Sax was a law professor, and this is the clearest short statement of what national parks are for. His argument is that the parks aren’t a commodity to be delivered to consumers efficiently, and that the fight over what to allow in them — helicopters, tramways, snowmobiles, developed lodges — isn’t about elitism but about whether a place will still ask anything of you. He wants parks to be a school for a certain kind of attention, where you supply your own effort and your own meaning. Written in the late seventies and still the text everybody in the argument cites, but the argument was lost long ago. I’m a believer, but the people in power want wi-fi in parks, so there ya go.
Mountains Without Handrails