Yes and no, over a full year there’s ~6 visits to a national park per acre. Damage is a function of how much people concentrate in specific areas not an inevitable result of how many people visit parks.
You need trails for extreme attractions like old faithful or tiny parks near major metro area, but it’s fine to go far off the beaten path as nowhere close to enough people do so to meaningfully impact what’s there.
But that gets back to my point people in general aren’t looking to experience nature. They want those scenic overlooks, waterfalls, etc not a random spot.
Several, if not most, of the plants are extremely senstitive to being trampled on and take many months and years to recover. So even a single trek off the beaten path by a few people or even one person will damage the plant life. It will also disrupt animal life and potentially adjust travel patterns. For example, moss and young ferns are extremely sensitive and fragile.
That really only applies to moderate traffic area.
Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve sees ~10,000 people per year and covers 8,472,506 acres. At the other end Grand Canyon National Park sees ~4.5 million visitors there’s a world of difference between them.
But even the Grand Canyon National Park has 1,217,262 acres the majority of which is seeing below 1 person per year. It’s hard to track someone walking through an area after even just a week, the actual impact from an individual visit is tiny, it’s only at scale that there’s issues.
Delicate plants taking years to recover isn’t an issue when a random square foot is unlikely to see 2 visitors in 1,000 years on average.
It just doesn't work that way. If you consider the small percentage of acres that are actually walkable by humans and how humans would get to those areas from feeder trails, then the impact isn't just a random person walking in a random square foot in the entire park. Humans don't just teleport to random square foot patches. They get there from feeder trails and are constrained by what is traversable in the first place. And who gets to choose who walks off path? Everyone gets to? Only certain people? I'm not sure why you're arguing this. It's been studied, and it's damaging. Going off trail also increases the chances of introducing non-native plant and insect species.
Nature isn't for us. The trails are enough to experience it. Going off trail is selfish and damaging.
Nature is for us, my friend, but we have to be intelligent in how we care for it, and you have a very good understanding of how important that is. Cheers!
We must also care for each other in the same way that we should be caring for our beloved Earth, herself. Once we become consumed by compassion, we care for all we come into contact with. That is the pinnacle of human personal achievement, but few reach for that glorious happiness.
> If you consider the small percentage of acres that are actually walkable by humans
Grand Canyon was an extreme example, but people can go over rough terrain. That’s a big part of what being in nature means.
In terms of damage to nature, any large animal is going to trample plants, even deer trails very noticeably impact plants let alone a grizzly or moose. That’s just part of nature, it’s scale that’s the issue. Hiking trails are just points of concentrated damage which is one viable option.
> They get there from feeder trails and are constrained by what is traversable in the first place. And who gets to choose who walks off path? Everyone gets to?
Everyone gets to as long as they are in a low density area and don’t pick to exit at some interesting spot. You take a trail length divide by the number of people roughly using a trail, and as long as you get to ~1 person/foot per 50 years it’s fine to exit in a mathematically random spot not just because you pick what feels random. Obviously this excludes a great number of trails people frequent, but that’s kind of the point.
Now you should also avoid interesting destinations and be careful how you come back. Anyway, there you have it a scaleable rule that works for hundreds of millions of visitors without creating undo harm.
> Off-trail trampling causes millions in damage to national parks:
Did you read what you linked? That damage is explicitly mentioned as: “sinks ripped off restroom walls, road signs mowed down by some hooligan's pickup, spray-painted graffiti on roadside markers”
You need trails for extreme attractions like old faithful or tiny parks near major metro area, but it’s fine to go far off the beaten path as nowhere close to enough people do so to meaningfully impact what’s there.
But that gets back to my point people in general aren’t looking to experience nature. They want those scenic overlooks, waterfalls, etc not a random spot.