ABSTRACT
When America's national forests were established near the end to the 19th century, the land set aside was generally far from urban centers. Now, as the end to the 20th century nears, urbanization has spread to the point where some of the national forest lands lay at the doorstep of many millions of urban dwellers and the interstate highway has made much more national forest land only a brief drive from the largest metropolitan centers. The same could be said of the arid lands of the Southwest managed by the Bureau of Land Management. The emergence of these "urban" wildlands has made outdoor recreation in wildland settings more accessible to a much broader segment of society.
