It is not a national park...it is a national monument with crave outs. Which include the Mt. Baldy and Wrightwood areas. The map I have seen does not include these crave outs in any detail.
WB, its not the designation that matters to my point. NM status is the usual first step before NP status, Death Valley for example. Whether it's NM or NP, the area would change jurisdiction from the NFS to the NPS. My point is that the Forest Service is underfunded. I think you'll agree.
I'm not against this proposal, I haven't studied it enough to develop an opinion worth posting. But I lived in Wrightwood for a year, long enough to realize the need to manage this area better. At most every trailhead, I recall graffiti sprayed on rocks, trash, vandalized bathrooms, and broken glass from car break-ins. The closer the trailhead is to LA, the worse it was. Is it still that bad?
My point is that the root cause of the existing situation is due to a lack of funding for the Forest Service to properly manage heavily used recreational areas. Also, the NFS mission and authority is more geared toward economic development of forest resources than resource protection. The NFS needs a major reorg to refocus their mission to keep up with the times, and establish adequate reliable funding. We shouldn't have to move every popular area to the NPS to solve the real problem.
