imtnbke, glad to see you return to the Traveler to weigh in, though, as Rick pointed out, it seems only because mountain bikes are part of the discussion. The parks are about so much more than one recreational pursuit, and your thoughts on other aspects in play would be welcome.

But beyond that, perhaps you could explain the point the Outside author was trying to make by noting that the Outdoor Alliance counts 100,000 members who skew towards a Gen Y/Millennial demographic, while NPCA's 500,000 members have a median age in their sixties?

Is he stereotyping older folks as sedentary folks? Surely that can't be the case, can it? I know and encounter plenty of folks in their sixties and older out enjoying the parks in active recreational pursuits. Indeed, one friend in her 70s rows her own raft down the Yampa and Green rivers through Class III and IV rapids, and another still climbs mountains. There are other examples, but the point is that entering one's seventh decade doesn't equate with avoiding the outdoors.

While I haven't quite reached that demographic, when I do, will I immediately be cast onto the couch, sell my canoe, tents, backpack, hiking boots, and road bike and head to parks only to tour museums (which isn't a bad thing, though the Park Service does need to invest more in them)?

Beyond that, his claim of Millennials being "ostracized" is way off the mark, and we'll address that in the days to come.

Sad to see this website turn into a forum for trolls to lash out at minorities they dislike.

Well, I'll stay away from the access debate for once.  It seems that this mission is a bit of a stretch from the original NPS mission.  Living in the SF bay area, I got plenty of gay friends, but it seems like the NPS has more pressing needs right now.

And I'm actually going to visit a National Park next week, for the first time in years!!

We'll expect a full report, Zeb. The good, the bad, and the downright ugly. And don't forget a photo or three...

Since we're going to the Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park, it ought to be pretty nice!

Hi, Kurt — Thanks. I'm even more guilty than you're stating, because I found a topic utterly unrelated to mountain biking and managed to drag it into the discussion thread. I wanted to find a way to introduce the Outside article to the regulars on these boards.

I don't think he's stereotyping older folks as sedentary. But there is always the risk of treating older people with disdain in our youth-oriented society, so one should tread carefully in pointing out demographics. Giving the author the benefit of any doubt, I think he was saying the NPS would be wise to engage with people who will be around to support its budget in 30 years, which the NPCA people may not be, unless NPCA alters its focus. By the way, in this fabulous TEDx talk, Brady Robinson has made the same point: all of the traditional conservation and environmental organizations are in the same demographic bind, with few members under 50 and an average age well into the 60s (interestingly, about the same demographic as Rush Limbaugh, whose average listener is reported to be a 69-year-old rural male).

http://vimeo.com/57179265

Also, I agree with you that "ostracized" is too strong a characterization of the NPS's attitude toward recreation. The NPS's recent pro-recreation initiatives, however cautious and timid they may be, have caused some consternation in NPT discussions. Leaving aside a couple baby steps in favor of mountain biking, the NPS decided, amazingly, that the Wilderness Act allows for leaving fixed climbing anchors in place. A strict reading of the Wilderness Act would disallow them, so the fact that the NPS went the other way is nothing short of miraculous. So yes, "ostracized" is off the mark.

Again speaking of mountain biking, the NPS seems more progressive these days than does the Forest Service, which continues to insist that mountain biking is illegal on the Pacific Crest Trail, based on a typewritten order from three FS employees in 1988 that they issued, with no notice and comment proceedings, after the FS headquarters in Washington refused a request from the PCT Association's predecessor to ban bicycles. The closure order is plainly illegal, but the FS won't back away from it.

Nevertheless, I hope your article won't focus on the use of the word "ostracized," because overall, the Outside article states its case compellingly, and it won't look particularly persuasive to focus on that one overstatement.

Rick refers to my interests as a "thingie," and you wish I would write about more than mountain biking. To me, though, the controversies surrounding that one minor sport illustrate so many of the larger questions that surround conservation and even American culture generally (the ingrained Puritan tradition that continues to inform American thought versus a relaxed approach to life, for example). I try in these posts to get beyond wheels-on-trails to comment on the larger issues.

I'll weigh on on recent or impending visits. Last week I visited Effigy Mounds National Monument, in eastern Iowa.

The good: the NPS's usual high maintenance standards showed. The trails that wend their way among the mounds are in impeccable shape. Same with the visitor center. The mounds are remarkable, if not physically, then for what they represent: the presence of a civilization I don't know how many thousands of years old.

The bad: we watched a 14-minute introductory film that was excruciatingly politically correct. In essence, the noble natives lived in harmony with the environment and were a model of good comportment, but the Europeans showed up and wrecked everything. If the Indians, for example, engaged in cruel, take-no-prisoners warfare with neighboring tribes, or the men brutalized their wives or stole women from neighboring tribes, there was no mention of anything of the kind. (For a compelling portrayal of the cruelty of the Iroquois in 1634, although I can't vouch for its accuracy, I recommend the excellent, but gruesome, 1991 Bruce Beresford movie Black Robe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Robe_%28film%29)).

And this gets back to this discussion thread. People who are expressing skepticism about the NPS's LGBT approach are being accused of homophobia. I'm not so sure I see homophobia in their comments. They could be basically gay-positive but skeptical that the NPS will present an unvarnished look at the history of gay and lesbian people in this country. For example, I have met people who knew Harvey Milk personally (I also live in the Bay Area) and have read about him. He was, of course, a pioneer for gay civil rights and a courageous figure. He was also, according to some, an abrasive and somewhat arrogant man who wasn't particularly likable. Would the NPS present him as a complete human being, or rather as a saint? Isn't this an issue with the NPS's treatment of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., also?

And, finally, the ugly: the park ranger at the visitor center cash register was armed. Although I recognize that rural eastern Iowa is a hotbed of criminal activity :-), I continue to object to the arming of so many park rangers. I sometimes feel I'm at a U.S. border crossing rather than an NPS visitor center or other bucolic site.

Now, back to my idée fixe: I saw that there were miles of trails and asked if I could mountain bike them to see as much as possible. The armed ranger said no, that would be "inappropriate" (the perfect buzzword for our therapeutic age) because the Indian mounds were "sacred" places of burial—a comment of a piece with the Yosemite superintendent's comparison of the parks to the Sistine Chapel. I ventured that probably no one at the NPS had asked the current Indian people's opinions of this and that they might be fine with it. Then I asked, "So it's not OK to ride a bike, but it would be OK to stand next to the mounds and talk on a cell phone?" The ranger conceded that I had a point.

P.S. Here's The New York Times's review of Black Robe. People on this thread who have an interest in the intersection of North America's wildlands and the history of the peoples who have inhabited them would probably enjoy this movie, which I thought was superb:

http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D0CE1DC1E3EF933A05753C1A967958260