New reasons to visit a national park

Targeting adults and families
Meanwhile, tour operators are looking to provide enhanced services to adults and families eager to explore a national park but hesitant about doing it on their own.

Ashley Korenblat, president of the Moab, Utah-based tour operator Western Spirit, says her clients need help navigating the backcountry and want a more sophisticated experience than most national parks currently offer.

"The experience has become drive somewhere, jump out of the car and then drive somewhere else," says Korenblat. "Many of these parks were built in the '50s when cars were thought to be nothing but good."

As an alternative, Korenblat offers clients a well-choreographed trip to explore the backcountry, which is a remote, undeveloped and less-traveled area of a park. Families benefit particularly from the assistance of a guide who knows exactly how long it takes two adults and two children to hike a mile-long trail to the shores of Crater Lake in Oregon, for example.

While Korenblat, who is also the former president of the International Mountain Bicycling Association, is currently working with the NPS on expanding bike paths and lanes within the parks, she believes that "little pockets of creativity" are responsible for some of the most innovative changes. In recent years, a 100-mile stretch of national grassland between the northern and southern parts of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park became a mountain biking destination after rangers created a single track trail to link the two.

At the Redwood National Park in California, the tour operator Redwood Adventures is also working to draw new visitors. In 2007, there were 385,000 visits to the park, a decline from 2003 when there were 408,000.

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Grant Roden, Redwood Adventures' general manager, says, while the park has yet to develop new programs, officials have welcomed the presence of companies like his.

"They see it as the private sector that will make the park a destination," says Roden, who is quick to note that they work closely with local agencies. "We can be the eyes and ears of the parks."

Redwood Adventures currently offers several packages, including hiking and coastal tours, mountain bike riding, fishing and kayaking. Along with other businesses, they are looking for new ways to grab the attention of passers-by who drive through the park on Highway 101, usually destined for San Francisco or Portland, Ore.

Their daily challenge is representative of what the National Park Service faces on a grand scale.

"What we're trying to do," says Roden, "is get people off the road so they can start learning about the [redwood] trees."

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