In the late 1970s, in response to rapidly increasing visitor use and proliferating impacts, the condition of all campsites in the backcountry of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks was assessed by park research staff. All campsites were located and assigned to one of 273 different subzones; their condition was assessed on the basis of eight impact parameters: vegetation density, vegetation composition, total area of the campsite, barren core area, campsite development, litter and duff, social trails, and tree mutilations. In 2006 and 2007, to ascertain trends in impact, the campsite survey was repeated in 120 of the 273 subzones (44% of the wilderness).

The Wilderness Visitor Experience Workshop was held at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest near Missoula, MT, April 4-7, 2011. The science and management of wilderness visitors is now more than half a century old. Much has been learned over this period. And yet it seems that enthusiasm for recreation research generally and for wilderness visitor science specifically has been waning recently. With the 50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act approaching in 2014, it seemed timely to celebrate and capture what has been learned over the past 50 years. We also wanted to revitalize this research tradition and prepare for the next half century of visitor experience research and stewardship. For three days, twenty-one scientists and managers gave presentations and discussed important topics. The original idea for the workshop was to comprehensively survey the breadth of research on wilderness visitor experience, such that these proceedings would provide a state-of-knowledge on this topic. Indeed, a number of the papers produced are comprehensive reviews. Some participants, however, chose to present empirical papers, without comprehensive reviews, and others presented original essays suggesting important avenues for wilderness research. The result is a collection of reviews, empirical research and personal essays that provide a rich (if not comprehensive) overview of the past, present and future of wilderness visitor experience research. Prior to the workshop, a number of driving issues and questions emerged. A number revolved around the issue of the nature of wilderness experiences and their stewardship. Specific questions under this topic included: Are wilderness experiences unique? How are high quality wilderness experiences best described? What are we managing for? Do we manage wilderness conditions regardless of the experiences people seek? What attributes most influence experience quality and how should we define thresholds for these attributes? How can management protect against threats and/or enhance experiences? How much should managers intervene to manage for "ideal" experiences? The workshop was convened to celebrate and review 50 years of research on wilderness visitor experience and its influence on wilderness stewardship. These proceedings are organized in three sections. The first section contains 12 papers that review literature or describe empirical research about wilderness visitor experiences. The second section provides three papers on management frameworks and the perspectives of planners and managers. The third section consists of five papers on wilderness experiences and the future.

The U.S. Forest Service is responsible for managing over 35 million acres of designated wilderness, about 18 percent of all the land managed by the agency. Nearly all (90 percent) of the National Forests and Grasslands administer designated wilderness. Although the central mandate from the 1964 Wilderness Act is that the administering agencies preserve the wilderness character in these designated areas, the concept of wilderness character has largely been absent in Forest Service efforts to manage wilderness. The purpose of this document is to help National Forest planners, wilderness staff, and project leaders apply in a practical way the concept of wilderness character to forest and project planning, the National Environmental Policy Act process, on-the-ground wilderness management, and wilderness character trend monitoring that is relevant to an individual wilderness.