How have the quotas been monitored, on site, since 2009? How will the quotas be monitored under the new system?
Is the new, proposed, system offense to you? Would you rather there be no quotas at all?
I did not call the average tourist hiker a "Disneyland tourist"; that's your term. But perhaps your term is more to the point.
Hi Bob,
The quota system thus far has been monitored by placing a ranger near the base of the cables, and he/she checks the permits.
While there has been plenty of whining/sniveling about the quotas on all of the boards, the statistics speak for themselves: summer 2009 (before qoutas) was the worst season on record for rescues/fatalities, Summer 2010 (first year quotas) was one of the best.
Whitney is a big mountain, yet they only allow 150 entries a day; why are people not having tantrums about this relatively small number? Perhaps it is because they have seen their own personal mountain experience improved?
Things change.
There used to be a fabulous trail in Yosemite Valley called "Ledge Trail"; it was very popular, but now it is closed due to excessive rockfall. As soon as a "trail" is placed on the landscape, the future of that landscape is forever altered and placed in a state of managed peril. Not even herds of animals travel with the frequency of humans on a trail (most mass animal movement is seasonal, giving the surrounding landscape a chance to rocover in the midseason)
It continues to amaze me that anyone who witnessed/experienced the cable crush would continue his/her befuddlement over the need for
any such numbers management (there are plenty out there who oppose any and all attempts to monitor the herd up the dome.)
