Cows, crowds and carrying capacities: Developing and testing the Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) process at Arches National Park (Utah)

Recently the term “carrying capacity” has been applied to visitor use management. Instead of looking at numbers, managers define quality resource conditions and visitor opportunities that are acceptable and appropriate for a particular resource. This requires managers to understand and actively manage for those quality conditions and experiences.; Various frameworks or processes were developed to assist managers with defining these visitor opportunities and resource conditions. Many of the processes focused on backcountry or wilderness areas. The Visitor Experience and Resource Protection (VERP) process was developed by the National Park Service to focus on the rapidly increasing visitation at its front country and high use areas. This focus was in addition to planning for backcountry and wilderness areas as well. This process was developed and tested at Arches National Park. As part of the test Arches National Park implemented a monitoring program.; Using some of the information provided by the monitoring program, Arches National Park tested various signing treatments to resolve visitor conflicts at Delicate Arch—a premier feature in the park. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...