 Backpackers at the busy Mount Whitney trailhead that gets trampled by nearly a million pairs of boots annually. A recent study shows National Forest visitation is down nationwide, but the Inyo National Forest is seeing, and local retailers are reporting, just the opposite. File photo By Mike Bodine
Register Staff
12-13-2008 The Inyo National Forest is bucking the trend of declining visitation in national forests, with local retailers and government agencies reporting steady increases.
A recently released report issued by the National Visitor Use Monitoring (NVUM) office of the U.S. Forest Service states that there has been a steady drop in people visiting national forests nationwide.
The NVUM reports show a steady decline in visitation across the country, from 204.8 million in 2001 to 178.6 million in 2007, for a 16.6 percent reduction. In the Pacific Northwest, visitation is down by nearly 30 percent, and in California the reduction is at 7 percent.
However, preliminary numbers from the Inyo National Forest (INF) and anecdotal evidence from local retailers indicate no decline in visitors coming to the local mountains. In fact, there are reports that visitation could increase in INF by as much as 95,000 visitors a year for the next 20 years.
Jeff Marsolais, recreation officer for INF, said Thursday that visitor sampling was done in INF in 2002 and 2005 and a draft of these findings was produced in July 2007. He said that these numbers are still being refined by a National Forest research station in Georgia, with a report of hard numbers expected to be released at the beginning of next year.
According to Marsolais, these studies will help in predicting future use and plans can be made accordingly to accommodate that use.
Public Relations Officer Nancy Upham did provide some numbers from local visitor centers, including the Mt. Whitney Interpretive Center in Lone Pine, the Mammoth, Mono Lakes Basin and White Mountain centers and Schulman Grove in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest. Upham explained there have been no significant decreases of visitors in the last several years, with a half-million visits to these centers, collectively, in 2007.
Local retailers that provide specific services for the backcountry enthusiast are saying business is not declining, and in fact, they may be rising.
Doug Thompson, owner of the Whitney Portal Store outside of Lone Pine, said that 2008 had been busier than the previous year, “above normal.”
Thompson said that this year he has seen “more people than ever” on the John Muir Trail, which starts/ends at the Mount Whitney trail. He said he has also seen more overnighters at the campgrounds in Lone Pine and Onion Valley out of Independence than in past years.
At the Whitney Portal, gateway to the Mount Whitney trail, Thompson said visitation was busy up until the last week in October, and there were still people the first week in November, unusual for a primarily summer destination.
Also unusual this year, Thompson explained, was the mass amount of media coverage the Mount Whitney area received this year.
He said that in early summer, when gasoline prices were peaking, KTLA, Channel 5 from Los Angeles, featured Mount Whitney as a destination for a piece entitled “One Tank Trips.” The Los Angeles Times did a story on the opening of the new hostel in Lone Pine and even The Wall Street Journal did a feature in August about hiking the peak.
This is on top of the increased interest in the Lone Pine Film Festival and the Alabama Hills Stewardship Group being one of 21 recipients nationwide to receive the U.S. Department of Interior’s Cooperative Conservation Award.
Thompson added that the Whitney Portal Store Web site was visited 2 million times this last season. And, according to www.climb.mountains.com, in 2004 Mount Whitney saw more than a million visitors.
“Mount Whitney has its own momentum,” said Kastle Lund, owner of Elevation, a climbing and hiking retail store in Lone Pine, calling Mount Whitney a world destination.
“I know of a Ukrainian in the (local) mountains right now that had saved for two years to hike Mount Whitney,” Lund said Thursday.
So, while the NVUM may be stating visitation is down, this does not seem to be the case for the southern end of Inyo County and INF. However, Mount Whitney is an “unusual” destination one of the many “icons,” as Marsolais put it, that are unique to INF and Inyo County. Some of these other icons in INF include the Bristlecone pine forest, some of the oldest living things on the planet, historic Mono Lake and Devil’s Postpile, “one of the world’s finest examples of columnar basalt.”
These are not to mention the outdoor attractions not on INF land, like Death Valley and the world-class rock climbing found on Bureau of Land Management lands, that bring visitors to the area.
In the northern end of the county, retailers have yet to see a downturn in visitors to public lands.
Chris Iversen, manager of Wilson’s Eastside Sports, said Friday that if anything, she has seen an increase in visitors. She attributes this to many of the same factors Thompson cited, including media coverage that is increasing awareness of what’s possible in the backcountry. She added that vacationing in the national forests is inexpensive and fun.
However, the Western Slope No-Fee Coalition is blaming fees for the nationwide visitation decline. “The increasingly-common fees charged to visitors on national Forests are cited (in the NVUM) as one reason for the falling visitation.”
Inyo National Forest does charge fees at some sites, particularly those “iconic” places in the forest, like the shuttle bus to Red’s Meadow and Devil’s Postpile, Mount Whitney permit reservations and Schulman Grove Visitor Center in the Bristlecone Pine Forest.
Upham said that there have been relatively no negative responses to these fees. And, according to Upham and the NVUM, “overall people are satisfied” with the services provided by INF.
Marsolais also pointed to some other important details in the NVUM concerning INF.
Marsolais said that according to the preliminary data, visitors are planning longer visits, and are staying longer, on average in INF than other national forests. The NVUM states the national average length of stay in national forests is 23.1 hours, while in INF the average is about 80 hours.
|
