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Show 497. kind of problem in the future, but i t is also true that the Club was very slow in changing i t s ways about i t s policy of access and about i t s Outings Program. Such policies have a way of becoming entrenched paths, and are d i f f i c u l t to revise or overthrow. Rendering the wilderness accessible was, from the very f i r s t , a philosophical contradiction which, hand in hand with encouraging tourism, could only lead to long-term problems, if only the Club, or Muir, could appreciate the pressures of increased population and the overwhelming power of technology. Yet i t seemed to them, and perhaps unavoidably, that these were t h e i r best t o o l s . For j u s t that reason, I can see no better strategy in places l i k e Utah and Alaska, than trying to counterbalance i n d u s t r i a l development with increased tourism. It is better to have crowded Parks and Forests than no Parks and Forests. Getting people into the woods, even too many people into the woods, was perhaps the only step that could be taken. People needed t r e e s , and the t r e e s needed people. The Club was providing a kind of philanthropy, by bringing the uninitiated into the wilderness. I myself was fortunate enough to learn to appreciate the Sierra while on Park Service Naturalist hikes and Sierra Club Outings, and I do not now desire to b i t e the hands which fed me so well. But the Club Outings seemed to be based on an anthropocentric philosophy which Muir f i n a l l y decided to accept, even from the mouth of E-H. Harriman: "What I enjoy most i s the power of creation, |