Tourism has been taking its toll on land in the U.S. through erosion, invasive species, vandalism and much more for far too long.
The damage is no longer, and likely never was, limited to massively popular national parks like the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Glacier, Zion and others. It has finally arrived on the Palouse in one of the more obvious ways.
On Jan. 27, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission voted to permanently close some parts of Palouse Falls State Park Heritage Site.
The pool at the bottom of the falls, the trailed cliffs above the pool and the top of the falls are all no longer accessible, along with the Castle Rock formation.
The park staff have tried multiple ways before resorting to closure to stop the trespassing, vandalism and other dangerous behavior, which has led to death multiple times before within the park.
Despite multiple signs and warnings, some people choose not to remain on the path and risk their lives.
Between 2016 and 2018 four young men died following unauthorized trails to undeveloped areas of the monument. Two of the men drowned swimming in the pool at the bottom of the falls and two others fell from unofficial trails that take hikers to the top of the falls.
Fences were put up and warnings were posted in the forms of signs, social media posts and notices on the park website.
The new signs erected after the most recent death read “Warning — People have died here. We want you to live — Stay back from cliff edge.”
In 2020, the year of the pandemic, multiple national parks broke record visitation and, as a result, several have moved to restricting access in order to combat the effect mass tourism has on the landscapes.
Zion National Park is restricting access to their most popular hike, Angels Landing, after April 1 this year by requiring hikers to have a permit before setting foot on the trail. The decision came after they monitored the number of hikers on the trail in 2019 and 2021.
As one of the hikers in 2021, I saw high amounts of traffic on the trail even during the first weeks of March, when there was still snow on the ground. The number of people was shocking, and seemed to be much more than the land could handle without the preservation efforts of the park employees.
A canyon obviously marked as a place where hikers needed to remain quiet because it was the home of a native species of owl had people storming through with booming speakers and screaming kids. And this wasn’t the worst of the disrespect for the land that I witnessed.
Tourists of state and national parks in the U.S. need to learn to respect the land, because right now we’re not seeing it. Disturbing environments to the detriment of native species, not to mention themselves, is intolerable in this age of climate change.
While it may not seem like a big deal if just one or two people walk along the cliffs to the top of Palouse Falls, more people will always follow and that is where the problem lies. With more people walking off the trails, swimming in places they aren’t supposed to be, walking with booming speakers and totally disrespecting the land we aren’t only putting ourselves at risk. We’re contributing to the destruction of the beauty we went to witness in the first place.
Don’t visit nature’s treasures just to “check the box” and brag that you’ve been there. Slow down, do your research, prepare yourself adequately, listen to the rangers and respect the land. We’ll be able to enjoy more of it for longer that way.
Anteia McCollum can be reached at [email protected]