Once crossing the boundary, we were supposed to make a detour to a ranger station to pay our entry fee. But, since the "trail" signs led us right through a garbage dump that had obliterated a pretty little mountain meadow, when we had been directed to what looked on the map as sparse grazing, I made up my mind that we weren't going to pay, nor climb, or photograph anything.

I broke the last resolution five miles short of the park's northern boundary. Having run out of dirt roads to route us on, we had been given the choice of following a paved highway, or cutting cross country. I agree that horses and automobiles mix about as well as oil and straw, yet since we had been banned from the rim for exactly this reason, it seemed a curious decision that we be allowed to ride the highway shoulder here. Since we would have ridden out past an entry station, sans paid permit, we opted for the backdoor route.

This meant we crossed a pumice desert that had more of the feeling of endless wastes of sand than we had experienced in the Mojave. Adding to this, a wind picked up, and whistled down to blow up our trail dust into a 'rooster tail's hundred feet high. At last we were experiencing something the hundreds of thousands of visitors to this park missed out on. It was something to crow about. And the dirt that Bernice was wearing as 'makeup,' was well worth a photograph.

If it sounds a bit daft to exult about wearing a coat of grime, you must remember that my philosophy is to live a wilderness, not just look. I have never been able to understand how a person could hop out of a car to blast away with a movie camera, stop at a tourist trap to buy additional souvenir slides and postcards, and then claim to have 'done' a national park.

It came to me here, while mentally attacking the use of cars to experience Crater Lake, that a few days before my gripe had been too many people hiking the trails in our National Forests. However, if given a choice, I would pick the U.S. Forest Service over the Park Service to maintain the mission, "to preserve and protect natural wonders of America for the enjoyment of future generations." The Forest Service, through it's management of wilderness area has proved they are conscientious about conservation. Their experience of trying to balance recreation with other multiple uses of the forest would be helpful in dealing with the public as protectors, instead of policemen.

I am not saying there should be logging, hunting, or mining inside of a park. But, instead of building lodges, create more campgrounds instead of paved roads, trails. promote the idea of spending a vacation, instead of a brief visit.

It was apropos that immediately north of the park boundary we met a U.S. Forest Service Ranger who quite naturally directed us to a fantastic campsite on the shore of Diamond Lake. He offered a cup of coffee from his thermos to cut the dust of the desert, and the bitter taste of two days travel just past.