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Mountains and Handrails: Risk,Meaning, and Responsibility in ThreeNational ParksLaura N. RickardPublished online: 24 Jan 2014.

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Mountains and Handrails: Risk,Meaning, and Responsibility in ThreeNational ParksLaura N. Rickard

Where we live, the relationships we maintain, or the experiences we have can tell usabout the way we perceive risk and the responsibility for its management. Perceptionsof risk and responsibility are particularly relevant in US national parks, whereunintentional injury is prevalent, yet support exists for allowing risk exposure. Ifexperiencing risk may be both desirable (e.g., self-affirming) and undesirable (e.g.,injury-causing), what is its role in a national park? Moreover, what are theexpectations for visitors to encounter or to avoid it? In-depth interviews with NationalPark Service employees suggest that desired risk is contingent upon the circumstances inwhich it is encountered, and the values and prior experience of individuals. Employeesperceive visitors as responsible for avoiding undesirable risk through informationseeking and awareness, but also recognize considerable barriers to doing so. Theoreticaland practical implications and avenues for future research are presented.

Keywords: attribution of responsibility; risk perception; national parks; risk commun-ication; place

Introduction

On Sunday, 23 June 2013, a seven-year-old boy drowned in the White River afterfalling off a foot log near a campground at Mount Rainier National Park (MORA).Three days later, on 26 June, a sixty-four-year old man hiking the Highline Trail atGlacier National Park slid down a snowfield, falling approximately 100 feet to hisdeath. At once macabre and mundane, at the over 400 national parks across the USA,

Laura N. Rickard is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Environmental Studies at the State University ofNew York College of Environmental Science & Forestry (SUNY-ESF). Correspondence to: Dr Laura N. Rickard,Department of Environmental Studies, State University of New York College of Environmental Science &Forestry (SUNY-ESF), 108B Marshall Hall, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA. Email: lrickard@esf.edu

Environmental Communication, 2014Vol. 8, No. 3, 286–304, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2013.850109

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deaths such as these are devastating to visitors’ loved ones and park staff, yet theyrecur with staggering frequency. The death of any visitor, young or old, begs keyquestions underlying the philosophy and management of parks: what is the role ofrisk in a national park and who (or what) is responsible for keeping visitors safe?

While the concept of risk garners considerable attention in the popular andacademic press as something to be avoided, in certain cases, it may also be sought-after, and even desired (Machlis & Rosa, 1990). To the mountaineer, for instance, riskof injury or death may not be simply an unfortunate consequence of the activity, butrather an attraction to the activity in itself (e.g., Lyng, 1990). When it comes tomanaging risk in public spaces, such perceptions are tied to normative attributions ofresponsibility for how individuals should avoid or encounter risk, and the subsequentallocation of blame (e.g., Freudenburg, 1993).

Perceptions of risk and responsibility are particularly relevant in national parks,places where recreational activity often results in unintentional injuries, despite theconsiderable efforts of the National Park Service (NPS). At the same time, strongsentiment exists for managing parks as places that encourage voluntary risk-taking. InMountains without Handrails, Sax (1980) argues that parks should provide theopportunity for experiences not encountered in everyday life: “reflective recreation”that is “challenging and demanding” (p. 61). If risk exposure may be both desirable(e.g., self-affirming) and undesirable (e.g., injury-causing), how do we ultimatelyevaluate its role in a park? Likewise, what are (or should be) the expectations forvisitors to encounter or to avoid park-related risk? To answer these questions, thisstudy takes the perspective of NPS employees, individuals who play a central role inmanaging park risk within a safety culture (e.g., Guldenmund, 2000).

Risk and Responsibility

Risk perception and safety culture

Community memberships, values, beliefs, and lived experiences all shape under-standings of risks and reflect normative opinions of how society should operate (e.g.,Kahan, Braman, Slovic, Gastil, & Cohen, 2009; Tansey & O’Riordan, 1999). In part,risk perceptions also emanate from the meaning and connection ascribed to aphysical setting (Bickerstaff, 2004). Exploring public reactions to a proposedindustrial park in Canada, Masuda and Garvin (2006, p. 447) argued that riskperceptions, “manifested as threats to shared ‘ways of life’ that included people’ssense of belonging and well-being in the community at large.” In the case of aCanadian Inuit community, Johansson and Manseau (2012) found that “socio-ecological context,” including experiences in the biophysical environment andrelationships with community members, drove perceptions of risk and safety relatedto traveling in the Arctic. By extension, the risk perceptions stemming from a sharedsense of place may also delineate “insiders” from “outsiders,” contributing toparticular attitudes, behaviors, and cultural identities of those who share the

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experience of living in a place, and those who do not (e.g., Baxter, 2009; Bickerstaff,Simmons, & Pidgeon, 2006).

Beliefs about managing risk can reflect normative conceptions of “proper” socialidentities and responsibilities (e.g., Freudenburg, 1993), as well as the perception ofthe risk as “collective” or “individual” (Bickerstaff, Simmons, & Pidgeon, 2008;Bickerstaff & Walker, 2002). With respect to two health risk issues, the Measles-Mumps-Rubella (MMR) vaccination and air pollution, Petts (2005) showed howBritish citizens viewed themselves as having individual responsibility for preventingMMR transmission, but not for abating air pollution. Bickerstaff et al. (2008) reacheda similar conclusion; with respect to using mobile devices, focus group participantsviewed themselves as “sovereign consumers,” able to control their exposure to (un)acceptable health risk through purchasing and use decisions. Such research under-lines the importance of knowing how individuals evaluate risks in order to predicthow they will understand their (and others’) responsibility to respond to them (e.g.,Hinchliffe, 1997).

Within organizations, perceptions of risk, and the responsibility to respond to it,may be tied to a particular safety culture. Comprised of both tacit and explicitknowledge, a safety culture (e.g., Guldenmund, 2000) establishes both what comprisesrisk in a setting (Hilgartner, 1992), as well as what constitutes “safe” and“appropriate” behaviors to prevent unwanted outcomes. For a “positive” safetyculture to persist, that is, one in which injuries and deaths are few to none, and whereprecautionary behavior is the norm, managers must supply the conditions for safework (e.g., safety equipment, trainings), just as workers must pledge personalresponsibility for following these conditions (e.g., Cooper, 2000). A misalignmentbetween employees’ and managers’ perceptions of responsibility, such as for thecause of an accident, can lead to deficits in trust, and can threaten the properfunctioning of the organization (e.g., Dejoy, 1994).

Seeking desired risk

Thus far, the discussion has portrayed risk as something to be avoided—a threat tosafety or a lifestyle; however, under certain circumstances, for some individuals, riskbecomes a central, positive element of an experience. Coining the term “desired risk,”Machlis and Rosa (1990) proposed that, in the context of outdoor recreationalactivities, the potential for harm may not be a deterrent, but rather a draw; indeed,“uncertainties are an essential, sought component of the behavior” (p. 162). Lyng’s(1990) “edgework” concept further explored the sociological basis of voluntarily risk-taking. His ethnographic analysis of skydivers highlighted the dialectic betweenspontaneity and constraint, and participants’ feelings of self-actualization and“oneness” with the environment (see also Ewert & Hollenhorst, 1989). Thus, thedraw of voluntary risk-taking often centers on the interplay of engaged satisfactionand possible peril: the participant’s perception of the “manageable challenge” of theexperience (Davidson, 2012).

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That risk and risk-taking can produce exhilaration and injury—and be perceivedas desired or dangerous—speaks to the sense in which risk in “nature” becomes tiedto sociocultural context. Environmental historians have long suggested that Westernattitudes toward nature reflect dominant contemporary cultural views, includingwhether mountains are landscapes to avoid or temples to worship (e.g., Cronon,1996; Nicolson, 1959). For nineteenth-century adventurers, such as John Muir,encountering risk outdoors went hand-in-hand with experiencing the “sublime”: “…a sense of overwhelming personal insignificance akin to awe; and ultimately a kind ofspiritual exaltation” (Oravec, 1981, p. 248). In a Harper’s Magazine account ofsurviving a spring snowstorm on Mount Shasta in California, Muir (1877) describedsuffering and sublime as inextricably linked:

The weary hours wore away like a mass of unnumbered and half-forgotten years, inwhich all our other years and experiences were strangely interblended. Yet the painwe suffered was not of that bitter kind that precludes thought and takes away allcapacity for enjoyment.

Upon arriving safely in the valley the next day, Muir delightedly remarked on the“sunful and newborn” world encountered. Such instances exemplify the way in whichthe experience of risk may be both central to an experience, as well as imbue it with(culturally bounded) meaning.

Managing undesirable risk: the case of the NPS

Places with inherent environmental risk, US national parks allow opportunities forvoluntary risk-taking, and also report annual injuries and fatalities. Indeed, dataindicate that on average three visitors die in parks every week due to unintentionalinjuries and 14 people are seriously injured every day (PMDS, 1998–2011). Toprevent these incidents, the NPS utilizes engineering (i.e., environmental modifica-tions), enforcement (i.e., regulations), and education (i.e., communication to increaseknowledge and change behaviors) strategies (Baker, 1973). Combining these strategiescan enhance their effectiveness, and, according to the NPS, visitor safety is aresponsibility shared between park staff, partners (e.g., concessions personnel), andvisitors (U.S. DOI, 2010).

Overseeing the millions of acres of protected mountains, deserts, grasslands, andshoreline across the USA, over 20,000 individuals employed by the NPS play a criticalrole in risk management at more than 400 national parks nationwide (U.S. NPS,2013). As employees of a federal agency and one of its member units, theseindividuals participate in various safety cultures (e.g., Guldenmund, 2000), in whichperceptions of risk and responsibility figure prominently. Moreover, such perceptionsmay influence the ways in which they carry out their jobs, including interacting withpark visitors; however, few studies exist that document such perceptions. In a surveyof park managers (e.g., superintendents, chief rangers), Newman (2009) found thatemployees tended to attribute responsibility for visitor injury to the visitor himself/herself, and to view park facilities as appropriate for ensuring safe visits. Using

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interviews with and observations of employees at MORA, Rickard, McComas, andNewman (2011) showed that, while many employees believed that visitors should beresponsible for their safety, they also routinely characterized visitors as deficient:lacking the clothing, skills, or common sense to act appropriately in a national park.

Employees’ attributions of responsibility for visitors’ mishaps have also reachedthe popular press, with several volumes documenting death at iconic national parks,including Yellowstone (Whittlesey, 1995), Yosemite (Ghiglieri & Farabee, 2007), andGrand Canyon (Ghiglieri & Myers, 2001). A former Yellowstone ranger, Whittleseyportrays victims as ignorant and irrational, in that they foolishly believe:

… That [Yellowstone National Park] surely is a lot like a city park, with swings,horseshoe pits, golf courses, swimming pools, and total safety…. But national parksare not like that; they are places where nature and history are preserved intact. Andintact nature includes dangers. (Whittlesey, 1995, p. xii)

Interestingly, this characterization of the visitor as unaware of “risky” surroundingsand the related responsibility to avoid such dangers conflicts with more recentempirical work that found the majority of surveyed visitors to MORA consideredthemselves individually responsible for ensuring their safety in the park (Rickard,Scherer, & Newman, 2011).

Whether national parks should resemble country clubs or wildlife sanctuaries is aquestion addressed by legal scholar Joseph Sax (1980) in his treatise exploring thephilosophy underlying the founding of the NPS and its contemporary management.Sax (1980) questions whether parks are, or should be, “recreational commodities” or“temples of nature worship” and whether a modern-day preservationist ethic can besustained within them. For Sax, the “intensity” of experiences available to visitors,such as traveling in undeveloped terrain, contrasts with pre-packaged touristactivities, such as bus tours, that are less unique to park settings. Describing theseas “contemplative” vs. “conventional” park experiences, Sax advises park managers tocultivate opportunities for the former. Though Sax presents federally protected landas a valuable resource for the entire US public, he attends less explicitly to how risk insuch settings may be perceived by diverse audiences, or to beliefs audiences may holdabout its management.

Research Questions

If risk may be both positive (e.g., self-affirming) and negative (e.g., injury-causing),how do we ultimately view its role in a national park? Likewise, what are (or shouldbe) the expectations for visitors to encounter, or, in other cases, to avoid park-relatedrisk? Focusing specifically on NPS employees, individuals who interact with visitors,contribute to visitor risk management efforts, and belong to a safety culture withinthe NPS and their individual parks, this study explores the following questions:

. What do NPS employees perceive as desired risk in the context of anational park?

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. How do NPS employees understand the responsibility of visitors to managetheir exposure to undesirable risk?

Method

The data presented come from a mixed methods study examining the intersection ofrisk perception, attribution of responsibility, and risk management in three nationalparks. Informed by social psychological approaches to attribution theory (e.g., Shaver,1970), findings reported elsewhere (Rickard, 2013; Rickard & Newman, in press)showcase survey results, including how park staff and visitors perceive responsibilityfor the cause of a hypothetical visitor accident. In comparison, the interviewsexplored employees’ understanding of risk and responsibility from a socioculturalperspective. A “complementary” study, each method was intended to provide an“enriched, elaborated understanding” of the central “phenomenon” of risk manage-ment in an applied context (Greene, Caracelli, & Graham, 1989, p. 258).

Study context

Between January and August 2011, on-site data collection occurred in MORA,Olympic National Park (OLYM), and Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area(DEWA). Parks were selected on the basis of their similarities in biophysicalenvironment and recreational opportunities (i.e., MORA and OLYM) as well asdifferences (i.e., DEWA and the Washington parks) (Table 1).

Officials from all three parks had ongoing interest in risk management research,making accessing these parks’ employees somewhat easier than those at other parks.MORA is a 236,381-acre park on the west side of the Cascade Mountains inWashington. A volcanic mountain, MORA (14,410 ft) boasts the most extensivesingle-peak glacial system in the US. OLYM comprises 922,650 acres of Washington’sOlympic Peninsula, and is an International Biosphere Reserve and a World HeritageSite, including alpine zones, temperate rain forests, and coastline. Within New Jerseyand Pennsylvania, DEWA includes 70,000 acres on a 40-mile section of the MiddleDelaware River, the “gap” a portion of ridgeline carved out by the river overthousands of years. Each park reports annual visitor injuries and fatalities, oftenassociated with recreational activities.

Interviews

Interviews involved a purposive sample of NPS employees (N = 53) and ranged from14 to 85 minutes (M = 39 minutes) (Table 2).

After interviewing the individuals in management (e.g., superintendent, chiefranger), I asked for recommendations of individuals whose positions and/or tenurewith the agency would allow them to comment on risk management, comprising a“snowball sampling” approach (Lofland, Snow, Anderson, & Lofland, 2006). Theresulting participants represented an assortment of positions and tenure with the NPS

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ranged from one to over 40 years (M = 17 years). (Hereafter, I refer to participants bynumber and first letter of the park in which they worked.)

Interviews were conducted until themes repeated across interviews, so-called“theoretical saturation” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). To ensure that themes were notsimply a product of a certain “type” of respondent, and thus to strengthen validity, Isought “disconfirming cases,” i.e., individuals who might have reason to expressdifferent opinions (Maxwell, 1996). Following a semi-structured format, the inter-views targeted the discussion toward particular topics while remaining flexibleenough to encompass participants’ interests. I obtained voluntary informed consentto record each interview to ensure accurate data collection.

Analysis

Following the “constant comparative method” (Glaser & Strauss, 1967), I analyzedthe data throughout the research period, refining the interview guide to followemerging areas of interest. Transcripts were analyzed line-by-line (Charmaz, 2001)using Atlas.ti, which allowed for merging and compiling of quotations pertaining to

Table 1. Summary of research sites.

Mount RainierNational Park Olympic National Park

Delaware WaterGap National

Recreation Area

Abbreviation MORA OLYM DEWALocation Western Cascade

Range, WAOlympic Peninsula, WA PA/NJ

Park size (2010)a 236,381 acres 922,650 acres 66,741 acresFull-time employees(2006)b

184 180 116

Recreational visitors/year (2012)a

1,049,178 2,824,908 4,970,802

Popular recreationalactivities

Summer: Dayhiking,backpacking,mountaineeringWinter: Skiing,snowshoeing,“snow play”

Summer: Day hiking,backpacking,mountaineeringWinter: Skiing,snowshoeing, day hiking

Summer:Swimming,canoeing/kayaking,day hiking, fishing,backpackingWinter: Skiing,hunting

Activities commonlyassociated with visitorinjuries and fatalities

Driving;mountaineering,day hiking,backpacking

Driving; mountaineering,day hiking, backpacking;non-motorized boating

Driving; swimming;non-motorizedboating

Fatalities per 100,000visitorsb

0.48 0.03 0.10

Injuries and illnesses per100,000 visitorsb

8.67 1.38 1.32

aNPS Public Use Statistics Office.bNPS Performance Management Data System.

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each code. After a first round of coding all of the transcripts, emergent codes thatrelated to one another (i.e., a code that served as an example of another code) werecombined and refined into a small number of categories. Subsequently, each of thesecategories became the basis of the themes discussed in the results below. Since thestudy involved prolonged engagement in each site, during which time I lived andworked with the participants, many opportunities arose to discuss findings informallywith park staff. This feedback helped improve the credibility of the results (Creswell &Miller, 2000).

Results

Defining desired risk

Employees tended to envision desired risk as possible within certain parts of nationalparks, rather than across these settings universally. Moreover, risk was desired onlyunder circumstances in which personal tolerance and expertise allow for a truly“voluntary” risk-taking experience.

Table 2. Interview Participants from National Park and Park Division.a

MORA OLYM DEWA Total

Interpretation n = 5 n = 3 n = 3 n = 11. Interpretive ranger. Fee collector

Maintenance n = 1 – n = 1 n = 2. Road crew; snow removal. Grounds-person

Natural and cultural resources n = 3 n = 2 n = 2 n = 7. Geologist. Wildlife biologist

Occupational health and safety n = 1 n = 1 n = 2 n = 4. Safety officer. Lifeguard program supervisor

Park management n = 4 n = 2 n = 4 n = 10. Chief ranger. Superintendent

Protection n = 6 n = 3 n = 5 n = 14. Law enforcement ranger. Dispatcher

Public affairs – n = 1 n = 1 n = 2. Public affairs officer. Volunteer coordinator

Trails and wilderness – n = 2 n = 1 n = 3. Backcountry ranger. Wildland fire coordinator

Total n = 20 n = 14 n = 19 n = 53

aPark division names (e.g., “Interpretation”) listed are generic in nature; actual names differ by park. Job titleslisted under each division were held by at least one participant; not all job titles are listed.

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Context-dependent. Though asked whether risk could be beneficial in national parks—as an undifferentiated category of place—most participants answered with respect toa specific designation within some parks: wilderness. National parks, includingportions of DEWA, OLYM, and MORA, conserve over half of the nation’swilderness, parcels designated by the 1964 Wilderness Act as areas where “earthand its community of life are untrammeled by man” (16 U.S.C. 1131–1136). Lacking“permanent improvements or human habitation,” wilderness is, by law, deliberatelyprimitive, allowing an “unconfined type of recreation.” Since visitors are oftencorralled from park entrances to visitor centers and “frontcountry” recreation spotson the few roads circumnavigating a park, wilderness can be less easily accessible.Because visitors make a deliberate choice to find wilderness, employees seemed toreason, risk and risk-taking should be expected and even sought-after. Thus, from amanagement perspective, risk is desired only to the extent that it can be chosen bycertain visitors, rather than thrust upon all of them, as a law enforcement rangerexplained:

I don’t think it’s desirable that we have risk on a road because that’s not really thepoint. As a place for people to take risks, and challenge themselves and have anadventure, climb the mountain, where there are certain objective hazards—absolutely totally appropriate for the national parks. (M7)

Risk in wilderness may be desirable, in part, because it creates opportunities for thetype of physical and psychological challenges that intensify an outdoor experience, abelief underlying many participants’ comments and much of the “adventurerecreation” literature (e.g., Ewert & Hollenhorst, 1989). As an employee involved inenvironmental impact analysis and recreation planning noted:

… Being able to go out and experience this naturalness, like crossing a streamversus on a bridge. Not having a bridge there—that would make it more natural, soyour experience as a result would have higher risk and challenge… (O13)

Exposure to risk is thus valued in its ability to confer the authenticity (“naturalness”)that generates a superior experience. Examples like this suggest that, for participants,voluntary risk-taking in wilderness is a positive element of the park experience not inspite of, but because of the “uncertainties” it poses (Machlis & Rosa, 1990); making itto the opposite stream bank can be at once thrilling and satisfying, similar to Muir’sdescription of emerging unscathed from a snowstorm. At the same time, uncertaintysignifies the possibility of unwanted outcomes—becoming injured, for instance—thatparticipants saw as likewise important. In fact, some participants suggested that theheightened salience of injury provides a unique opportunity to consider one’smortality, a kind of existential moment rarely encountered in “everyday” settings.Comparing national parks to other recreational settings, a park geologist suggested:

… There aren’t many places left in this country or even in this world, where youcan be out hiking and you’ll see a mountain lion or a bear, which could hurt you…I think that raises that experience to a level that you can’t get when you go to azoo… And, in an amusement park-type setting, things have been so engineered

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that, unless you try to get hurt or try to do something really risky, you’re not goingto suffer consequences… (M5)

While participants did not wish injury upon visitors, they did suggest that “sufferingconsequences” from recreating in wilderness constituted part of the uncertain gambleof visiting these special places. One cannot necessarily have the breathtaking scenerywithout also accepting the bug bites, the occasional broken bone, or in extreme cases,the possibility of death. Importantly, participants’ comments implied their convictionthat visitors, too, recognized and evaluated these trade-offs similarly: that potentialinjury is a reasonable risk to accept for the promise of unconfined recreation.

Tolerance. Participants were quick to point out that dynamic, uncertain physicalconditions made national parks inherently “risky” places where even the mostinvolved engineering strategies cannot guarantee safety. Referring to Mount Rainier,one interpretive ranger exclaimed, “You can’t take a volcano and make it safe!” (M4).Yet, in describing their work and leisure in the park, participants saw themselves ascapable of choosing to seek out certain risks while limiting their exposure to others.In explaining how risk can be desired, one law enforcement ranger referred to thehighly publicized story of Aron Ralston, a hiker forced to amputate his arm to freehimself from beneath a boulder in a Utah canyon in 2003. (Ralston’s experience waspopularized further in the 2010 film 127 Hours):

Some people would say what [Ralston] was doing was stupid. He was on a cross-country backcountry hike by himself. He didn’t tell anyone where he was going,etc. But, many people, myself included, I’ve hiked slot canyons by myself. And Itend to be careful when I do that, to think more about it, but I guess my take onthat is what he was doing in some people’s world was perfectly reasonable… (O3)

One can imagine that identifying with Ralston, a fellow canyoneering buff, allowedthe ranger to evaluate the case quite differently than might any given individualtuning in to the story on the 6 o’clock news. Projecting his ability and expertise (“Itend to be careful when I do that”) onto Ralston’s, in turn, may have influencedjudgments about responsibility for the incident, a perceptual bias explored at lengthin the attribution theory literature (e.g., Rickard & Newman, in press; Shaver, 1970).

Because they play a critical role in managing the park experience, participants didrecognize their responsibility to acknowledge the variability of risk tolerance amongtheir clientele. What is “perfectly reasonable” to a park ranger could be “perfectlyhorrifying” to an inexperienced visitor; however, managing such areas for a diversevisiting public, and for the sustainability of the physical and cultural landscape,becomes understandably complex. Citing differences in skill and experience,participants conceded that their assessment and acceptance of a given risk mightdiffer markedly from that of visitors. Consequently, the distinction between risk thatis acceptable or unacceptable, desired or undesirable is contingent, not absolute, andtheir comments made clear that making management decisions that prescribe (orproscribe) certain activities can be controversial. As a park scientist explained, in thecase of the Delaware River:

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If we took the rapids out, it wouldn’t be as fun … A certain element of thepopulation likes that thrill … Our mission says that we’ll provide theseopportunities, but who are we to judge what one person’s recreation is comparedto another’s [?] (D11)

Implicit in this comment is Sax’s (1980) caveat that prescribing policies within parkscan, at the same time, indicate a normative way of enjoying them. Paternalism aside,the idea that parks must be managed to allow opportunities for visitors to engagewith risk just as they provide interventions to protect them from it presents a criticalmanagement quandary—one in which attribution of responsibility plays a cent-ral role.

Managing undesirable risk

Though exposure to park-related risk may confer benefits, participants were quick tonote that the same risk posed innumerable possibilities for malady. Upon enteringparks, visitors are responsible for limiting opportunities to encounter “undesirablerisk” through seeking information and maintaining vigilance, while ascribing toexpectations of the “type of place” parks represent.

Seeking information. Whether brochures, signs, or interpretive programs, NPScommunication serves to demarcate “known” park risks that, as a fee collectornoted, “might not be apparent to an average person” (M17). In pointing outparticular risks, for example, an active stratovolcano, and not others, for example, asteep slope, these forms of communication illustrate the process Hilgartner (1992)refers to as defining risk “objects.” From an institutional perspective, such definitionsare hitched to particular notions of responsibility, in that they can, “…determine whohas the right—and who has the obligation—to ‘do something’ about hazards”(Hilgartner, 1992, p. 47). Importantly, participants understood visitors’ centralresponsibility as seeking park communication prior to, and during, a visit. Onmore than one occasion, a participant explained this responsibility to seekinformation as what she/he would expect to do when traveling to an unfamiliarlocation, national park or otherwise. For one DEWA law enforcement ranger, a visitto Death Valley National Park meant scouring multiple sources about the park’sconditions, just as he would expect of any other park visitor:

… You get the brochures, you get the pamphlets, you talk to the people at thevisitor center, you try to educate yourself as much about, OK, ‘Where should wenot be going this time of year? What is a better area to go? What are the dangers weface?’ (D7)

But while park managers can, and do, make certain information about avoiding riskavailable in face-to-face, print, and online channels, they cannot guarantee thatvisitors are aware of its existence. Moreover, they have limited control over whethervisitors know how (or where) to find it. One law enforcement ranger summed up thisdilemma as, “…The information’s provided to them; it’s there if they go looking for

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it. But how do you get them to actually see it?” (M15). Describing an informationimpasse, another MORA law enforcement ranger suggested that individuals whomost need information about the park are often those least likely to seek it:

People who read the trailhead sign and recognize the cues that we’re putting outthere don’t need the trailhead sign, for the most part, because they know whatthey’re getting into. And the people who don’t [know what they’re getting into]don’t read the sign… (M7)

This employee’s comment also implies that the inexperienced visitor may “ignore”signs because of his or her unfamiliarity with the physical setting or the recreationalactivity. Though an unwarranted sense of self-confidence may persuade some visitorsthat seeking information is unnecessary, at the same time, individuals may have littleidea of what information they do not know, and what they might need to know torecreate safely in the park. Complicating matters, in some parks, such as OLYM,regulations vary by location, such that visitors familiar with camping in alpineregions, for instance, might be unaware of the different safety precautions necessaryfor camping on the coast. As one law enforcement/backcountry ranger whosupervises a popular hiking area saw it, “…There isn’t a huge group of peoplewho’s intentionally trying to break the rules. There’s just a lot of people who, in goodfaith, didn’t get it” (O9). Likewise, rules for appropriate visitor behavior can also varyby park, leading to potential confusion for those traveling between parks. Considerthe example of securing food items while traveling in bear habitat, described by anemployee in the Natural & Cultural Resources Division at MORA:

… You go to Yosemite, and they say don’t leave your food in the car. And if you’rein Yellowstone or even here, or Olympic, we say leave your food in the car… Peoplewho are hitting all of the different parks… and they’ve kept their food in the car,and all of a sudden they get to Yosemite and it’s kind of like, ‘Why do I have to takeit out of the car?’ (M20)

This instance suggests that managing parks for localized ecological conditions, whilecentral to the NPS mission, can result in inconsistent risk communication. As aresult, visitors may, unintentionally or not, abdicate their responsibility to beinformed about avoiding risk deemed undesirable.

Situational awareness. In addition to seeking information, visitors should beresponsible, according to participants, for exercising “situational awareness,” a termused in military and law enforcement circles to describe the need to know, as oneemployee in the Natural & Cultural Resources Division put it, “everything that’sgoing on around you all the time” (M21). Exercising situational awareness as a parkvisitor could be as simple as, according to an employee in the Natural & CulturalResources Division, “[paying] attention to where they are and how to get back” (D4).Though employees strive to maintain many park areas, weather conditions can affectpark infrastructure and, in turn, communication; a rotted or missing sign is notuncommon. Consequently, visitors have a responsibility to, in the opinion of a lawenforcement ranger:

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… Pay attention to what [they’re] doing. That’s difficult in a national park becauseyou came to the national park to look at things, and to enjoy the great outdoors …you’re not on a sidewalk walking downtown, you’re on a trail. (O10)

An awareness of one’s surroundings, and receptivity to park information, thus,provides a foundation for visitors to make informed choices about how to behave inthe park. According to some participants, this responsibility to make decisions about,for instance, where to recreate, made up a critical part of the visitor experience; asecond, and equally important, part was accepting responsibility for the consequencesof these decisions. One administrator described this interplay between informingvisitors and allowing them the space to make their own choices, a responsibility hesaw as landmark of the park experience:

… It’s not that you throw people to the wolves… I think we have to highlight theobvious risk and try to communicate those as best we can. But people have to maketheir choices. (M19)

The tension apparent in this comment is representative of employees’ challenge tomanage risk while allowing visitors the freedom to experience the park on their ownterms: a foundation of contemplative recreation and “shared” responsibility formanaging undesirable risk.

Expectations. The responsibility to practice situational awareness and informeddecision-making may hinge on expectations of the kinds of places national parks are.Many employees expressed frustration with what they perceived as visitors’inaccurate assumptions about the availability of services, as summarized by aninterpretive ranger:

I find a lot of people don’t really quite make that connection of—that it’s not safe,it’s not like if you turn around the corner and you forget your food, there’s aSubway. And if you don’t decide to gas your vehicle up, there’s going to be onearound the next corner. There’s all that stuff that in our normal, civilized lives thatthere’s a lot of safety and back-ups built in. (M3)

Following Sax’s (1980) observation that the “margin of error” for maintaining safetydiffers between recreating in national parks and in more developed areas, commentssuch as these also suggest that variations in amenities may not be immediatelyobvious to the uninitiated park visitor. Some employees hypothesized that theseunrealistic expectations develop based on markers in the built landscape; the pavedroads and gift shops dotting many national parks may contribute to visitors’expectations of being in a setting akin to a forested shopping center. Traveling to thepark from an urban area, visitors, according to an individual involved in employeeand visitor safety, “…see [the road is] black and it’s asphalt. And they drive it likethey can drive modern roads” (M1), paying limited attention to the road’snarrowness or curves, or the often treacherous weather. Just as the expectation of“routine” driving conditions may discourage visitors’ vigilance, ubiquitous signagethroughout the park may also encourage distraction. Referring to the wording of

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MORA’s interpretive displays, illustrated signs alerting visitors to natural or culturalpoints of interest, one law enforcement ranger argued:

…We definitely put up cues that take people out of … the immediacy of theirsurroundings… It’s like, “imagine this, picture this,” and we have all theseviewpoints and overlooks and places that we—we bring people to. And wheneverpeople are told to go somewhere, they sort of abdicate the responsibility for theirdecision-making. So I think the cues are definitely there to be distracted. (M7)

Paradoxically, communication that attempts to engage and inspire visitors to thinkabout the larger park issues may interfere with managers’ expectations that visitorsremain alert to their surroundings.

Other employees argued that national parks may connote “safety,” and visitingthem may even encourage an optimistic bias (Weinstein, 1989)—a perceivedinvincibility that, as an administrator put it, “I’m in a park and I can’t get hurt”(D1). According to some employees, this perception of safety stemmed from visitors’expectation that a national park was a different kind of park, one with a different setof appropriate behaviors. Frustrated by some visitors’ inability to distinguish DEWAfrom the tourist trappings of the surrounding Pocono Mountain resorts, and echoingWhittlesey (1995), one employee involved with the lifeguard program explained:

… [Visitors] come in, they ask you where the rides are, do you have a playground,where’s the pool?. They complain that we don’t have sand on our beaches, and it’slike, ‘It’s a natural river beach. We don’t enhance it. It’s gravel, rocks, grass,soil…!’ (D3)

Interestingly, the presence of lifeguarded beaches, along with physical landscapesdeliberately modified to manage risk can also be mistaken for “natural” attributes ofthe park, as a law enforcement ranger noted: “…there’s a fair number of people whosee trail steps and stuff and think that that stuff’s natural” (D17). These commentsbring to light the idea that parks comprise both biophysical and human-madeelements, contributing to “cultural landscapes” (Youngs, White, & Wodrich, 2008)that complicate expectations about risk and responsibility for its management.

Discussion

In explaining whether (and which) risk in national parks is desired, employees’comments suggested that perceptions are both highly contextual and contingent uponthe geographical location and circumstances in which the risk was encountered.Indeed, participants conceded that their idea of a valuable risk experience—or evenwhat constituted a park-related risk in the first place—could differ markedly fromsome visitors.’ In the context of wilderness, however, their comments implied thatthey assumed visitors to determine and weigh the trade-offs of unconfined recreation(e.g., spectacular scenery versus potential injury) the same way they would. To theextent that employees experience the park not only as workplace, but also as home, itis likely that their perceptions of its risks—as well as their perceived ability toencounter or avoid them—were common among the safety culture to which they

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belonged, but perhaps not shared with most visitors. As Bickerstaff (2004) and otherssuggest, familiarity with, and attachment to place may account for certain perceptionsand evaluations of risk. For NPS employees, these may be valuing risk-taking inwilderness areas as beneficial, an example of Sax’s (1980) contemplative recreation,given appropriate competence and expertise. As “insiders” in the park, employeesoperate within a safety culture, wherein desired risk equals recreational challengeencountered by reasoned, deliberate choice in “authentic” settings far from pavedroads and snack bars.

In describing situations in which risk becomes undesirable, participants alsoindicated that differences in risk perceptions between visitors and employees,including those stemming from the perceived character of a national park, mightchallenge assumptions of individual responsibility for avoiding risk. Employees’expectation that visitors seek information and maintain “situational awareness”conveys the impression that unintentional injury is an “individual” risk (Bickerstaffet al., 2008): avoidable through prescribed, and arguably straightforward, personalbehavior. Yet, in contrast to the findings of Newman (2009) and Rickard et al. (2011),employees pointed out challenges to assuming safety the sole responsibility of thevisitor—such as the difficulties of relaying consistent safety information within andbetween parks given dynamic and idiosyncratic ecological conditions. Stemming fromperceptions of risk, attributions of responsibility for avoiding risk, thus, maycontribute to a division between “insiders” (i.e., NPS employees) and “outsiders” (i.e., park visitors). NPS staff sharing similar perceptions of risk, place meanings andattachments, affinity for recreational risk-taking, and attributions of responsibility forrisk management, for instance, may perceive themselves as separate from visitors whomay differ in these respects. Further research is necessary to determine whether suchperceptions exist, and whether (and how) they might influence the carrying out ofrisk management efforts, on the part of the NPS, or the acceptance of such efforts, onthe part of visitors.

Results also suggest that how audiences attribute responsibility for managing riskmay be founded, in part, on cues in the built and biophysical environment. Whendeveloped areas in parks can include trails, and wilderness areas can feature primitivestructures, the designation between areas that are “park-maintained” (and presum-ably managed to limit undesirable risk) and “visitor on his/her own” (andpresumably open to voluntary risk-taking) may be less than obvious. Instead, anational park might be better characterized as “liminal” (Van Gennep, 1960): atransitional space, straddling the developed and the undeveloped, where responsib-ility is likewise in flux. For sociologists and geographers, liminality focuses on thetransition from one developmental state to another, such as during a “rite of passage”(Van Gennep, 1960). Leisure studies scholars have used liminality to describe thetourist experience, including engaging in activities one might eschew at home (e.g.,Currie, 1997).

In a national park, we can apply the concept of liminality on at least two levels.First, visitors, as tourists, may be “in between” their accustomed habits and activities

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of home and the varied new opportunities and experiences that a national parkrepresents, which may lead them to feel, “temporarily allowed to create their ownrules within which to operate” (Currie, 1997, p. 894). Second, attributes of thephysical environment may construct the appearance of a place straddling themanaged and unmanaged, the civilized, and wild. Thus, visitors’ attributions ofresponsibility may vary geographically, based on physical cues they see, whether steepslopes, picnic tables, or handrails. Considering the liminality of national parks alsocontributes to a larger discussion of the “hybridity” of the material and discursive, aswell as the apparent nature–human dualism, tensions central to research inenvironmental communication (e.g., Marafiote & Plec, 2006; Senda-Cook, 2013).Recognizing that trails, handrails, and viewsheds “speak” in ways different from—butnot subordinate to—pamphlets, park rangers, and interpretive displays is central tounderstanding the meanings we adhere to national parks and what we perceive as therisks, desired or undesired, within them. These perceptions, furthermore, carry withthem particular attributions of responsibility for how “human,” as opposed to “wild”places (and the species within them) can and should be managed (e.g., Cassidy &Mills, 2012).

With President Obama’s signature of the America’s Great Outdoors Initiative,and the NPS’ Healthy Parks, Healthy People program, increasing attention hasfocused on the value of open space to the US public. At the same time, the NPS andother federal land management agencies have continued their efforts to attracttraditionally underserved populations to parks and forests, as well as to documentand encourage unique usage (e.g., Chavez, Winter, & Absher, 2008). With growingattention to attracting first-time visitors to national parks, greater discussion iswarranted to explore how the goals of federal initiatives align with relevant beliefsamong park staff, such as the extent to which visitors should assume responsibility fortheir safety.

Limitations and future research

While the study considered three parks that vary on several dimensions, they cannotstand for all sites in the National Park System; thus, findings are unlikely to begeneralizable to all parks or park employees. Due to scheduling constraints,participants were sampled during the winter/spring at MORA and OLYM, andduring the summer at DEWA. Differences in staffing during these seasons may haveinfluenced the data; further research should attempt to access a more diverse groupthroughout the year, and also at parks in more urban settings.

Future research should examine park visitors’ perspectives on risk managementwith respect to parks as liminal spaces “betwixt and between” developed andundeveloped settings. Do material “cues” imply certain attributions of responsibilityfor safety? How might park-produced communication in these areas, including signsor brochures, support (or challenge) these notions? Presenting visitors with journalsor mobile devices upon entering the park, for instance, would allow researchers tomeasure perceptions at pre-determined landmarks. In addition, researchers might ask

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recent visitors to reflect on their trip with respect to other, day-to-day contexts, suchas a workplace. Finally, a longitudinal study would help to determine whethervisitors’ perceptions of park-related risks and the responsibility to seek or avoid themvary over time, or lead to changes in beliefs or behaviors in contexts outside ofnational parks.

Acknowledgments

This material is based upon the author’s dissertation at Cornell University and was supported bythe National Science Foundation under Grant No. SES-1060433. The author thanks the staff fromMORA, OLYM, and DEWA for their willingness to participate in and valuable contributions to thisstudy. The author also acknowledges Dr Sara Newman, Dr Katherine McComas, Dr Cliff Scherer,Dr Bruce Lewenstein, and Dr Rich Stedman for their support and insightful comments.

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