Much of what was beautiful about the forest and lake was lost in the process of people wanting to enjoy it. Recreation can and does do that. The problem is, we haven’t figured out how to limit recreation use below the level where the beauty is degraded. Research hasn’t shown us how to reclaim natural beauty when it has been damaged, or destroyed. We can replant trees after a fire or logging, we can obliterate roads, reduce grazing impacts by removing ungulates (hoofed, grazing animals, cows, elk, elephants etc.), we can rehabilitate streams, reintroduce fish and wild animals, we have the science to rehabilitate these, it is a matter of money and time to do it. Recreation impacts are different, recreation is different because it involves so many individual people; it is economic and it is political and that’s a tough combination to limit. People have very different ideas about what natural beauty is, how much degradation is acceptable, how accessible should beauty be, the limits of use, personal freedoms, “to do what I want to do on my land!” People’s different ideas about forests, lakes, mountains, rivers, beauty and how to enjoy them is as varied as the people who want to enjoy outdoor recreation and those who want to make a living from it.
It is typical for interest groups to want desirable areas exclusively for their particular use. It is hard for horse riders to share a trail with four wheelers, it is hard for cross country skiers to share a trail with snowmobilers, canoeists, kayakers and rafters prefer not to hear motor boats, motor boaters want to go wherever the water is suitable. The list goes on and on. The point is, one person’s recreation may ruin the experience for another and there simply are not enough mountains, forests, lakes and rivers for every recreation interest group to have their own place. We need to develop ways to share recreation spaces and accept some limits so natural beauty and the benefits of the outdoors are not degraded.
So far, the answers have been: prohibit certain types of use in some places, install a lot of rules, and harden the sites. “Hardening a site” usually involves blacktop, toilets, designated places to camp and so on. Rules - the more people there are at a recreation area, the more rules there are and when the list of rules gets very long there will be rule enforcers, call them rangers, sheriffs or police, they are necessary. In some places, limiting the kinds of uses is necessary to reduce conflicts between groups, or to protect nature. Examples are, off road vehicles are prohibited in certain areas to protect soil, streams, wild animals and plants; motor boats may be prohibited where people swim, you can think of many other examples. The problem with these tactics is they are just reacting to the problem of too many people using a place and wearing it out. 
Recreation areas need a “strategic management plan” that identifies the qualities that are important about a place, that can help determine how much use and what kinds of use the place can sustain and still preserve its special qualities. Then, somehow, figure out ways to limit use. That is a very difficult thing to do, but we need to try. If we don’t know what we want to save it will gradually be lost.
There is an underlaying problem related to degrading the natural beauty at recreation and scenic areas with blacktop and toilets. That problem is, Americans are becoming accustomed to the idea that blacktop and toilets are associated with places of natural beauty and recreation. Our understanding and standards of what is natural, of what is wild, of beauty, color, order and what is real is being compromised. Maybe worse, most Americans view natural beauty on a digital screen more that in real life. Those outdoor picture have likely been color enhanced, an obstruction that “doesn’t belong” may have been removed - there is nothing real about a image on a screen, yet we’re getting accustomed to thinking, “that is nature.” But, there is no breeze in your face, you can’t smell the smells, you don’t feel the fear when you’ve glimpsed a bear, you’re not freezing cold, or sweating from the effort to get to the view, it’s virtual and that is a long ways from being real. People may be losing understanding of that difference, that can be serious.
The parking lots, moderately clean toilets and digital images may be as close as many of us get to nature, and that’s probably better than nothing. We can think of these experiences as incentives to learn more about the natural world and go deeper into it. That would be good, that can take you beyond recreation to the kind of experience the poets describe - and even they can’t quite do it because the experience can be beyond words. That is where recreation can take us at its best.
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