. Research for tomorrow's forests : 1983 research accomplishments. --. Forests and forestry Research United States. Keeping the "Wild" in Wilderness Campsites One of the wilderness manager's most vexing problems is deciding what to do about overused campsites. Without action, the goal of preserving natural conditions in wilderness areas cannot be achieved. Researchers at the Intermountain Station have conducted studies in the northern Rockies to develop guidelines on how managers can control campsite impacts. The results show that just a little use can cause considerable dam- age, an
. Research for tomorrow's forests : 1983 research accomplishments. --. Forests and forestry Research United States. Keeping the "Wild" in Wilderness Campsites One of the wilderness manager's most vexing problems is deciding what to do about overused campsites. Without action, the goal of preserving natural conditions in wilderness areas cannot be achieved. Researchers at the Intermountain Station have conducted studies in the northern Rockies to develop guidelines on how managers can control campsite impacts. The results show that just a little use can cause considerable dam- age, and that beyond this threshold a lot more use causes only a little addi- tional damage. For example, in the Eagle Cap Wilderness, campsites used only a few times a year had a 9-percent vegetation cover, while campsites used up to 50 times more frequently still retained a vegetation cover of 4-percent. This suggests that managers can mini- mize ecological change in heavily used parts of backcountry areas by limiting use to a few sites. If they do not take this action, campers will begin to camp everywhere at popular destinations. In one study, 221 campsites were found in a 325-acre area around two Eagle Cap Wilderness lakes, even thougn typical use was fewer than 10 parties per night. Dispersing use among a large number of sites seems appropriate only where use is low, ecosystems are resistant, and campers are familiar with low-impact camping techniques. Parties using pack animals are partic- ularly hard on campsites. This was demonstrated in a study in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, where sites used by stock parties were unusually large and had numerous damaged trees. Researchers have found that the most effective way to minimize these im- pacts is to educate users, particularly about the damage caused by felling trees and tying stock to trees. While there is much more to learn about what deteriorates campsites, managers in the northern Rockies are already putting these research re
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