SaltSage236;

You are really so right! I felt silly bringing it up myself, since it so obvious an experience for those who head into "the backcountry".

I am really familiar only with Olympic National Park, but I am really familiar with it!

Doesn't everyone know that each hour one puts between himself and the trailhead dramatically alters the nature of the people he encounters? That each day one moves off the trail into the backcountry transforms the denizens of such realms as though they are a different species!?

Well, it's true. Olympic officials proudly announce that 2 to 3 million visitors come to the Park each year. You certainly couldn't proven it by me. Never seen 'em, don't have anything to do with them - and I live next to the Park year round (indeed, the most heavily visited part). They don't bother me, and I don't bother them. There could be a hundred million of them come through, and it would be just a shrug, for those of us who haunt the backcountry.

Thirty years ago (at a peak of backcountry enjoyment) there were trod footpaths visible along the key off-trail routes in remote regions of Olympic. A general description and a good topo, and any novice could easily find & follow those routes. Today, the paths are often grown-in and invisible. Without knowing just where they are, it is easy to wander off and greatly complicate the prospect of moving efficiently through trailless areas. In fact, backcountry usage is way down, and has been for many years.

In a few days, I will take a week hike into the Bailey Range of Olympic National Park. This is the biggest, most popular, most spectacular of the standard off-trail traverses. Statistically, I will see less than 10 people total, in 3 or 4 groups - at the very height of tourist season. I may spend 2 or 3 days of that week in total solitude, while moving 10 miles or more each day through ... a sample of planet Earth from 100,000 BC.

10,000,000 people live within an easy drive of Olympic, and there will be roughly 50-100,000 visitors to the Park, while I am rejuvenating my endorphine-balance in seeming the wildest realms in creation.

And all those seething thousands who want & need something more civilized? I am happy to accommodate them.