>>1094510>>1094545etc.
Pic related, NWRs can ban all public entry. They are one step beyond designated Wilderness Areas in the U.S. as far as allowing public access. Refuges are just short of actual military reservations.
The real problem are these labels applied to a place. In my area we had a "National Recreation Area" that was protected from logging, mining, and road-building, but that wasn't good enough. The Wilderness advocates persisted, and carved out new pieces of this designation in an area that was "protected" enough to begin with. The trails are now freeways for commercial equestrian outfitters, their metal-shod beasts of burden destroying the once-smooth trail above treeline. The "Wilderness" brand, along with "Park," and "Monument" have been marketed into the American public's brain for generations, so naturally the masses flock to these areas. I find solitude elsewhere.
