Nature is indifferent to man-made boundaries.
The U.S. government, on the other hand, adores them. It carves its hundreds of millions of acres of recreational land into national parks, forests, refuges and other vast holdings that cover much of the country.
Lesser-known wilds often share the parkland’s famous scenery. “A boundary is really something artificial we made up,” park guidebook author Michael Frome says. “The ecosystem and landscape continue.”
Old-growth woods and mountains in the forest service’s Citico Creek Wildernesses, for example, are pretty much indistinguishable from the Smokies’ best backcountry–except they’re quieter.
Idaho’s Targhee National Forest covers the western slopes of the Grand Teton Range, a quiet contrast to the Teton’s eastern approaches, which include the heavily commercialized Jackson, Wyo.
Knowledgeable Utahans camp and hike Bureau of Land Management lands next to Canyonlands National Park, often in gorges that run into the park.
In the bureaucratic complexity are wonderful opportunities to find solitude. For every national park attraction that’s mobbed in midsummer–Yellowstone’s geysers, Yosemite’s valley floor, the Great Smoky Mountains’ scenic roads–there are scores of natural glories on public lands that aren’t parks.
These wilderness wallflowers lack the parks’ name-recognition, visitor facilities, commercial development and long waiting lists for reservations.
They also lack crowds.
What it takes to find your own slice of the wild is to zoom back from the national icons and consider what’s next door.
“Move an inch on the map, away from the big-name park, and maybe that’s where you really want to go,” the Wilderness Society’s Ben Beach says.
Yellowstone Park, for instance, is bounded by four national forests with combined acreage much greater than the park’s. Great Smoky Mountains National Park abuts three national forests. Southern Utah’s national parks are drops in a huge bucket of red-rock wilds managed by the BLM.
Nonpark land isn’t always less crowded. Along the highways, parts of the Smokies’ neighboring national forests–Cherokee, Pisgah and Nantahala–are as packed as the park, as are portions of western forests that lie along tourist routes.
But getting out of national parks is a good start toward finding solitude.
Research is the key to finding splendid isolation.
Prime printed matter is the Sierra Club’s seven-book series “Guide to the Natural Areas of …” Each book takes a pan-jurisdictional look at a region–New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada, for instance–revealing dozens of under-visited treasures, most on forest service or BLM land.
The Sierra Club’s guides, which range from $10 to $14, cover the West, New England and Florida.
Or you can start your research by calling or writing the various land-managing agencies’ Washington, D.C., offices. From there, contact state and regional field offices to get local information.
Net-surfers are in the best position to target public-domain wilds and make plans for adventuring in them, accessing the information on the federal land managing agencies’ excellent Web sites.
Remember that solitude, in itself, is not necessarily a virtue. Much of the nonpark federal land has been disfigured by logging, mining and grazing.
Remember, too, that people-free corners of the public domain call for extra-careful trip planning and self-sufficiency. Generally speaking, national forests are next-best to the national parks, in terms of visitor services and field staffing. Parts of the forest service’s 192-million-acre system seem distinctly parklike, with visitors centers; marked and maintained, or even paved, walking paths; big campgrounds; and other amenities.
The 267.6 million acres managed by the BLM is much skinnier on development and staffing, as are the 92.5 million acres of Fish and Wildlife Service refuges.
Certain heck-and-gone reaches, such as western Arizona’s 660,000-acre Kofa National Wildlife Refuge, should be considered experts-only, “no place for a casual afternoon visit,” the Sierra Club guide says.
One last advantage to adventuring next to–not in–a national park is that you’re positioned to enjoy the park’s comforts when the adventuring is done.
When you’ve had the wilderness you came for, the crowds don’t seem so bad.
WHERE TO GET THE DETAILS
– U.S. Bureau of Land Management, Public Affairs Office, 1849 C St. N.W., LS 406, Washington, D.C. 20240; 202-452-5125; www.blm.gov
– U.S.D.A. Forest Service, Washington Office, Publications, P.O. Box 96090, Washington, D.C. 20090; 202-205-1760; www.fs.fed.us
– U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Division of Refuges, Room 640, 4401 N. Fairfax Dr., Arlington, Va. 22203; 800-344-9453; www.fws.gov
– U.S. National Park Service, National Public Inquiries Office, 1849 C St., P.O. Box 37127, Washington, D.C. 20013; 202-208-4747; www.nps.gov
To order the Sierra Club natural areas guidebooks ($10 to $14), contact: Sierra Club Mail Order, 4th floor, 85 2nd St., San Francisco, Calif. 94105; 800-935-1056; www.sierraclub.org/books/home.html
