First in a series of three. Note this is just a first thoughts draft. Comments, thoughts & corrections sought and welcome!
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Zones
I understand that this document is, necessarily, general in presentation. As such, there are no details on how a zonal system would be used to regulate use. Nonetheless, I don't see how it can realistically be enforced or, philosophically, implemented within the spirit of the Wilderness Act.
Practical Considerations
If I'm reading this correctly, a person getting a permit would be limited as to where they could go based on where they want to go. This is a radical change from the current system where, once a permit has been issued -- no matter the route -- a person can go wherever they want. People getting permits might have a general idea of their route and be able to name some of the specific places on that route. The permit issuer, then, would have to decide what zones of travel the person goes through and grant or deny a permit based on that. In addition, for permitting purposes, will the zones be as shown by the map, or more fine-tuned like the Travel Zones that currently exist for the parks. So would travel limits be based on the former (larger) zones or the latter? If, say, zone D has reached it maximum, does that mean that a person wanting to enter the Ionian basin where, maybe, no one has gone to, can't go there because the overall zone is full?
Whether the broader zones as mapped by the Draft or the existing Travel Zones, implementation means that separate daily tallies have to be made of travel destinations and the permit issuer has to be aware of those tallies AND know the place names of the traveler. The the permit issuer must locate those zones to be able to determine if the zone is full or not. This is totally unworkable. There is no way a USFS permit issuer in Lone Pine or Bishop, for instance, is going to know the location of Chasm Lake or Lake 10,212 then be able to tell a person it's full, then take the time while the visitor tries to come up with alternative routes that are not full. In my experience, permit issuers now almost universally only list the first three or four nightly camp destinations. To do more requires greater knowledge and time. Both almost impossible given the size of their area of responsibility and the length of lines on an August day.
I also can't imagine how the zone system is going to be effectively enforced once the visitor is travelling in the backcountry. A ranger is going to have to be familiar with what locations are in what zones and carefully check the permit to see if the visitor is allowed at a particular place. The named place (or zone) on a permit may not at all match where that person is but enforcement will depend on matching their location to the zone allowed on the permit. Another level of especially intrusive enforcement is placed on both the visitor and the ranger to the benefit of no one but to the detriment of the spirit of wilderness.
Philosophical Considerations
Wilderness is about freedom. Any management system that limits that freedom is inherently antithetical to the very spirit of wilderness. Absent obvious and quantifiable ecological or social impacts from overuse, there is no need to micro-manage wilderness travel as proposed by the zone plan introduced with these alternatives. I have been a backcountry ranger for over 40 years and can authoritatively say that impacts are not even close to those where such micro-management is necessary.
At the height of wilderness visitation in the late 60s and through the 70s, impacts were far greater than they have been since. Even then, those impacts were localized and did not require anything other than the daily trailhead maximums that were established by the mid-70s. Those maximums were, to a certain extent, based on dispersal patterns. If 50 hikers left the trailhead, 30 of them would go to, say, the closest lake, 10 would continue on a loop, and maybe 10 would disperse to more isolated cross-country areas. Use, then, could be regulated by the total numbers allowed per day. If impacts increased in, say, the close-in lake, the trailhead quota could be – and often was – reduced to reduce overall impacts. Or if it was clearly a localized problem, a camping nights limit could be placed on the specific lake.
In my direct and long-time experience, this management approach continues to work extremely well. A person leaving a trailhead has an infinite number of possibilities to choose from while travelling. A wilderness traveler can see a basin from the trail or on a map and suddenly choose to go there. Such unrestricted possibility is at the core of what wilderness – and Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks – must offer backcountry users. People's daily lives are nothing but constraint on their movement: schedules must be met; specific roads must be followed in specific directions and at specific speeds; a myriad of rules govern every aspect of work and even non-wilderness regulation. But when a person puts on a backpack and steps onto a trail, all that changes. There are a few rules, sure, but the can go wherever they want at whatever pace they want. They're not required to be at a certain place at a certain time. They can change where they're going and even how long they're staying if the spirit of wilderness so moves and inspires them.
This must not be tampered with in any way. Absent any compelling reason to change from trailhead quotas, that system should continue to be the primary management tool to regulate use levels. Zone-level management would seem to increase regulation and discourage the realization of immanence, even enlightenment, when travelling in wilderness.
