The relationship of Solitude, Wilderness, and how visitors experience them has been studied extensively. A brief review of the studies reveals the following points:

1. For 70% to 95% of visitors, Solitude is experienced in Wilderness Areas regardless of the number of social encounters;

2. For most visitors, the quality of their experience is not significantly impacted by a reasonable number of social encounters;

3. For most visitors, only unpleasant social encounters negatively impact their experience. Most wilderness visitors are only disturbed by groups that are "different", such as motorboats (for canoeists), horse-packers (for hikers), or large groups (for most wilderness visitors);

4. For 5% to 30% of visitors, ANY social encounters bums them out;

5. Given the choice, even in heavily used and heavily impacted areas, visitors will always choose greater access over fewer social encounters.

Contrary to the Zion General Management Plan, Park Management has chosen to ignore the available research and institute Interim Use Limits that severely restrict access in order to reduce the typical social encounters well below levels that most visitors find perfectly acceptable to fostering solitude.

I invite you to examine the research and understand the issues for yourself. Personally, while I enjoy having canyons to myself, I find exclusionary use limits to guarantee isolation (when I'm lucky enough to get the permit) extremely distasteful. There is PLENTY of solitude available in Zion National Park. For the minority of visitors who demand zero social encounters to experience solitude, there are plenty of times and places in Zion where other visitors will not be encountered. But artificially creating zero social encounters in every canyon, every day is not my idea of effective management.

Available Research:

There is substantial library of research papers available at
Wilderness Research at Wilderness.Net. Search on the keyword "Solitude".

Here are some papers you might find enlightening:

Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective
by Hollenhorst, Steven J.; Jones, Christopher D. 2001.

SOLITUDE: Researchers Continue to Delve into Solitude Component of Wilderness
an editorial by David Cole.

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research
by David N. Cole

Management Dilemmas that will Shape Wilderness in the 21st Century
by David Cole.

Goal Interference and Social Value Differences: Understanding Wilderness Conflicts and Implications for Managing Social Density
Watson, Alan E. 2001.

Use Density, Visitor Experience and Limiting Recreational Use in Wilderness: Progress to Date and Research Needs
Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N. 2001.

Day Users in Wilderness: How Different are They?
Cole, David N. 2001.

Wilderness Solitude: Beyond the Social-Spatial Perspective
by Hollenhorst, Steven J.; Jones, Christopher D. 2001.
In: Freimund, Wayne A.; Cole, David N., comps. 2001. Visitor use density and wilderness experience: proceedings; 2000 June 1-3; Missoula, MT. Proc. RMRS-P-20. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station: 56-61. Wilderness.Net Research Library Publication Number 2173

Abstract:
The current scholarly and management approach to wilderness solitude has relied on substitute measures such as crowding and privacy to measure solitude. Lackluster findings have been only partially explained by additional social-spatial factors such as encounter norms, displacement, product shift, and rationalization. Missing from the discussion has been an exploration of the meaning of solitude and a questioning of the basic assumption of its social-spatial structure. In this paper, the concept of solitude is approached from an attitudinal perspective that emphasizes psychological detachment from society. We argue that solitude may result more from lack of management regulation and control than from low visitor use density.

Excerpted from the conclusions:
Policy and Management Implications
The 1964 Wilderness Act defines wilderness as containing *outstanding opportunities for solitude.* By including this phrase, it appears that Howard Zahnizer understood that wilderness and solitude were metaphorically bound together in the American psyche as physical and mental regions untrammeled by society. Ostensibly, the Wilderness Act counterbalances the relentless forces of increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization on the natural world. Yet in a deeper symbolic sense, the Wilderness Act also affirms the humanistic notion of individual will and self determination in the face of ever greater pressure to become socialized.

Drawing on this symbolic tradition, we have argued that solitude is psychological detachment from society. This detachment serves two primary functions: (1) affirmation of individual will and self-determination, and (2) cultivating the inner world of the self. As such, the wilderness solitude experience compensates for the limitations of social interaction and social institutions in the search for meaning, happiness, self-awareness, and emotional maturity.

Such a perspective has significant wilderness policy and management implications. First, we have generally assumed that a relationship existed between solitude and spatial variables such as density, encounters, and perceptions of crowding and privacy. Yet we have shown here that solitude may have little or no theoretical relationship with these variables. While managers have some control over use density, crowding, and encounters, and recognizing that management of these variables is defendable for other reasons, we probably need to look beyond such management tools in our efforts to enhance opportunities for solitude.

Secondly, while we recognize that limited encounters may help catalyze the solitude experience, there are other important factors related to social disengagement and opportunities for contemplative reflection that demand more managerial and research attention. What can we do to enhance visitor freedom, to maximize opportunities for attunement with self and nature, and to promote reflective thought and creative expression?

Thirdly, it seems that the paradox of wilderness management extends to a *paradox of solitude management.* Solitude is a psychological condition that by definition implies freedom from social influences and constraint, yet management implies intervention from the very social institutions and mechanisms that solitude is supposed to be free from. Ironically, to the extent that we impose social controls on wilderness visitors, opportunities for solitude may be diminished. In our effort to provide outstanding opportunities for solitude, we may have overemphasized the impact of encounters with other visitors, while ignoring the greater threat of government control and regulation.

If we are truly interested in providing solitude benefits, we should turn our management and research gaze away from crowding and encounter norms towards our own management tendencies to impose constraints on visitor freedoms and independence. Wilderness visitors have always stood apart from the general run of American life. It is critical that we recognize and accommodate their need for independence in their personal and social lives. A management culture that resists all deviations, or even attempted deviations, from its uniformities is antithetical to solitude. It seems the great challenge we face is to find the means of respecting visitors’ need for freedom and independence while protecting the ecological values of the wilderness resource.

An Editorial by David Cole, Wilderness Researcher:

SOLITUDE: Researchers Continue to Delve into Solitude Component of Wilderness

The potential restriction of amount of use proposed as a means of increasing solitude in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness has prompted considerable controversy. Opinions vary widely concerning the desirability of these management actions. Some have interpreted the Wilderness Act as not requiring solitude, because the Act mentions that wilderness should provide for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation.

Others feel the Act mandates *outstanding opportunities for solitude* on every acre of widerness. Assuming that Congress intended for wilderness to provide for some level of solitude, at least in some places, this article reviews research related to wilderness solitude. (more...)

Visitor Use Density and Wilderness Experiences: A Historical Review of Research
David N. Cole

Abstract:
Considerable research on the relationship between use density and wilderness visitor experiences has been conducted over the past four decades. This paper focuses on early work on this topic, tracing the development and languishing of different research themes suggested by this early work. Research particularly that conducted in the normative tradition has contributed useful information to managers grappling with the imposition of use limits. However, traditional research approaches need to be supplemented with research conducted at both smaller and larger scales. Research on the opinions of communities of onsite recreation users needs to be complemented by research capable of better articulating the nature of the recreation experience, differentiating between subpopulations of users, and placing individual protected areas within larger regional contexts.

(excerpts from the body of the paper)
Visitor Opinions About and Responses to Use Limits
Further insight into the effects of use density on experiences can be gleaned from studies that asked visitors about their support for use limits. Typically, visitors support restricting the number of visitors to an area if it is being used beyond its capacity (Lucas 1980). However, visitors are reluctant to ever conclude that an area is being used beyond its capacity. Starting with a study of three eastern wilderness areas (Roggenbuck and others 1982), visitor support for use controls has been assessed by asking them to select one of the following responses: (1) controls are needed to lower use, (2) controls are needed to hold use at current levels, (3) controls not needed now, but should be imposed in the future if overuse occurs, or (4) controls not needed now or in the future. Virtually everywhere this question has been asked, including some of the most densely used destinations in the wilderness system (Cole and others 1997), most people have responded that controls are not needed now but should be imposed in the future if overuse occurs.

The one exception in the literature Linville Gorge Wilderness already has a permit system. Most visitors there also support the status quo, which in this case, means they think use should be held to current levels. Shortly after the implementation of use limits, visitor opinions about limits were assessed at Rocky Mountain National Park (Fazio and Gilbert 1974), Denali National Park (Bultena and others 1981), and San Gorgonio and San Jacinto Wildernesses (Stankey 1979). In each case, most people who visited these places after use limits had been imposed supported that management action. They supported the current management regime.

Hall and Cole (2000) examined visitor response to the imposition of use limits in the Obsidian Falls area of the Three Sisters Wilderness. Prior to the imposition of use limits in 1991, 60 percent of visitors opposed use limits. After implementation of limits in 1997, 60 percent of visitors supported the use limits. One might want to interpret this as evidence that visitors changed their opinion about use limits once they experienced the benefits that accrue from a reduction in use density. This does not appear to be the case, however. Prior to the imposition of use limits, most visitors were repeat visitors. Following the imposition of use limits the clientele had changed dramatically. Most visitors were first-timers, more amenable to regulation and, interestingly, no less tolerant of encounters or ecological impacts. One of the effects of use limits was to displace many traditional users who were replaced by people who were less bothered by being regulated. Consequently, the majority of visitors supported the current management regime, regardless of what that regime was. Use limits were not imposed at Green Lakes a nearby wilderness destination that was even more heavily used than the Obsidian Falls area. The portion opposed to use limits there increased from 60 to 70 percent between 1991 and 1997.

(somewhat later:)

Consequences of Choice
When the consequences of choices are made clear, current onsite visitors tend to support the current management regime and accept existing biophysical and social conditions (unless the costs of a change in management are all borne by some other user group). Since density has little effect on experience quality, few visitors are willing to forego the opportunity for access in order to have fewer encounters when they do visit.

Although visitors tend to support the concept of limiting use to avoid certain problems, they seldom conclude that problems are severe enough to warrant limits at this time perhaps because they recognize that such limits would hinder their own access. Those who do not like the current management program, either the existing regulations or resultant conditions, are likely to have already gone elsewhere. They are not likely to make up a large proportion of any sample of onsite users. Therefore, if use levels are increasing and managers make decisions about tradeoffs the way that empirical studies suggest most visitors would, there will almost always be a constant evolution toward higher density experiences. This suggests that the rationale for use limits is more likely to come from some careful evaluation of legislative and administrative mandates or the unique value and purpose of any given area than from a survey of current visitors.