Let's Redefine Those Bucket Lists

What did we learn this summer and fall? We learned that people who’d been cooped up, thanks to COVID-19, flocked to our national parks and forests. Once there, many were eager to empty their bucket list of must-do activities in the outdoors.

Consequences ranged from overflowing parking lots, lots of litter and human waste and illegal pets on and off the trails, to campers parking anywhere they wanted, copious graffiti and calls for multiple rescues. At Grand Canyon alone, the summer rescue count exceeded all of last year’s. Visitation on public lands increased as much as 50 percent thi...