Recreation and Wilderness Trends at the White Mountain National Forest
Abstract
The White Mountain National Forest (WMNF) provides a unique and important recreational
opportunity and experience for visitors from around New England and beyond. Monitoring
is a necessary step to assess recreation use trends, resource impacts, and visitor
experience. This monitoring can inform management to better adapt to use levels, anticipate
future trends and mitigate resource concerns. Goals of the monitoring are outlined
in the Forest Plan and Monitoring Guide.
Visitor use and Wilderness data and information from across the WMNF was brought together
to assess current monitoring efforts. Within several important recreation sectors
historical data was used to analyze and model trend lines. The areas of analysis included
developed campground use, backcountry hut and shelter use, alpine skiing, cross-country
skiing and Wilderness group size and number of visitors.
Overall the WMNF is keeping up with the recreation and wilderness monitoring goals
set forth in the Monitoring Guide. The Forest as a whole has continued to provide
a wide range of quality recreation opportunities from motorized to non-motorized to
primitive. Efforts to monitor developed recreation sites including ski areas, and
campgrounds as well as backcountry facilities such as huts and selected shelters have
been consistent. In addition, the Forest has continued to complete Wilderness visitor
use monitoring consistently over the past five years. Areas in the monitoring program
that still need implementation include monitoring of rock climbing areas and shoulder
season impacts of snowmobiling. Other monitoring areas that need some improvement
include outfitter/guide use, use on Forest Trails, Wilderness campsite size and visitor
perceived quality and crowding. These areas all have some monitoring efforts but will
need to be improved in order to fulfill the objectives outlined in the Monitoring
Guide.
Type
Master's projectPermalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3634Citation
DuRocher, Lauren (2011). Recreation and Wilderness Trends at the White Mountain National Forest. Master's project, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/3634.Collections
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