Last year I attended the annual USDA Region 5 Ranger Camp at Mono Lake. Region 5 is the Pacific Southwest Region, one of 9 in the country, encompassing California and Hawaii. So it is a big deal. This is a week of lectures, seminars, working groups, and field exercises, and was attended by forest rangers from all over.
One of the seminars described the goals of the Wilderness Act, and told how things were going. A goal touched upon was the issue of solitude, and a local forest supervisor told of efforts to relieve congestion in popular wilderness camping areas. He mentioned Iceberg Lake in particular.
In an area where camping spots (smooth ground with rock walls, improved by campers over the years) were close together, they returned several to their natural state and constructed new ones farther away. Same number of spots but dispersed over a wider area, so neighbors experience more of a solitude effect.
After a while, campers reestablished spots in the original locations, while the newly constructed ones went empty. He showed a couple of before- and after- aerial pictures. He guessed that some people just like to be near other people, or that some people just don't want to walk a longer distance from the trail to set up camp.
