of demands on wilderness, and a goal

interference approach is insufficient to understanding them

or working toward solutions.

Measurement of Conflict _________

There has been little agreement in the past on the topic of

conflict measurement. Jacob and Schreyer (1980) offered a

conceptual definition of interpersonal conflict as goal interference attributed to the behavior of another, but they did

not suggest a specific way to measure that concept. In some

cases, it has been recommended that more than one measure

is appropriate in order to understand the effects of efforts to

manage the conflict (Watson and others 1993). Watson and

others (1993) differentiated between three common interpersonal conflict measures:

1. Predisposition toward conflict. Using a scale to measure position from “extremely undesirable” to “extremely

desirable,” the strength of a person’s feelings toward the

possibility of encountering a person or group of another type

can be measured. It is considered cumulative in that it does

not focus usually on a specific encounter, but it does also not

focus very specifically on actual feelings of conflict.

2. Attraction toward outgroups. Using a nominal scale

with points of “enjoyed meeting them,” “didn’t meet any,”

and “disliked meeting them,” the strength of attraction can

be measured for encounters with certain types of groups

during a specific trip. The lack of attraction is assumed to

represent conflict.

3. Goal interference measure. A measure of conflict more

adherent to the Jacob and Schreyer model requires the

subject to indicate “yes” or “no” in response to being asked if

the behavior of someone else interfered with their enjoyment

of their wilderness trip (or trips) to the area of interest. If yes,

they are asked to explain what behavior caused the interference and who exhibited that behavior.

In research by Watson and others (1993) it was found that

the potential contributors offered by Jacob and Schreyer

(1980) and refined by others over the years were more closely

associated with predisposition toward conflict and strength

of attraction toward outgroups than goal interference. Activity style, resource specificity, mode of experience, and lifestyle

tolerance differences may be most closely associated with

conflict through influence of expectations and importance

attached to wilderness attributes, leading to predispositions

toward goal interference, not conflict itself. This association

has not been widely acknowledged in the conflict research

literature, but may be an extremely important factor in

developing approaches to managing conflict.

In an explanation of social value differences, Vaske and

others (1995) advocated use of the goal interference measure

to more accurately identify the groups in conflict and sources

of the conflict. This measure, however, focuses too directly on

behaviors in a reactive way. The need is to understand the

values that are driving the conflict and contributors to

changing these values. A more qualitative method of data

collection may be more productive in developing this understanding. Generally, there is a need to advance methodologies that define and measure conflict at the subpopulation

level. Minimally, group level measures need to be employed

that acknowledges conflict often is influenced by group

dynamics and cumulative attitudes and experiences of groups

of people. Beyond measures of interpersonal conflict, the

amount of conflict and differences in values may be better

understood by approaching the conflict from a subpopulation level than an individual level. Evidence of conflict can

exist in organized group position statements, articles written to be published in newspapers by identifiable interest

groups, justifications for court cases, or simply a careful

analysis of the meanings and attitudes placed on the wilderness resource by different interests. There seem to be those

subpopulations who believe social density should not be

controlled by the managing agencies. There are also organized groups who believe social density management is

prescribed in the legal foundations of the wilderness system

in the U.S. Conflict between these two groups should be

studied at the subpopulation level, not the individual level.

A simple vote to determine the outcome of this debate would

not be constructive.

Implications ____________________

There remains a need to approach feelings of conflict

related to undesirable social density in a reactive manner,

trying to measure how much conflict occurs and whether it

is caused by some perceptions or behaviors that can be

modified to reduce the conflict. These measures could serve

as good indicators (Stankey and others 1985) of impact to
66 USDA Forest Service Proceedings RMRS-P-20. 2001

Watson Goal Interference and Social Value Differences: Understanding Wilderness Conflicts and Implications for Managing Social Density

solitude experiences that is attributable to the behavior or

presence of others.

Some conflict, however, exists because of incompatibility

of user behaviors, uses or values associated with wilderness

and are most likely to be addressed by temporal or spatial

separation of opposing social groups. An appropriate approach to conflict management may be a proactive one that

brings all interests together in order to understand conflicting values and work through compromise or recognition of

decision criteria. The way we identify groups for involvement in public participation and how we define public

participation may change substantially in the near future.

Our dependence upon management solutions that ignore

the complexity of social value differences and reactively

attempt to solve conflicting demand issues through exclusion may also change (Watson and others 1997).

Conflict research suggests to us that social density should

not be studied as an independent causal factor. The number

of people one sees along a trail in wilderness or on a float trip

on a river may have more to do with expectations and

importance attached to certain types of encounters than the

absolute numbers of people. Sometimes managers have

established social density indicators for wilderness based

only on numbers of people seen each day without distinguishing between user types (for example, horse back riders

and hikers, kayakers and rafters). This practice ignores the

most basic piece of information provided from early carrying

capacity studies. While consistent relationships have not

been found between encounters and experience quality,

people have provided different responses to encountering

different types of groups, in different places, behaving differently, and under different management regulations.

There is no easy way to incorporate the knowledge derived

from previous conflict research into social density determinations without management decisions about objectives for

social density. In the initial plan for the Salmon River inside

the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, a desire

was stated to manage the river for a particular type of group,

the intermediate-skilled river floater. This targeted “market” resulted from an analysis of opportunities in the immediate region of this river, recognizing an abundance of

roadside and remote settings available for novice and beginning skill levels, as well as extremely challenging whitewater in both remote and accessible rivers of the region. Even

this general decision about the type of visitor most dependent upon this river within the regional context provides

guidance for science to explore and understand the types of

conflict (good conflict, bad conflict, acceptable conflict?)

reported between parties on the river. We don’t have this

type of guidance in very many places, though it could be

valuable in guiding management decisions beyond those

about social density. Providing opportunities for demonstrating primitive skills could intentionally vary across a

system, as well as the types of encounters that are most

probable, not just the number of people encountered or

numbers of parties encountered.

Approaching social density from a conflict perspective

suggests that we need to explore two primary aspects of

visitor experiences:

1. We need to understand the orientations people have

toward the place of interest. Whether it is a nonconforming

user (like jet boaters on the Salmon River inside the Frank

Church-River of No Return Wilderness), a group of scientists, scouts, a wilderness therapy group, or a commercially

outfitted group in the wilderness, we need to proactively

study the values, meanings, expectations, and importance

they attach to the place.

2. How does interacting with various numbers and types

of people interact with these values, meanings, and expectations? Participatory Rural Appraisals (Medina and Rodriguez

1998) and Community-based Conservation practices (Jones

and Braun 1996) are planning and management implementation methods that attempt to proactively understand the

attitudes, values, and behaviors that need to be addressed in

wilderness management and assure they are addressed. An

approach to social density management that similarly is

based on the mix of human and ecological values associated

with wilderness (or a regional system of wilderness opportunities) instead of the single dimensional crowding measures

commonly used today will extend our abilities to meet the

full potential of wilderness to current and future generations of people.

References _____________________

Baird, B. 1994. Recreation conflict between skiers and snowboarders.

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Bryan, H. 1977. Leisure value systems and recreational specialization: The case of trout fishermen. Journal of Leisure Research

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Gibbons, S., and Ruddell, E.J. 1995. The effect of goal orientation

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Hunger, D.H., Christensen, N.A., and Becker, K.G. 1999. Commercial and private boat use on the Salmon River in the Frank

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Jacob, G.R., and Schreyer, R. 1980. Conflict in outdoor recreation:

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Jones, B.T.B., and Braun, E. 1996. Reversing marginalization—

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Knopp, T., and Tyger, J. 1973. A study of conflict in recreational land

use: Snowmobiling vs. ski-touring. Journal of Leisure Research

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Lucas, R.C. 1964. Wilderness perception and use: The example of

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Medina, D.A. and Rodriguez, I. 1998. Participatory rural appraisal

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29–46.
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RMRS

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the forests and rangelands. Research is designed to meet the needs

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