(Orson Welles)
The current tendency in the parks is to limit entrances by upping admission prices, requiring reservations, and so forth. These solutions may be necessary, and I would rather put up with them than see a park destroyed. But usually pressures could be better reduced by getting rid of the motor vehicles. A car takes up more space, makes more noise, pollutes more air, requires more facilities, and carries more trash than a person or a lot of people. Let the visitors walk or put them on bicycles. That is what the parks are all about anyway. Let them stick their noses in flowers, gawk at the cliffs, wonder at the sunset, and get blisters on their feet. But for God's sake, let them leave their gasoline engines somewhere else we need parks, not parking lots.
(Raymond Bridge)
Ultimate purpose is to conserve, use, and enjoy the mountain hinterland which penetrates the populous portion of America from north to south. The Trail (or system of trails) is a means for making the land accessible. The Appalachian Trail is to this Appalachian region what the Pacific Railway was to the Far West a means of ?opening up' the country. But a very different kind of ?opening up. ' Instead of a railway we want a ?trail way'. But unlike the railway the trail way must preserve (and develop) a certain environment. Otherwise its whole point is lost. The railway ?opens up' a country as a site for civilization; the trail way should ?open up' a country as an escape from civilization. The path of the trail way should be as ?pathless' as possible; it should be the minimum consistent with practical accessibility.
(Benton Mackaye)