Review: Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks

Uncertain Path: A Search for the Future of National Parks by William C. Tweed
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A slightly academic book by someone who worked for the US National Park System for decades. After Tweed’s retirement he takes a month long hike through the Sierra Nevada mountains. This hike is used as the frame for the book in discussing how the national park’s underlying principles needs to change.

The key phrase used as the guiding principle since the agency was established in 1916 is that the parks will be preserved "unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations." Tweed writes extensively about how there are several problems with this phrasing. The inability to change, the word even, unimpaired, is going to be nearly impossible with the effects of climate change. Already there are visible stressors to the forests from the warming climate and other pollution levels. The last chapter offers some solutions, even possible new wordings.

However, the bulk of the book is about Tweed’s hiking trip through the sierras. A friend joins him for several weeks. They encounter other park rangers and have discussions about how they are looking for a missing hiker or someone who was abusing the rules. It makes these vast parks seems smaller than they actually are. The hike also has a way of introducing some of the history of the park service. When he hikes up a peak the name naturally introduces the reason why that name adorns that mountain.

There are extensive sections about who uses the park. Stock users, those who use pack animals to get into the high country, have a long tradition but it can be damaging to the trails and the meadows. Contrasting with the backpackers whose motto is leave no trace behind. Tweed also comments on the change in backpackers, fewer of the younger generations find their entertainment in the Sierras. Some who do look at it as solely a challenge, who can hike the trail the fastest, or bag the most peaks. Then there’s those people that have traditionally not looked at the forest as a recreational avenue for them.

Perhaps the book’s purpose could be summed up by these words: “The parks will have to undergo a metamorphosis that provides them with both new management goals in tune with our contemporary scientific knowledge and a redefined societal role that attracts new generations of users. Nothing less will succeed.”

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