Backcountry Coastal Campsite Inventories, 1988 to 1998

Tetreau, Michael

NPS backcountry rangers and biological technicians conducted inventories of human impacts at coastal backcountry campsites during the summers of 1993 and 1997. Methodologies that were used were very similar and comparable to those developed for the NPS by Jeff Marion (Marion, 1991). Of the 17 sites that were surveyed in both years, and that had significant human impact, only 3 sites showed a marked increase in the level of impact whereas most site showed no noticeable change. Most campsites along the coast tend to be very small and are usually located on the beach berm. Few sites penetrate very far into the vegetation and even fewer are located in the spruce forest. The durable beach substrate shows little sign of impact, even with moderate to heavy use. As a result, a vast majority of the sites have impact levels of 0 or 1 (on Marion s scale of 0 to 5), and the worst sites are at level 3. With the exception of a few fragile sites, it is doubtful that impacts to soils and vegetation will be the deciding factor or trigger in determining acceptable levels of physical and social impacts in the coastal backcountry of KEFJ. Issues such as social crowding, human waste management and wildlife disturbance may well come into play before physical impacts at the campsites become a concern.