trail, eat an overpriced hot dog served by a national hospitality chain, and you buy a t-shirt. There’s nothing wrong with this experience for most Americans. If you  top you expect a shopping mall atmo- sphere, and that’s okay, I suppose. In stark contrast to this shopping mall experience is the other primary outdoor activity in National Parks: real wilderness hiking/camping. Just within a few miles from most Visitor Centers and trail parking lots you can leave the crowds behind and enter a world most people don’t ever get to see. Wild animals, barely maintained trails in potentially hazardous condi- tions. In short: real wilderness. It’s fantastic that these places still exist in our overdeveloped world. It doesn’t have to be comfortable and convenient everywhere.


Here is my main point: The interest and love for the out-


doors are seeing an incredible growth and need new ways for the outdoors to be enjoyed and experienced. Ev-


Working farmhouse with vacation homes added. Just a short walk from Oberstdorf in the Seitental. (photo by Mathias Eichler)


erything I’ve been reading in the last couple of year points toward this, from hipster Instagram accounts, to outdoor retailers posting records sales, to Na- tional Parks announcing record visitor numbers. The outdoors are booming and we need to take advantage of it. The wilderness purists would love to see the outdoors to be left alone, and there’s certainly an argument to be made for that. The descendants of John Muir will always have an im- portant voice at the table, to remind us that we need to keep any impact to our wild lands at a minimum. Yet, the roads


are already built, the cars are already driving through the parks, requiring road maintenance, parking lots, and  Those visitors


A walk in the park.


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are rightful users of their lands as well. They support their public lands by paying the entrance fee and after having had a memorable experience will vote for park budget increases, so one hopes.


But can we invite


the regular folks to embrace their parks as something else than a nature


zoo, or a game reserve? I currently  visitor center amenity to wilderness experience, too steep for most people. Most people visit the big National Parks once in their life. You go, snap a picture, and think that’s the only thing there is to do. Yes, there’s education through in- spiration. The idea goes that one visits the parks, gets excited, goes to REI and buys the right gear. He takes a few classes and overcomes that hurdle of feeling lost out there in the wilderness and step by step discovers the wilder- ness, and learns to embrace it. But without a guide, a personal friend you can trust to “show you the way” this can be a steep hill to climb, and not many do. This, perhaps is exactly the intention for many wilder- ness lovers. I think that attitude is totally wrong. But where do we go from here? How do we go from dreaming to actu- ally doing?


Here are a few ideas of what things the parks need:


1. Better wayfinding signs


 trails I am hiking just a few miles from the road have barely any signs posted. This can get so easily overlooked by people comfortable on the trails. But if  to make a decision which way to turn somewhere in the middle of nowhere with your family you’d learn to appreci- ate good signage telling you mileage, dis- tance to destination, name of trails, etc.


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