Thank you all very much. This thread allowed me to scratch an itch that bugs every time someone talks about "going west" and they list all the prominent, justly famous areas, and nothing else. The big parks are overwhelmed with hordes of visitors, leading to quotas and bureaucratic hassles, while many gems go undiscovered. That is not necessarily a bad thing for those of us who seek them out, but an ideal situation would see a more even distribution of visitors.

The crowding works both ways. Not only is the quality degraded for the visitors, but the same thing happens for the staff. I have worked in crowded parks (Mesa Verde) trying to give tours through cliff dwellings, where my presentation eroded as we simply tried to move the large numbes along the path.

In contrast, a guided tour at Channel Islands National Park (San Miguel Island) puts the ranger in contact with a small group, typically four to six, for the entire day, while you hike, sometimes as much as sixteen miles. That is a much better excursion all the way around.

There is a common perception that the NPs are the top of the heap, followed by National Monuments, then State Parks, etc. Statistically, there might be a measure of truth to that concept, but when you get down to cases, there are glaring exceptions. I prefer Fort Robinson State Park (Nebraska) to Hot Springs National Park (Arkansas), for instance.

HOSP is the case that demonstrates that national park areas are created by politicians, and like so much of our political process, their decisions don't always stand up to careful scrutiny.

I will now relinquish the rest of my time to the next speaker and climb down off the soap box....