I feel like I’m always trying to figure out the purpose behind various National Park policies, and doing what I can to make my trip work according to their rules. I suppose some people would call that gaming the system, but it seems to me it’s playing by the rules of their own game, while still trying to win. As the director of a publicly serving institution, I recognize that people use whatever system and policies you put into place to meet their own needs, and if you as an organization didn’t really consider human behavior and motivation, that’s on the institution, not on the patron. If they follow the letter rather than the spirit of the rule (law, whatever), they’re in the right.
I do get into trouble sometimes with this perspective, as my group did in Glacier National Park a few years back. We had a solid one week itinerary, which got interrupted midway through by a high wind warning and rangers told us it was not safe to proceed over the next pass. So we skipped a section of hiking, but kept our same booked campsite for the night. Another ranger then tried to get us kicked out of the park! Fortunately, her supervisor overruled her and we were able to continue our hike. After the hike I looked everywhere for this supposed rule and never found it. The mean ranger thought we were “cheating” when we were literally following their safety recommendations (which ultimately we should have ignored; that pass was perfectly safe even in high wind; the ranger had never actually walked it).
Anyway now I’m booking Mather campground in Grand Canyon for some dates next spring, and ran into the “Waiting period for modifications and cancellations” warning. Rather than wait for all the dates I need to book, which surely would mean not getting the same site on nights 2 and 3, I’m booking one night at a time, getting onto the system early in the day to make sure I get the site I need so I don’t have to change sites partway through my trip. I guess some people just book the first one and then try to change that reservation to cover more dates once they open for booking, and that is what this weird policy is designed to prevent. Makes zero sense to me. Hopefully I’m not again running afoul of some weird hidden policy they’ll throw at me on arrival. But I have a legit booking for each night, at the same campsite, just several individual bookings instead of one covering all my nights. The alternative is to follow their waiting period, and then lose my site and have to change sites every night and still book each night separately.
On the Wonderland the best advice I got was to skip all the nonsense and go for walkup permits and just make sure we were first in line at the ranger station (we were). We had a plan B and plan C just in case, which we fortunately did not need. But all the lotteries and whatnot are just extra stress. It’s always a relief when you just start walking.
Every location has its own peculiar policies and procedures, and I’m never trying to cheat, just figure out how to go camping and hiking! And I do love the other public lands too, with easier access. But national parks are national parks for a reason; they’re the cream.
Pic from my fall workout trail!
