Anza Borrego Desert State Park - California State Parks - State of ...

Final Report – October 2001
Percent
40 40
35 35
30 30
25 25
20 20
15 15
34.42
30.84
10 10
5
0
11.36
9.42
8.44
5.52
Photo1 Photo 2 Photo 13 Photo 4 Photo 5 Photo 6
Figure 45. Highest level of trail standard tolerated – Borrego Palm Canyon
Acceptability of Trail Standards at Mountain Palm Springs
The issue identified by ABDSP staff for Mountain Palm Springs also included questions
of trail standards and maintenance, as at Borrego Palm Canyon. To assess these
preferences, a photo series identical to that used at Borrego Palm Canyon (Panel 5) was
used portraying a range of trail conditions (Photos 1 through 6),
The question presented to visitors taking the survey was:
Anza-Borrego Desert State Park provides a variety of trails. The computer-generated
photographs simulate a range of trail conditions that the Park can provide. The managers
are interested in your opinion on how trail standards may affect your experience. To
help us assess this, please indicate the acceptability of the conditions represented by
each photo. The photo indicates what the trail would be like all the way to Borrego
Palm Springs. A rating of –4 signifies conditions are very unacceptable; a rating of +4 is
very acceptable.
The responses to this question and set of photos was very mixed (Tables 54 and 55).
The acceptability rating of Photo 1 (71.7%) was lower than that of Photo 2 (85.9%) in a
similar way as occurred in the Borrego Palm Canyon results. In Photos 3 (77.1%) and 4
(73.2%), acceptability was still higher than that of Photo 1, but not to the degree of the
Borrego Palm Canyon results. This may indicate that the Mountain Palm Springs survey
participants were less accepting of the additional trail engineering and evidence of
impacts portrayed in Photos 3 and 4, compared to the Borrego Palm Canyon sample. At
Photo 5 however, acceptability drops below 50%, although the mean is still barely above
the zero-line (Figures 46 and 47, Tables 54 and 55). By the time trail conditions depicted
in Photo 6 are reached, a large majority of visitors (75.2%) find the trail unacceptable.
Like the results of the Borrego Palm Canyon group, the shape of the acceptability curve
for the Mountain Palm Springs sample is parabolic. Similarly, it indicates the preferred
trail conditions for most visitors lie somewhere in the range of conditions portrayed in
65