Just when it seemed like visitation to Western national parks and public lands was going to continue climbing until people started spilling out of the entrance gates the crowds abated—slightly. Visitation numbers for the first half of 2022 in all of Utah’s “Mighty Five” national parks were down, according to National Park Service statistics, at least compared to last year.

Arches National Park experienced the most severe drop off, with 20% fewer visitors than last year (meaning about 184,000 fewer pairs of eyes gazed upon Delicate Arch). Visitation at Zion, one of the nation’s most popular parks, is down 6%, or 162,000 visitors.

Of course, 2021 was a record-shattering year for visitation to all kinds of public lands, so it’s not the greatest standard against which to compare other years. In other words, don’t expect to find noticeably smaller crowds in any of these places. There still will be long lines, trail traffic jams, and crowded campgrounds. It just won’t quite be the zoo of last year.

Arches’ big drop may be the result of the new timed-entry reservation system the park instituted this year to try to spread out the crowds. In the last few years, park officials have had to close the entrance gates in the middle of the day when the one paved road in and out became overloaded. According to the Moab Sun News, Moab-area sales and lodging tax revenues for the first months of the year were above projections, but business and hotel owners said they were “seeing a pretty sharp decline in business” in May and June. Zion also launched a timed-entry pilot program at its ultra-popular Angel Landing trails, but the rest of the park is still more or less a free-for-all, so it’s unlikely that, alone, has deterred many visitors.

Travel industry officials say the timed entry and reservation systems could deter international travelers and others who are more likely to plan and book trips more than a year in advance. Most park reservation systems don’t allow nearly as much lead time.

For most of the parks, high gasoline prices appear to be a factor, with numbers dropping off more steeply as prices at the pump increased. And that might explain why numbers at Joshua Tree National Park, which is a shorter drive from urban areas, are actually higher this year than last year thus far, bucking the Westwide trend.

In an effort to ground-truth some of these numbers, I traveled a Mighty Five sort of loop at the end of June (though, admittedly, I didn’t enter any of the mentioned national parks aside from the southern, remote end of Capitol Reef). Traffic seemed pretty darned heavy to me, especially between Kanab and the entrance to Bryce Canyon. Quite a few of the cars were Teslas, which might confirm that gas prices were keeping internal-combustion-engine users at home. Except that pretty much all of the other vehicles—or so it seemed to me—were ginormous, petroleum-guzzling SUVs or other trucks, many of them pulling huge fifth wheels, boats, jeeps, or trailers loaded down with OHVs.

I’m willing to bet that the drivers of a lot of those vehicles are yelling at Biden regarding gas prices even though they could slash their fuel bills in half by driving a reasonably sized car. But, well, try telling that to their five-feet high, militarized radiator grills! They won’t hear you because they can’t see over their damned hoods.

What is it with Americans and their love of huge cars, anyway? It’s almost like a disease, one that keeps mutating into bigger and bigger—and deadlier—strains. The vehicles towing boats to Lake Powell, with their lift kits and balloon tires, barely would have been considered road-worthy back in the 1980s: They were novelty items, relegated to high school parking lots or monster truck rallies. Nowadays these gargantuan trucks haul multiple OHVs that are literally larger than my regular car.

And it’s not just the fossil fuel-fetishizing yahoos with a need to compensate and those disgusting scrotum things hanging from their bumper (why? whyyyy?) who are afflicted by the disease, but, well, pretty much everyone. Have you seen the Toyota Tacomas favored by the Durango/Moab outdoor heads lately? Yeah. Huge. Sure, they’re smaller than the aforementioned monster trucks, but that’s not saying much. And you know what the gas mileage is on those “small” trucks? 23 MPG … on the highway! Sorry, dude, but riding your e-bike to the SUP put-in ain’t gonna offset that carbon footprint. Even Subarus are huge these days. Although they are better than those #vanlife vehicles, not to mention the Dodge Ram, Ford F series, and Chevy Silverado—all of which clock in at around 15 MPG. And then there’s the monstrosity I saw cruising the streets of Durango: the Apocalypse Hellfire 6x6, which gets a cool six miles to the gallon (or about $713 to drive from Dallas to Durango—one way).

How is it possible that the auto industry is even allowed to make such stupid vehicles? How is it possible that efficiency has decreased even as technology has advanced? Okay, I understand that some folks need a big truck for hauling farm equipment or gear or for work or to pull that giant side-by-side OHV. I get it.

But if you’re going to use the same vehicle to travel long distances, don’t turn around and complain about the price of gasoline. If you want to spend less on fuel, get a more efficient car, one that doesn’t weigh four tons and won’t put you back $50k or more. Sigh…

Okay. Rant over. I apologize for the outburst.

Although not included in the above graph because June data were not yet available, Rocky Mountain, Grand Teton, and Glacier National Parks also had lower visitation during the first five months of the year. Yellowstone, on the other hand, was on pace to set yet another visitation record as of the end of May, eclipsing even last year. Then the floods hit in June, throwing everything askew.

From the Glamping(?) Beat

Maybe you’ll remember our dispatch (just scroll past the controversial part in the beginning) from a few weeks ago in which we curiously eyed something called Yonder, on the outskirts of Escalante, Utah, and wondered what in the hey it was.

Turns out it’s a “glamping” resort (we’ll let you work out the etymology) and that it’s part of a new trend proliferating across the Southwest that, according to a Corner Post report by Rachel Fixsen, is causing headaches for land-use planners. Seems the developers of these things are passing them off as campgrounds when, in fact, they’re more like canvas-sided subdivisions—some are even equipped with tiny homes (and movie theaters, and cafes, and spas).

Fixsen’s story opened my eyes to just how many of these places there are. And a subsequent gander at their websites—and the prices one pays to glamp—was a bit shocking. One company, Under Canvas, has glamping resorts at Lake Powell, Bryce Canyon, Moab, Zion, the Grand Canyon, and beyond. Their cheapest tent, with a king-sized bed, is $329 per night. Think of these as gentrified KOAs on steroids.

The proposed George Eco Luxury Hotel Resort, which developers hope to build in San Juan County, Utah, east of the Needles District of Canyonlands, would include 82 “guest domes” clustered around a sandstone formation known as George Rock (thus the name), as well as a pool, a “movie dome,” and a restaurant.

Parting Shot