[throwawaaarrgh]

There's a balance to be struck. If wilderness areas end up like Yellowstone, then the experience is destroyed and the whole point of it remaining wild dies. Some things are more important than some human's desire to turn the planet into their amusement park.

[dghlsakjg]

The most amazing thing about Yellowstone (or any of the famous National Parks) is that, as busy as it is, if you get 1/2 a mile from the road, it is still very wild.

There is a certain tension in that the nature of the experience of wilderness areas is necessarily exclusionary. For example wheeled and mechanical transportation is excluded with limited exemptions for the disabled, the current limitation is that wheelchair users MUST use chairs that are 'Suitable for indoor pedestrian use'. Indoor use chairs are notoriously shit on natural surfaces, but should we allow ATVs? Probably not. Should we allow handcycles so disabled people can go through mud? I think so, but purists think otherwise.

[OkayPhysicist]

"Very wild" only if you don't mind a bunch of views of roads and the noise of vehicles. You need to put a good day's trek behind you before things start getting separated from civilization, and even then you're on a trail designed for you by other humans.

The best wilderness I've ever experienced is the Mojave Wilderness. A place the size of Rhode Island, with 4 roads, a handful of trails, and a visitor's center. Otherwise, it's basically untouched desert. Absolutely gorgeous.

IMO, there's one fundamental difference between a park and wilderness: a park is a curated experience, and as such is a product of, and a part of, human civilization. That intrinsically means you are at the whims of others, perhaps benevolently so in the case of National Parks, but manipulated nonetheless. Wilderness means freedom from that omnipresent force of human intention, because the wilderness has no intention for you: it is ambivalent to your presence. The desert won't help you survive, but it's also not going to try and kill you or rob you, either. That's freedom you can't find on a trail overlooking a tangle of roads.

[dghlsakjg]

This sort of illustrates my point! You must not be very familiar with Yellowstone past the road system.

Except in the busiest parts of the park, you don’t have to stay on trail, and there are hundreds of square miles of roadless areas of the park. It is 3x the size of rhode island. There is no “tangle” of roads as there are only 5 roads that enter it. Like I said: once you are 1/2 a mile from the few roads in the park, you have it to yourself, and it is not a forgiving environment.

Yellowstone offers the full spectrum of experiences from stroller friendly boardwalks to multi day wilderness through hiking routes that never cross another trail, let alone come close to roads.

[twobitshifter]

are you saying yellowstone is destroyed in your mind?

[OkayPhysicist]

Wilderness and parks are two very different things. Yellowstone is a fantastic park, which by all means is worth the trip to go see. But it's not wilderness. It is a designed and curated experience, by and for humans.

[throwawaaarrgh]

Right, and not only that, but Yellowstone has a long history of being fucked with by humans and the ecology basically falling apart, because humans just wanted it the way they wanted it. And because it's so accessible, people continue to dump their trash, play loud music, fuck with the animals, etc. It's not nature anymore, it's Disneyworld with animal exhibits.

There's room enough for both man-made parks and wilderness areas, but to keep wilderness wild we need to stop making them human-accessible. I mean the whole point of wilderness is that it's not accessible, helpful, friendly, easy. The wild is harsh, dangerous, remote, unkempt, challenging, but also beautiful, tranquil, awe-inspiring, soul-filling.