For everyone bitching about all the tourists and lines etc in the National Parks, think back a bit, and recall the first time you visited...say...Yosemite? What did you do? Did you climb a 5.9 route up El Capitan, or go on a multi-day backpacking trip in Tenaya Canyon? Or did you take the typical daytrip, drive around the valley, take pictures of El Capitan and Half Dome and the waterfalls before finishing the day at Glacier Point?
Most people on this site probably appreciate the wildnerness more than the casual tourist (or think they do). Some members probably appreciate it more than others. But we all start out as casual tourists. Some never move beyond that stage. Does that make them bad people? Do you expect a 6 year old kid visiting the Grand Canyon for the first time to backpack Rim to Rim to Rim (Scott P's family aside)? An elderly couple who have worked hard their whole lives, they save up enough money to buy an RV, retire, and drive to Glacier. Do you expect them climb Mt. Cleveland? An army vet returns from overseas sans leg or arm. He's always wanted to see the Tetons. Do you expect him to free solo Direct Exum?
It's all about choice when it comes to our public lands. If Joshua Tree were all privately owned, none of us would even have the choice to drive it, or hike it, or climb it. We're lucky to have these Parks available to us, so that we have that choice to hang with the crowds at the popular overlooks, or to leave them behind on a trail or up a river. We have the choice to forego the park too, and spend a week instead on some BLM or forest or other wilderness area, such as the Bob, where we wouldn't see a soul for a week. All of us can be exasperated by crowds, tourists, and traffic jams and what not. Consider an SP'er driving up to Yosemite to spend a weekend in the backcountry and Joe Tourist driving there with his family to stay at the Lodge, play some golf, and enjoy all the comforts of home in a spectacular natural setting. Does the SP'er, the hiker, the climber really have more of a right or claim to the park than Joe Tourist, assuming neither party litters, vandalizes the park, exploits it, etc?
I know my love of the outdoors comes from traveling with my parents as a kid, visiting places like Yellowstone and the Tetons, Zion and Bryce Canyon, Yosemite and Sequoia, doing the casual tourist thing. Decades later I feel the urge to return to these places and visit them on my own terms, with my own agenda. I'm sure my experience is hardly unique; rather, it applies to many of us here at this website. If all the purists had their way, would any of us have had the chance to have grown to love and cherish the great outdoors in the first place?