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Show 496. Thus the Sierra Club Outings were highly influential in creating the kind of r e c r e a t i o n which would become a standard in the Parks. The National Park Service continued the Sierra Club's s t r a t e g y in trying to create the converts who would return home to the c i t i e s prepared to defend the Parks. It was a good s t r a t e g y , but by the nineteen sixties there were problems in the Club, and those same problems were becoming evident in Parks l i k e Yosemite. In 1966, the Sierra Club Base Camp was of the most civilized sort; the campers' personal gear was packed into the backcountry, and a h i r e d crew prepared sumptuous meals such as roast leg of lamb and omelettes from fresh eggs. The educational aspect of the t r i p s continued, though i t was not so spectacular as i t had once been. S t i l l , we had Norman Clyde as a n a t u r a l i s t , and David Brower might walk in for a visit and t a lk to the campers. Even a f t e r the Base Camp had been scaled down from over a hundred to only sixty campers, it was s t i l l clear to the crews that the Club had been too long in reviewing i t s own policy of providing unnecessarily extravagant comforts for i t s members on these outings. The Club was slow to see t h a t these elaborate accommodations were a severe hindrance to the s p i r i t u a l growth of the participants. So too, on a nationwide s c a l e , the elaborate accommodations of the National Park System have become a serious problem to the Parks' own maintenance. Too many people come expecting elaborate and overly comfortable accommodations. It is unreasonable to expect t h a t Muir could have perceived this |