Well, the semi-good news is Grand Canyon drastically cut the number of animals per day allowed into the canyon. I don't know how much of a difference it makes for a person's trail experience (a little mule s**t & piss goes a long way...) but at least a move in the right direction.
In the 70s I worked in Little Yosemite Valley which had a daily resupply to the Merced High Sierra Camp come through. Some summer days the stench was overpowering. When I got to Sequoia Kings, I was actually amazed how much better it was. Everything's relative and, though I don't find the trails all that bad, many of the outstanding -- iconic -- meadows of Sequoia Kings are absolutely wrecked to my senses as a result of stock use.
While I'm here -- and for those who don't already take the time -- I would advocate more people just go out and walk slowly through any of these meadows. I have often sat and watched hikers click clack by, their hiking poles going at a furious rate, Whitney beckoning them on. Yet I can literally spend all day in some meadows and, except to get water, I rarely see anyone out just walking around in one exploring and experiencing them.
Hang out by the stream. Don't even fish, just hang out there. We need a deeper appreciation of meadows for just what they are, not only incredibly complex ecosystems but as these small islands of peace scattered throughout the Sierra. This is especially true of NPS. Almost all efforts and thinking about meadows are directed towards how they're related to stock grazing: how many night of grazing will they support? What criteria should be used to determine when a meadow is grazed too much? Maintaining fences so stock don't get too far from certain meadows or, occasionally, protect the meadows from stock.
The essence of what a meadow is gets lost in this distracting line of management and research. On the entire John Muir Trail, there is only one meadow that is entirely closed to grazing by stock and so free of their impacts (Vidette).
So, get off the trail occasionally, ignore the high granite peaks and get out into meadows more often! Become a meadoweer!
I've used this quote often but, what the heck. From the legendary Randy Morgenson:
All the meadows in Evolution Valley were grazed this summer, and they all looked it. Yet Franklin Meadow apparently was not, and in October it was a place of knee high grasses, ripe and open panicles drifting on the moving air, luminous-bronze in the backlight. It was a very different place and a very different emotional experience of a mountain meadow, and entirely consistent with what one might rightly expect of national park backcountry. It was a garden. I sometimes wonder whether range management concepts are any more applicable to our business than timber management concepts. The difference between a grazed meadow and a logged forest may only be one of scale.
