The National Park Service: America’s Greatest Gift to Mankind & Thoughts on How We Can Fix It

This is Thomas Wayne Riley and welcome to the American Southwest.

A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, & no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American.

Edward Abbey

The National Park System of the United States of America is one of the greatest achievements of our Nation. Full stop. It should be the MOST important achievement that we’re celebrated for around the world and in future histories. It should be the most important thing we as Americans celebrate! Forget liberal democracy, forget the unleashing of the atomic bomb, definitely forget that one. Forget our quote unquote glorious triumphs in various apocalyptic wars. Forget cars and the iPhone and TVs and heck, even air conditioning The most important thing America should be known for is the protection and celebration of our God-given land. We live in the garden of eden.

Besides a brief attempt at creating a preserve in the entire northern Pacific Ocean by the Russian Empire in the 1800s, which they did once they realized they were decimating the seal populations to extinction, the United States of America was the first Nation to set aside lands for the use of the public. Not just for use, but also for protection. Protection from over grazing, from mining, deforestation, poaching, development. The National Parks were created to protect our incredibly important soil and land and everything on it from the encroachment of modernity, capitalism, and from those that desired endless growth.

But if you’ve been to a national park recently, you know the NPS has a problem. Well, it has a few problems. The main problem being the absolute overcrowded state of them. Another problem being its bloated bureaucracy and its penchant for protecting the land a little TOO much. If the current trajectory of the NPS continues, more and more PUBLIC land will become more and more inaccessible to the PUBLIC. While at the same time taking MORE land from said Public!

But all is not lost. We have the means to fix what I see as one of the greatest tragedies we are living through. There are a lot of those tragedies right now but to me, Thomas Wayne Riley, who runs a website and a podcast about the beauty of not just the American Southwest but also the American West in general. I believe the degradation of the NPS and our public land is something we must fix before it’s too late. But it is not yet too late.

Come explore with me as I talk about the history of the parks before I attempt to diagnose and complain about the problems, and then ultimately I will offer possible solutions to these problems that are plaguing America’s greatest institution: The National Park Service.

In the year of our Lord 2024, the National Park Service contains 85 million acres. It is the most federally owned public land in the world. That’s not hard to believe since we’re one of the largest nations in the world. The park system is part of the Federal Government’s US Department of the Interior and the NPS attempts to protect the many wonderful natural, cultural, and historical treasures that dot the American landscape. There are quote unquote units of the NPS in all 50 states, in DC, and all of the Empire’s Territories. There are currently 431 of these units, more than 150 related areas, and quite a few other lands set aside to be protected. The entire apparatus is a leviathan.

These units include designations such as, obviously, the National Parks, but also National Monuments, National Memorials, National Military Parks, Historic Sites, Parkways, Recreation Areas, Seashores, Scenic Riverways, and Scenic Trails. There are actually 19 of these naming designations. There’s even an international historic site in Maine.

Things like battlefields, mountains, forts, rocks, ruins, fossil sites, trees, buildings, and even the Statue of Liberty are all part of these protected areas.

Now, it is extremely important that we have these and for the most part, the NPS does a good job of preserving what they claim to protect. Again, the establishment of the national parks is a national treasure. One we should be extremely proud of. But… well, I’ll get to the but later.

In 1832, the first rumblings of a desire to protect this land came from a future Smithsonian worker, a naturalist, and an exceptional painter. His name was George Catlin. You should really check out some of his work. Especially his awesome portraits of American Indians on the plains. Some pictures will be on the site. But in 1832 he got back from one of these trips and he began suggesting we save what he saw was disappearing. He wrote that Americans should protect these treasures, quote, by some great protecting policy of government... in a magnificent park... a nation's park, containing man and beast, in all the wild[ness] and freshness of their nature's beauty! End quote.

He wrote entire volumes which were accompanied by beautiful paintings and drawings of the Indians and the bison and the land. He truly cared about protecting what he had seen during his extensive travels.

But unfortunately, the easterners weren’t ready to hear his ideas. The thought of establishing a park never really took off from Catlin. The west was just too distant and foreign for people on the east coast to care about at that time.

But then painters and writers, they slowly started filling people’s imaginations. And then the California Gold Rush sent a slew of Americans west. And their letters and the descriptions of what they saw filled in even more gaps for the Americans on the eastern seaboard.

The men that went out west, some of them, were truly in awe of the beauty around them. By 1864, a senator in California was asking for a park to be established in Yosemite Valley. He wanted the incredible valley and the Mariposa Big Tree Grove of Redwoods to be protected. At that time there were a few attempts at ranching and logging in the area and he realized the beauty surrounding him needed to be protected. He wanted the state to run the area so that it could, quote, be used and preserved for the benefit of mankind. End quote.

This senator’s pleading was, apparently, important enough to the then President Abraham Lincoln, despite being in the middle of the greatest American Tragedy thus far. That tragedy being the civil war, but, Lincoln felt it was important enough to protect the valley and the redwood trees from being destroyed, despite at the same time facilitating the killing of 600,000 of his nation’s people… but on June 30th, 1864 Lincoln signed the land of Yosemite and the Redwoods over to the state of California.

Imagine valuing trees over the lives of your countrymen and once fellow Americans…

Lincoln did say though that, this park will, quote, be held for public use, resort, and recreation...inalienable for all time. End quote. Inaliable for all time, that’s important.

Only a few years later, in the late 1860s and early 1870s the area of Yellowstone began to be explored. It was mostly by people seeking gold but they immediately saw the territory as this pristine and incredible wilderness. A few of these explorers thought maybe it too should be preserved. Even the Northern Pacific Railroad company began talking about a preserve around Yellowstone. Of course, they wanted it to be preserved as a destination for their rail travelers but even they knew its significance. They understood its beauty. Even as they were a facilitator of the destruction of beauty. Well, not destruction… but they knew the potential their rail line had on expanding manifest destiny.

Because of these calls, by 1881 the army had established forts at Yellowstone with the sole intention of protecting the land from miners and poachers. I talked about that in my final Buffalo Soldiers episode. If you’d like to hear more about that, give it a listen. I also talked about the Army’s control of Yosemite after it had been signed over to the Federal government. That too is covered in the last Buffalo Soldiers Series Episode.

And while we’re on these buffalo soldiers, they had a habit of creasing their hat in a certain manner which would eventually be adopted by the NPS as a whole. The National Park Service would use that symbol of the hat until 2013… Thanks, Obama.

In the eyes of many Americans, especially the ones who had seen the beauty of the west, by the 1880s and 1890s it became increasingly important to not only shelter natural landscapes but also cultural ones as well. Specifically, the ruins of the Anasazi, the Ancestral Puebloans, the Hohokam, and others. Casa Grande in Coolidge, Arizona was one of the first cultural areas designated a National Monument.

The destruction of tens of thousands of mounds in the east and the midwest played a role in wanting to protect these resources but the push was mostly driven by the abusiveness and destructiveness of the pot hunters. These men had no ties to the people who created the works of art so they had no qualms with digging them up and selling them. It was an easy buck, after all. And an easy buck has defined American culture since before its founding.

Eventually, the discussion around shielding these Southwestern treasures led to the passage of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Famously it was President Roosevelt that signed that into law and the law authorized the President, quote, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest. End quote. We will return to that problematic wording in a bit.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe Teddy had good intentions but… the good intentions have since been, abused.

After that legislation passed by Teddy, between the years 1906 and 1916, Presidents Roosevelt, Taft, and Woodrow Wilson proclaimed twenty National Monuments. Then in 1916, Wilson signed the Organic Act which officially created the National Park Service. The number of federally protected lands only exploded after that.

Of course, FDR and his New Deal Regime came in and reorganized the entire system to give a whole lot more control to the Fedrals. FDR also organized the famous CCC which essentially invented jobs for a whole bunch of unemployed men. On the one hand the entire thing, the CCC, was quite silly… I mean, inventing jobs of ditch digging with spoons just to give people something to do. But on the other hand it did stop a lot of vagrancy, it gave men a purpose, and it ultimately built a lot of beautiful buildings. Many of which still stand today. And many of which I love to visit. The CCC helped to guard and expand the infrastructure of the National Parks in its day.

On account of that wording by Teddy Roosevelt, though, declare by public proclamation, aka Presidential Decree, or I mean Executive Orders, because of that wording, it has been increasingly popular for presidents on their way out of office to steal away millions of acres from the states and give it to the Empire.

Really, beginning in the Reagan Years, the park system ballooned with an enormous amount of land being acquired for the Federal Government by Clinton and Barrack Hussein Obama specifically. Again, this is usually done on their way out of office. Like, it’s one of the last things they sign into law after the election and before they’re sworn out.

I never really considered that this was a controversial thing. The establishment of monuments. We have more public land, right?

I didn’t think it was controversial until I learned about the Bears Ears. If you didn’t know, the unlawful declaration by Obama of the Bears Ears National Monument was quite the stir in the southwest community. All of this drama happened when I was really deep in spending weeks out of the year in that area specifically.

At first, I was all for the new designation and the enormous theft of land by the Empire from the state. I do think the bears ears needs protection. I have seen things there that are unimaginably beautiful but also quite fragile. Ruins 600 feet off the valley floor on the sides of cliffs. Petroglyphs that will blow you away. Ruins in crescent shaped caves. Those particular ruins had a used baby’s diaper discarded amongst them. In a fire pit next to empty beer cans. Obviously, I want these things protected. They must be protected.

Especially with the proliferation of the dreaded off road go kart style vehicle… I loathe them. But I understand their draw.

But then, regarding Bears Ears, I began reading articles from both sides. I talked with locals. I read points of view from the Indians, the ranchers, and the residents.

Suddenly the acquisition of land didn’t seem so cut and dry.

Did you know, the FEDERAL government owns over 2/3rds of the STATE of Utah’s land? They own 70% of the state of Utah… How is that even remotely possible. Utah’s a state. How does the Federal government own that much of its land? Shouldn’t it be left to the state to decide how more than 2/3rds of its own land should be ran? The combination of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante alone is a massive 1.3 Million acres.

A real problem arises when you realize the federal government, after declaring the land their’s, they failed to supply adequate funding and resources to back up the wildernesses new title of monument. And that title’s a big deal. I’ll get into that later.

This whole Bears Ears affair eventually became, like seemingly everything today, quite partisan. Utah’s Republican Delegation said in 2022, quote, The vast size of the expanded Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monuments draws unmanageable visitation levels to these lands without providing any of the tools necessary to adequately conserve and protect these resources. End quote.

They’re not wrong. Every single year I go to Grand Staircase and Bears Ears and every single year there is more and more… visitors.

Actually, I’ll just get into it now. The title of these preservations really matters. Going to a really pretty and unique spot in the forest or in the desert or in the mountains or the prairie. That’s really great and everyone should explore, but once you designate a spot a monument or a park, people flock to it JUST BECAUSE it’s now called a monument or a park. People want the stickers, the stamps in their passport book, the pictures at the entrance sign or at the most visibly significant spot. People want the ability to say, I’ve been there. I’ve been to such and such national park. You should go, it’s beautiful.

Take for instance White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. It became a National Park in 2019. Attendance to the park in 17,18, and 19, were all roughly the same at just over 600,000 visitors a year. 2020 is an anomaly and therefore irrelevant but in 2021, the numbers went from 608,000 in 19 to 782,000 in 2021. A nearly 30% increase once it became known as a National Park. I visited it in ’12, ’13, ’and 14. I was seemingly the only one there each time.

This explosion of growth happens everywhere there’s a new designation. If you build it, they will come. Or for us, if you name it, they will come.

With the naming, then comes the scourge of our modern era: Social Media. Now, you cannot stop nor should we even attempt to stop citizens from taking pictures, posting said pictures on their various platforms, writing about, recording videos, blogging about, etc, we can’t stop civilians from doing any of that. Nor should we.

I would be very sad if that was the case because my website would become worthless. And I wouldn’t have a YouTube channel anymore. But the Social Media accounts of the NPS must cease. The promotion of the parks has got to end. No more cute videos, or sarcastic tweets written by 20 year old employees. No more instagram accounts that highlight the beauty of the place the NPS is supposed to be protecting. These posts only promote these places further. This only brings more visitors. I believe the only social media presence the parks and monuments should have is a morning post about that day’s weather, or road closures, or events happening. No pictures, no tiktoks of overweight quote unquote rangers dancing at let’s say, Arches.

When I was living in California in 2023, I wanted to know if a road in the Sierra Nevadas was open because it was still a little early in the season. It was spring and I wasn’t sure about the snow status. That winter had seen record snow fall. I called not one, not two, but three park ranger’s offices in the area and not a single person could tell me the status of the road. Not a single ranger had driven out there or even heard a word about it. What are these rangers doing?

Shouldn’t they be knowledgeable, incredibly knowledgeable, about the land they work on and with and for? Where are the Edward Abbeys? Too many of these rangers are obese. Or weak. But worst of all, they lack the essential knowledge. Speaking of Abbey, in 66 he wrote this of Rangers, quote, Put the park rangers to work …. They’re supposed to be rangers – make the bums range; kick them out of those overheated air-conditioned offices, yank them out of those overstuffed patrol cars, and drive them out on the trails where they should be, leading the dudes over hill and dale, safely into and back out of the wilderness. End quote. Amen. They should be the heartiest of us all. Soldiers protecting our parks.

I heard a ranger at the very crowded Arches visitor center just this year talking about her anxieties of crowds and her fear of heights. Ma’am… you’re at the wrong place and in the wrong business.

My wife and I were at the grand canyon in the spring of 23 and I wanted to know if we could hike down to Skeleton Point at South Kaibab. Not a single ranger I asked knew the conditions! Not one! We asked every ranger we saw. Eventually a woman behind the counter at the book shop gave us the conditions. They were: Icy, dangerous, you’ll need crampons, it isn’t advised. I thanked her profusely before my wife and I marveled at what on earth was happening. What if we’d attempted that predawn hike? We wouldn’t have been able to safely make it back up.

This will show my hand a little, my politicly leaning hand… and my age, but there are way too many unprofessional rangers. I’m talking, Tattooed faces, purple hair, piercings through their cheeks and lips. These people represent the most beautiful and important parts of our nation! And they look like… well, dysgenic freaks! Our park rangers should be upstanding citizens in peak physical shape that weekly, heck, daily hike the trails or at least drive the roads or at a minimum spend their time learning and reading about the land around them.

I’m tired of asking questions about some tidbit of history and getting a blank stare or an I don’t know. I’m admittedly quite knowledgeable because of how much I read but shouldn’t they know all the ins and outs of the entire park? Entire region that they’re in?

One of my listeners, Joel, a good friend of mine now, I met up with him in Santa Fe recently. He gives private tours of the Southwest and he’s also very knowledgeable. He’s a very smart guy. He told me about his time not long ago at Yellowstone. He inquired about the floating limb some park goers found in one of the hot spring pools. Joel told me this woman ranger said she’d never heard of that. He was flabbergasted. How have you never heard of that? He continued to push her, like this was a big deal, an international news story and she was oblivious? He kept asking until she finally relented and said, it’s still under investigation. Why obfuscate? Why lie? Even if she was told by her superiors to not talk about it, that’s what you start with. You don’t LIE. Lying is a horrendous sin. Especially when you’re in a place of power.

The rangers work for us. They should be as kind and helpful and insightful as possible. We literally pay their salaries with our taxes! Well, kinda.

When I first started really exploring and visiting the parks back in 2014, it was a very different story. The rangers really are night and day now in comparison to then. But I don’t want to harp too much on that. There are obviously still a lot of great rangers. And a lot of very friendly and kind rangers too. They always make my visit that much better.

But also relating to the rangers, the visitor centers should be open from sunup to sundown. End of story. Except in Alaska, for obvious reasons. I’m tired of waiting for the building to open for an hour because I wanted to hike at sunrise but I needed some information first. Or conversely, finishing a hike and heading to the already closed visitor center at 4pm. The Rangers shouldn’t have bankers hours! Heck, a lot of the centers are less than bankers hours. They should be up and open and ready to educate or help out at sunrise. And when the sun finally goes down, they can pat themselves on the back for a day well spent. That would go a long way in weeding out some riff raff as well.

The Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument is absolutely my favorite place in this incredible country. It definitely does need to be protected. But that protection must be adequate. That protection must be done in a smart and efficient manner… I know, smart and efficient is impossible with government. But that’s why you leave it up to the state. Which yes, is still a government but it’s a government at a much smaller scale. It’s more manageable.

I first went to GSE back in 2017. My truck didn’t have four wheel drive so getting to the parking lot of one of the hikes I was going to do was impossible. So I parked further away and walked. There was no real established trail. There were no signs. You had to have a map and know how to read it. And you had to be prepared for steep descents, slippery sandstone, climbing around boulders, and making sure you didn’t get lost. It was an incredible experience.

I still remember the woman, I’m not being mean, but I still remember the woman who was crying because she couldn’t descent the four feet from the sandstone to the sand where her husband was waiting for her. She felt rimrocked despite being completely capable of making the very tiny leap down to her husband’s waiting arms. I just… walked around her down the even steeper ledge before plopping down into the sand and walking off. I still heard her sobs minutes later.

In 2021 I took my wife to this same spot. I was all excited because now I had 4 wheel drive and I was so ready to use it. We got to the road but I was surprised. There was signage. And then at the rough part of the road it was closed and a new road had been made. There was a trailhead now. An entirely new trail. There were no more steep spots for women to cry at. There were restrooms at this new trailhead too. And the parking lot they’d built… it was packed. I was there the same week just 4 years earlier and it had been only a few hardcore travelers. Now, it was packed. People had their dogs going up sandstone slot canyons. People were blasting music. Trash was everywhere. If you build it, they will come.

So the Park service keeps improving trails, roads, adding signage, acquiring more property with the stroke of a pen and then complaining they need more funding to keep it all up. They get the funding, and the cycle starts all over again.

There was a rumor they were going to pave the hole-in-the-rock road. Thankfully that will never… well, I shouldn’t say never, but it ain’t happening right now. We need to be tearing UP roads, making it so only dedicated people can reach these places, not building more. Not adding signage! Not improving trails.

Edward Abbey talks at leangth in Desert Solitaire about the problems of cars or as John Muir put them, Mechanical Beetles. Ed Abbey has a great fix too. He said, quote, No more cars in national parks. Let the people walk. Or ride horses, bicycles, mules, wild pigs – anything – but keep the automobiles and motorcycles and all their motorized relatives out. End quote.

At first I didn’t like it because I thought, well that would suck, that would make it harder to get to. But now, I am on board with the genius man. He mentions that you can’t appreciate the land from a car. And he’s right. His quote is:

You can’t see anything from a car; you’ve got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk, better yet crawl, on hands and knees, over the sandstone and through the thornbush and cactus. End quote.

He also goes on to say, quote: Distance and space are functions of speed and time. Without expending a single dollar from the United States Treasury we could, if we wanted to, multiply the area of our national parks tenfold or a hundredfold – simply by banning the private automobile. The next generation, all 250 million of them, would be grateful to us. End quote.

He’s on to something. For some places.

Now, this won’t work with all parks, like Zion, the Grand Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Great Smoky Mountains, Joshua tree, really, any park or monument that has a road THROUGH it. But those parks that have a single road IN IT. Those roads should be closed to all visitors except those camping. You want to drive up Bryce or Arches or Capulin Volcano or any one of these places with a dead-end road, you can’t. You park your car at the parking lot and you take a free shuttle. Or you bike in with your pedal bicycle. Or… you hike! You crawl on your hands and knees over the sandstone and soil and rocks.

Zion does this in their one segment. Parts of the Grand Canyon does this. It may be uncomfortable and annoying but oh would it cut back the number of visitors. Heck, think of how much better visiting hot spots would be. No cars, no looking for parking, no honking or music blasting. Obviously, the busses come regularly. Every 15 minutes for sure. From an hour before sunup to an hour after sundown. In the lower 48.

The expansion of the roads began when the Founding National Park Service Director Stephen Mather, was vying more power and funding with the head of the forest service. So he thought he could bring more people with cars. And that’s been the bane of the park service ever since.

So a free shuttle system in parks and monuments where it makes sense are a must and probably at this point, inevitable even without me as King of America.

Although, shuttles have their own problem too… In an article called Musings On National Park Crowds And Ed Abbey for the National Parks Traveler dot org, I’m sorry, I didn’t see the author’s name, unfortunately. But the author, writing in 2018 wrote, quote:

Arches National Park, for instance, pledges “to manage traffic congestion within the park while maintaining and improving public access.” It has prepared an “Alternative Transportation System and Congestion Management Plan” which suggested that for various reasons a shuttle system would be ineffective. Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Rocky Mountain national parks have implemented shuttle plans with varying degrees of success in addressing their congestion problems. One difficulty with shuttles everywhere is when they drop numerous hikers off at trailheads, trail congestion is the result. Shuttle tours might be too long for some, too short for others. The solution to one problem leads to another. I cannot go into detail here about what the Park Service has and is doing to address the crowding and congestion problems in its many units. Suffice it to say that the agency is wrestling with the problem but is understandably hesitant to go as far as Ed Abbey suggested. End quote.

Last thing on cars… sorry mom and dad. No more RVs. Period. Tent camping only. Obviously, the private land surrounding the park will explode with even more RV parks but that’s perfect. No tent camper ever likes sleeping near an RV. They’re loud, the dogs inside them are always barking, and hearing someone’s tv when you’re staring up at the stars is infuriating.

So no more road improvements. But also, no new improvements. Like I’ve already said: no new signage. No new roads. No new Restrooms… wait… I think we actually should have more of those at trailheads. But no new roads or signage or promoting.

There is a caveat to no new improvements. If we figure out a way to reduce cars or eliminate them from the parks, obviously, improvements and modifications to the infrastructure will be necessary.

It isn’t just the improvements the park service makes that bother me and people like me, it’s also the amount of land the park service is blocking off! While I agree with making places more difficult for the average person to reach, I disagree with barring access to OUR wilderness. So many places are now inaccessible. So many PUBLIC places I pay for with my entry fee and my taxes are now off limits? Remember the opening quote?

A venturesome minority will always be eager to set off on their own, & no obstacles should be placed in their path; let them take risks, for godsake, let them get lost, sunburnt, stranded, drowned, eaten by bears, buried alive under avalanches - that is the right and privilege of any free American.

Of course there are the backcountry permits but they should be free and unlimited.

Recently I was going to go with another really great friend, a listener. One of the great blessings of this podcast has been the friends ive made who are listeners. Well this friend who lives in New Mexico, Scott, we were going to go to Navajo National Monument to see the incredible Betatakin and Keet Seel ruins.

I have wanted to see them since I first laid eyes on Betatakin from the viewpoint. But you can’t go see them unless you join a serious ranger led hike which consists of camping overnight. Scott and I were ready. But then the night before he calls me, and he says he’s been looking at the website and it says they no longer allow the ranger led, babysat hikers up onto the ledge of keet Seel. You can no longer be near or amongst the incredible ruins. You just hike for two days down to the ledge below and look up… I checked the site myself before calling and being told, yep, it’s too fragile. For the ruins protection, we are no longer allowing people to see the ruins. So we will protect them to the point of their worthlessness. What’s the point of protecting something if you hide it away?

This is so important we must not let anyone see it but it is slowly being destroyed by the elements so soon no-one will see it. What a crock a crap.

And make no mistake, more and more of OUR public land is being blocked off and hidden away. Rangers seem to discourage exploring. THere are entire parts of the Grand Canyon that you will be arrested for for exploring. The parks are reluctant to allow wandering. More and more of the parks are being cordoned off and only accessible by tickets. Tickets you must PAY for. Oh, and about that…

I don’t mean for this to be a rant and I really do have solutions, I promise. But one thing that… let’s say I’m declared dictator, First Citizen of the United States for life. I’m elected as the King of America tomorrow. One of my first acts will be to declare that the National Park System and everything affiliated with it is FREE, completely free to all American Citizens. At the entrance, you prove you’re a citizen of this incredible nation and boom, the park is yours to enjoy. After all, your taxes pay for it, right?

Second act would be to declare 10% tax for every single working American, no less no more. Of course, those taxes aren’t for revenue because we now know taxes do nothing for our government’s coffers. No, instead that 10% is to make you feel like you’re in the coolest club in the world. It’s not a tax, you’re just paying your dues.

Anyways, the parks are free for all American citizens. I think a nominal camping fee is okay for the campgrounds with amenities. That’s fine. But nominal. $15, 20 at most. Watchman campground in Zion, as of September 24th, 2024 is 45 dollars a night… that is outrageous. My wife and I recently paid 37 dollars for a national forest campground in southern Colorado! That’s crazy…

talk about not having to pay for separate hikes either ik fiery furnace

Now, of course, the biggest problems of the parks and monuments is the overcrowdedness which I will address shortly, and obviously having the parks free would not lower visits… at first. But my next suggestion would. Free for citizens. Disney World Prices for non-Americans. Each vehicle will cost a non-American well over $100. Maybe $200 depending on the park.

Again, this will show my political leanings a little, something I try to hide in my history episodes… although it is getting more and more difficult to do so the more comfortable I am publishing the episodes. But non Americans simply do not respect the parks as much as the Americans that explore them. Of course, not all non-Americans. I know there is a certain baguette loving nation in Europe that is probably MORE respectful of our parks than even Americans are. And yes of course, some Americans are A Holes, but for the most part, from my extensive visitation, yes I’m part of the problem, but from my extensive visitation to the various parks, especially the big ones, some people from other parts of the world simply have no respect for OUR land. It ain’t there’s, why would they?

At Arches, 2022, I was standing in line for the restroom under Delicate Arch. When it came to my turn, a man from the sub continent of India exited the pit toilet and was walking off when I noticed he had completely missed the giant hole. There was excrement lining the toilet lid. I yelled at him and he turned around but then kept on walking. I yelled for a ranger who saw it and radioed it in and then went to talk to the guy. Everyone around me came to look and naturally, we were all disgusted. It’s completely unacceptable behavior. Good Americans do not act like that.

Crowds of tourists from Asia often get off busses and completely take over an area. Trying to get to the viewpoint or enjoying peace when there are people around you with no concept of personal space is impossible. They’re there for the gram, to snap the pic, not to breathe it in.

In Yosemite, one of the greatest places on EARTH, my wife and I visited Yosemite a few weeks before we got the heck out of California. It was our last hoorah in the beautiful but completely ruined state of California… We obviously woke up in the predawn hours, got ready to hike, and began our hike before the crowds. Even then the parking lot was full but it was still so peaceful and gorgeous and the hike was absolutely fine with like-minded people. We hiked up to Vernal Falls.

But on the way down… it was group of Sub Continent Indians after group of Sub Continent Indians. They would walk in packs of 15 people, not moving out of the way, cell phone music blaring out of their back pockets or hands, and straight up dropping trash onto the path. I yelled at that guy who littered but he didn’t hear me because of the music OUTSIDE that he was blaring.

Quick aside; the national parks would greatly benefit from 24 hour 365 days of quiet hours. No speakers, no cell phone music, no loud cars even. You’re stupid rice burner that sounds like a giant fart? Denied access to the park. Turn around or we will shoot.

The point of being at these national places, these pristine parks, the point of being there is to enjoy and respect the ethereal beatify of nature. Music is completely disruptive and rude. Those subject to the blasts of music are taken out of the moment and thrust back into urban life.

At Valley of Fire, back in 23, there was a gentlemen with a speaker blasting rap and he was asked not, by me, but, by other people to please turn off the awful music. He was asked repeatedly. This guy argued with everyone and said it was a public place and he could do what he wanted. He turned it up at one point before another, larger guy, who probably also listens to rap, he implored him to turn off the sound or else. Some N words flew but that was that. He turned it off. Mind you, this was over a vast sandstone area known as the valley of fire wave and he was 50 yards away but the sound travelled. People on the hike heaved a sigh of relief when quiet came back.

Especially, but not limited to, California, too many campsites are filled with Hispanics which nearly every time are blasting Mexican music. That trumpet beat… it’ll make you wanna pull your hair out when you’re sitting by a warm fire at your campsite trying to lose yourself in the flames.

Paying higher fees would discourage many tourists who are not from this nation who do not respect the God given blessing that’s been created around them.

I have a problem with timed entry but… with the current state of things, I guess it makes sense. And it’s good that they don’t require timed entry before sunrise and after sunset.

My advice to park goers is to just… start your hike at sunrise. No one’s in the park yet. Even if you have kids, they’ll on some level remember the sunrise over the sandstone at Arches or the deep crevice of the Grand Canyon.

What the rangers at the gate should do though, is form two lines. The two lines right now should be America the beautiful Pass holders and day pass buyers. I’m so sick of waiting in line to enter a park even though I’ve already paid for entry.

In the future when my changes are enacted the two lines will be American citizens getting in free and non-citizens paying the entry fee.

Now, I’m sorry to still be complaining, but this complaint is a universal complaint, not just for the parks.

For god’s sake, clean up after your dog. And do NOT leave the poop bag on the trail. You heathen. As a sign on the fence of one of my neighbors says, there is no dog poop fairy. Clean up after your animal. Be proud of the land you are exploring. Bag it and take the bag with you.

My wife and I went camping in the La Sal Mountains near Moab in early summer of ’24 where we found this extremely remote campground that overlooked Castle Valley. It was incredible except… when we walked just outside of camp and we saw the ground littered with toilet paper which was clearly from women who wiped and left the paper there. The toilet paper squares were everywhere. How could you think that was okay? Take a plastic bag with you. Take a dog poop bag with you and tie it up with the toilet paper inside. Store the bag in a larger bag until you can throw it away at home.

It’s tough to imagine sharing a world with people who would pollute like that, let alone a nation with people who are so clueless.

Also… if the trailhead says no dogs… don't take your dog. Seriously. That was a big thing I saw in California mostly. Trailhead had multiple signs saying no dogs but people just… either are blind or don’t care. I’m leaning towards they don’t care.

Dogs are amazing and I love them and I love my dog Elvis and I think dog’s are literally man’s best friend but… they aren’t meant for all spaces. If there were 100,000 Americans, sure, take your dog. But there is almost 350 million Americans who have almost 90 million dogs. Just leave your dog… not in the car, but somewhere. With a friend or a family member. If it’s a dog friendly hike, please take them. It will benefit both you but if it isn’t… don’t just shrug and leash em up anyways.

Which reminds me… hikers or wanderers, if they look inadequate to the task, the rangers, which I think should be peak specimens of America, the rangers, when they see an obese, waterless, packless, unprepared hiker, they should be proactive about educating that hiker on the dangers ahead.

I’m thinkin specifically of the Grand Canyon where I saw hordes of ogres get off busses with nothing but a gatorade bottle preparing to descend down the sheer walls of that wonderland.

Sure, the Abbey quote in the beginning seems like it contradicts this but those people will fail at their task of hiking back out. And then our tax dollars will be there to bail them out with helicopters or mules when they cant make it back up.

The park rangers need to educate visitors and insist they are prepared.

Shouldered with that kind of duty and job, I think the park rangers should be paid exceptionally well. I think they should be proud of their work and they should be rewarded for it. They should be fit and well funded and ready to take on the elements they are stewards over. And if they fail, they should be fired.

I really do appreciate the great Rangers out there. Let that be known. But all the rangers should be great.

I briefly thought about mentioning the problems of the cartels in the parks and forests growing marijuana and what not. I’m talking violent armed illegal satanic militiamen with grow operations leaving mountains of trash. But that’s really not something the NPS should be dealing with.

My fix for that is for some such, whatever of the million agencies we have… they should be flying drones armed with infrared cameras over the vast swaths of forests and public lands before sending in better armed than the cartel American men to take em out.

Take them out was poor choice of words. Arrest them and deport them, of course. Or just imprison them here. Forever.

And while we’re on the topic of armed men, this is a minor complaint but it’s a complaint that I think is important.

Let me open or canceled carry my gun into the visitor center. The second amendment to the united states constitution guarantees my right of the most basic fundamental god given human right that exists. That is the right to defend my person and my loved ones. Not in that order. If we cannot defend ourselves against those who wish us harm, then we are not human. We are not a free people. The right to live has been stolen from us. The right to own a weapon and have it with you was so important to the enlightened men who formed this nation that it was included in the bill of rights. The bill of rights our founding fathers believed was so obvious that they stated they were given to us not by them, by men, but by god.

These buildings represent the American government and our greatest achievement which is the national parks. For goodness sakes, let us celebrate the foresight of our creators, god and founding fathers, to have guns on our hips.

I keep thinkin of more complaints, which I apologize for. I promise I have fixes coming u. This is the last complaint. But can we please, stop renaming mountains and parks. If you’ve listened to any of my podcasts, you know I respect and enjoy learning about the American Indian’s history and culture… but this land, which is also their land, is no longer ONLY their land.

I don't want to get too politically incorrect here, but also I don't care… the American Indians, for various reasons, mostly reasons that deal with horrible diseases and plagues and inferior weapons, but the Indians lost the half a millennia war against their European invaders. It’s hard to fight for your survival when you lose 90% of your population to an unknown virus with which you have no immunity for… But the Indians lost and the Anglo Americans with some ex-slaves and a few Europeans conquered the vast territory of the current United States. Heck, we as Americans conquered the vast territory of most of Mexico, but we gave a good part of that back.

American founding stock are not new to this form of humanity. We are one of the last ones to get away with it, sure. But our European ancestors lost their war to the Ottomans. And now much of Greco Roman Christian territory is inhabited by steppe people invaders and are now Muslim. The hunter-gatherers in Europe, they lost to the Indo-European invasion of our Anglo ancestor’s. The Apaches conquered vast swathes of Jumano Mogollon territory before they were kicked out by the Shoshone Utes and Comanches.

Can you picture an Apache saying, I apologize for that conquering, we’re going to name our rancheria after you Puebloans or whomever, and we’re going to call it, place where our enemies used to call the big mountain where the mountain lion rests atop the rock. No, the apache are gonna continue to call their Rancheria, the place where the big cottonwood comes from the spring.

Stop renaming our peaks and our ranges and our parks and OUR land which WE fought and died for and conquered. Stop renaming our land the local tribe’s name. The local tribe which, had for all we know, had only just conquered it from someone else! The story of humanity is the story of movement. The story of war. The story of migration. We should be proud of our land and the NPS has no business renaming a single spot on the map.

Okay, I got my complaining out of the way. I talked about the problems and I talked about a lot of fixes that would really help the parks be a much better space than they already are.

But how on earth would I fix the growing visitation numbers? I mean besides ending the non-stop improvements and promoting while limiting access.

It’s very simple, actually. I did not make this up and I have now forgotten who I heard it from or where I read it, unfortunately. Otherwise I would absolutely give them credit.

But the fix: you cycle the parks and monuments between the two designations. You demote a park to a monument, and you elevate a monument with the infrastructure already in place to allow it to happen, you elevate those monuments to a park. You do this for cycles of 5 or 7 years. Heck, even some of the monuments can be demoted down to BLM land or National Forest land. BLM is bureau of land management. Not the terrorist organization of grifters.

The federally protected land, no matter its designation, would obviously still have the legislative protection. Nothing would change with that. They will stay protected and beautiful and free from encroachment by corporations, citizens, and tribes. But simply the fact of demoting a park to a monument and demoting a monument to BLM land, that would drop visitation. The allure would be gone. The prestige of visiting such and such national park. That would wane over time. The promoting of the parks by the uber popular social media accounts would drop.

Of course there will always be the CHECK OUT THIS TOTALLY OFF THE GRID SPOT THAT NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT channels. Or the 10 places you must visit before you die listicle posts. Is listicle even a thing anymore or is everything a video with music, quick cuts, and voiceovers?

But for the vast majority of tourists both citizen and non citizen, if you’ve got a bucket list of TripAdvisor approved places to see, the once park, now monument drops down the list. Or the once monument now BLM managed spot disappears.

You couple this, with giving many of the parks and monuments back to the states, and visitation drops. Of course the feds must use the words of the tyrant Lincoln of it being held by the state for public use, public resort, and public recreation... FOR ALL OF TIME. He was right about that… If the land’s held by the state, the 50 states, not the federal state. But if the state holds the lands for public usage for all of time lest they get penalized by lack of funding or what have you by the feds. I mean if the empire gives the land back to the states with the promise of very punitive punishments for not keeping the land pristine and public… the states would comply. States need funding. Cities need funding. The fact that cities need funding is why we see so many small towns in enormous amounts of debt accept jet loads of non-American illegals. Money runs everything.

The American Empire will be around another hundred years, at least, probably more, before it does whatever the future has in store for us but for our current epoch, the promise of federal funds to keep those lands in trust will go a long way. And then once history has her way with our Empire, the words, for all of time, I think they would make a difference in the conscious and zeitgeist of the elected stewards of the state owned land.

There is no libertarian or anarchist view of the future that will ever succeed. There are too many Americans and the Federal state is too entrenched in everything from the local to the regional level. Plus, now, we have nuclear weapons. The world is fundamentally different than the one that your favorite authors wrote about in the 18th and 19th century. Plus, God’s creatures abhor anarchy.

All my libertarian listeners should dispel themselves of the notion that we will ever be free of an empirical set of overlords. What you must do, and what I have done myself, is hope that our guys get into power in this great nation. Once that happens, maybe we can be free to barbecue and homeschool our kids while making fun of the ones in charge with memes on the internet without the threat of prison.

The original protectors of this land, the men who set up the national park system in the first place, they may have been progressive for their time, but they are men of the right. They are men who value their neighbors, their nation, and our god. They are men that understand the evil of government and corporations to exploit but even still they felt that they could protect our natural and cultural resources via legislation and by the backing of the barrel of a fedral gun.

If you’ve made it this far, I assume you’re at least adjacent to my political beliefs so I’m going to say, if you are still listening, fight for our public lands. Fight for the protection of our public lands.

We must stop the building of massive wind farms which kill an average of 1.2 MILLION BIRDS. One. Point. Two. Million birds A YEAR!

My neighbor, she’s awesome, I’m not accusing her of anything, but she works for a wind farm here in New Mexico. Sure, it’s in the middle of nowhere but it’s, according to the developers themselves, this wind farm, the SunZia Wind and transmission farm, it’s the largest in the entire western hemisphere. Imagine the numbers of birds it’s killing. But at least it’s giving power to millions of New Mexicans, right?

Wrong. Dead. Wrong. The largest wind farm in the western hemisphere is being built to give energy to CALIFORNIA! California! All the migratory birds they’re going to kill in new mexico for power in CALIFORNIA! A 550 mile line will go from the transfer station through OUR wilderness to California. A state with infinite oil that would benefit from nuclear even more. They’re destroying our land for their consumption.

It get’s better. This company is also building a massive wind farm in Wyoming which… is also, all of it, every gigawatt, will be going to California.

Wanna know how much destruction of soil and concrete every single bird killing cancer causing wind turbine needs? They require an 80-foot diameter reinforced concrete foundation. This foundation requires a volume of 850 to 900 cubic yards of concrete. You have two hundred windmills that’s enough for an enormous skyscraper.

How much steel rebar to reinforce the concrete, you may ask? The amount of rebar in every single foundation is 40-60,000 pounds.

Well, concrete, that’s fine, you might think, you just… mine it or something, right?

Concrete is made of three things: aggregates, or sand and pebbles, water, and cement.

You’re probably thinkin, great, we got a lot of all of that… but you’d be wrong. First of all, we’re running out of the good kind of sand and for the past few years we’ve been importing it. Hard to imagine but… it’s true.

Secondly, water… water is very scarce in the desert and great plains of new mexico. We don’t have a lot of it and my neighbor’s wells over in Edgewood are freakin drying up! Which is scary for us. Still, we can always ship water at high costs from the great lakes and lakes of Minnesota and Wisconsin… until we can’t.

But cement. That is the ingredient that is the most upsetting and which every single wind turbine uses a vast amount of. Surprisingly, the United States is, by far, the largest cement importing country. Our main importers are Turkey… turkey! A muslim nation halfway across the world that may be in NATO but is against all of our national interests. So there’s Turkey, Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, and Greece. We are IMPORTING cement from nations that are Muslim, communist, hostile, and well, who are our neighbors. If they’ve got cement to export, we’ve got cement to make.

I think I’ve hammered that point home… but there’s more on the lie of green energy.

The LA Times, the los Angeles times for goodness sake, they’re currently reporting on the soon to be built Aratina Solar Project in southern california, in the Mojave desert. This project, will see… it almost makes me cry, I kid you not… this horrendous, ugly, dust creating, project of blindingly disgusting solar panels, lanes of em, rows of em, this Aratina Solar Project will kill four thousand, seven hundred Joshua trees.

My wife and I got married in Joshua Tree. Our photoshoot was in the national park. I love these guys. I love them as much as I love Saguaros. Did you know Joshua Trees used to spread their territory via giant Ground Sloth droppings? The giant ground sloths would eat the flowers and then poop out the seeds. So for the last, oh, 15,000 years or more, the Joshua tree’s habitat has been shrinking. They have no natural spreaders for their territory. Of course the grifters say this is because of human made climate change garbage blaw blaw blaw. But this… green! GREEN! Can you believe they call themselves that? Green? This green company will cut down 4,700 Joshua Trees to build a solar plant.

Have you driven past a solar plant? There’s one on I-15 from LA to Las Vegas near the Nevada border. It’s some sci fi garbage. Straight out of Blade Runner. It is hideous and blinding.

Here’s some quotes from that LA Times article:

“How are kids going to be able to play outside?” asked Melanie Richardson, a nurse who has sons at schools near the site. “So many people from our community were begging them not to approve this project, and they passed it regardless. End quote.

Another one:

“Let’s destroy the environment to save the environment. That seems to be the mentality,” said Deric English, who teaches at Boron Junior-Senior High School. “It’s hard to comprehend.” End quote.

Let’s destroy the environment to save the environment. Perfect. Give English an award. He’s spot on.

As Americans, creators of the National Park System, believers in defending the defenseless. As Americans, who want to see the world cleaner and healthier. We must fight against this lie. This garbage. And part of that will be to defend our national parks from the encroachment of the regime and the confiscation of state lands, coupled with the expansion of the NPS system.

This episode derailed a bit but… we can fix the parks. We can fix our land. We can fix our future.

Let’s make the public land more accessible to Americans. Lets make the public land quieter and cleaner. Let’s make the public parks free for Americans. Let’s improve the competency of the rangers and the bureaucratic leaders who guide them. We need to possibly defund the parks, stop their usage of social media, and rotate the public lands through stages which would dissuade visitors only visiting for the likes and the stamps.

We must return to a high trust society where all Americans share similar values and similar goals for the future of this nation.

Return the pride of land to the right. Return the protection of our land to people who value the nation. This nation is a place with history and heritage… not just a country with magic soil that turns every immigrant into an American.

Americans are a people with a shared past and a shared hope for the future.

Many people being illegally allowed into our borders do not share our values or appreciation of the land. There is a certain group of people being shot straight into the vain of Americana who couldn’t give two hoots about public land. They go to public parks and kill the migratory birds. The ducks and the geese. The creatures we take our children to see. To feed. These people fish illegally in our streams and our lakes. Not with poles or rods but with nets. They are destroying our homeland like they destroyed theirs.

It may feel like government overreach with the clean air act and the migratory bird act and the clean water act but those pieces of legislation are beautiful and necessary and they have greatly increased the grandeur of the land we live on, raise families and children on, and the land we call our own. Of course, bureaucracy often gets in the way of progress and of enjoying our lands but we can fix that.

My friend Joel he said something quite profound. Regardless of what you believe about the biblical story of Adam and Eve. Wether you think it’s just that, a story, or wether you think it’s historical fact. Adam and Eve weren’t in the garden of Eden being all laissez faire. They weren’t letting nature quote unquote take its course. No, they were there tending to the gardens, the forests, the animals. They were naming them and keeping the land ordered.

We are creatures of nature, yes. But we are also creatures of the lord. Children of god. We must keep the land orderly. We must protect what is around us.

One of my favorite things Ive learned throughout my readings for the podcast is the description the English settlers to north America gave to the land. They said the forests were like parks. Trees abounded but grass was beneath the trees. The bushes and thorns and what my French friend calls shit trees, they were absent. The land was often described as a garden of eden. A paradise. Occasionally seasonally planted corns and melons sprouted up near fallen trees. But the American landscape before europeans was described as being a park.

The American Indians were also seasoned stewards of the earth. They burned the landscape; nationwide. Continent wide. Hemisphere wide!

When disease hit the American Indians after contact and upwards of 90% of them died hemisphere wide, the burning stopped. It’s been speculated this could have contributed to the little ice age in Europe in the 17th century. Which itself contributed to greater colonization in the americas. But… That’s how much the American Indians continued the fabled Adam and Eve’s cultivation of the land.

The world by itself is chaos. We, as humans, as Americans, we are order. We were put here by Heavenly Father to be orderly. To look after his world. To learn to take care of our world. So that maybe one day in the afterlife we may have our own. So that maybe we can become like heavenly father ourselves.

The National Park system is the greatest thing the American experiment has yet to create. We must value it and keep it strong. We must celebrate it. We must protect it. We must protect our land. This is ours, we won it. We own it. We must protect this nation’s beauty. With our lives.

Thank y’all for listening, and I’ll see you again soon, in the American southwest.