“It’s Day Seven of Wilderness 2053. This is Chet Bradley, and our satellite monitors show us that Jim is now camping at Gem Lake.” The TV viewers see a picture-perfect alpine lake surrounded with alpine meadows and pine groves. It’s hard for them to tell, but the pine trees here are a lot shorter than those on Yellowstone Creek. Gem Lake is 4000 meters high. “He’s only a day away from his goal: Kings Peak, the highest point in the High Uintas.
“Before this primitive area was established, Gem Lake was a popular camping and fishing area.” Viewers see a still shot from the late ’50s showing rows of neatly-pitched tents. “Let’s see how it looks now that humans have been excluded from the area for fifty years. Jim, what are you finding?”
“Well, Chet, as you can see from the cameras, the area is just beautiful. I’m watching a sunset projecting its last pink rays onto Kings Peak. And in fact if you look carefully … I think those are bighorn sheep on the slope.” The camera zooms in for a close-up of the creatures moving gracefully across a boulder field. “The lake itself is clean, clear, and cold, and there is a beaver colony in the creek nearby.”
“Thank you for that report, Jim. We’ll sign off and let you get some rest.”
Floating in the twilight over Jim’s head are the silent motorized Park Service gliders. In daytime they float on the breezes along with the eagles and hawks, disturbing neither. At night they glide alone. They are not there to help or rescue Jim; they are looking for illegal intruders: Poachers, neighboring farmers and ranchers pushing their wildlife control into the parks, quick-buck photographers, and adrenaline-rush hikers.
Jim remembers sitting in the ancient classroom with only ninety days to go. The windows were open and Jim felt the spring breeze flowing in from the fresh-cut lawn outside.
“No one has been brought to court for wilderness intrusion this year, Jim,” said Horace Manly, the Park Service liaison briefing him on primitive area conditions, “and no one is likely to be. The gliders take care of the problem quickly and cleanly, right on the spot; and a spot is generally all that remains.
“This Park Service policy minimizes wilderness intrusion."
“Has anyone given you any flack about this? I guess maybe the environmentalists wouldn’t, but what about the ACLU?”
“This policy was instituted about ten years ago to clear up a chronic problem in the Mount Shasta area. There were some dope growing mountain-men there that refused to stay out. They claimed that spiritual powers from the mountain suffused their crop—making it unique. They lost in court; we tried relocating them three times. Finally, we put up the gliders over Shasta. All but one or two found somewhere else to farm.”
“And those one or two?”
“Haven’t heard from ’em. Their estates have brought suit claiming cruel and unusual punishment and lack of due process and such, but it’ll be a while before that works its way through the system. The courts really do read the election returns, so we expect to win. In the meantime, we’ve instituted gliders over all the national parks and as I say, the intrusion problem has dropped dramatically.”