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Show Visits to Intermountain Winter Sports Area Shows Substantial Increase Over Past Years New heights were scaled in 1953 fo- use of the Intermountain Intermoun-tain Region's 28 improved national nation-al forest winter sports areas, according ac-cording to a report by A. G. Nord, assistant regional forester at Og-den. Og-den. Standing at 396,000 visits the winter sports use was up 18.39? over 1952. With normal snowfall use would have been much greater," Mr. iNord said. Tot;il isits to the 19 national forests of the Intermountain Region Re-gion showed an increase of 430,-000 430,-000 over 1952. The 1953 figure was 4.90-1.000 visits to improved public lecreation areas and for all oi her uses such as hunting, fishing, hiking and riding. "We certainly expect and welcome wel-come an expanding enjoyment and use by the public, of their national lurests," Mr. Nord said. Camping and picnicking also showed substantial gains attributed attrib-uted to greater tourist travel and growing intermountain populations. popula-tions. It was reported that the forest service budget nationwide allowed allow-ed an expenditure of 3.7c per visit for each of the 33,000,000 people who visited the 152 national na-tional lorests for recreation last year. The funds are spent for sanitation; maintenance of tables, ta-bles, stoves, water systems, and for campground cleanup and fire prevention. To help meet the growing expense ex-pense and recreation needs in local areas municipal, county and civic groups cooperate with the Forest Service. For the public's pub-lic's help with the "ways and means" jcb of maintaining recreation rec-reation facilities, Mr. Nord expressed ex-pressed the hearty appreciation of th? Forest Service. He said, "The j.plendid cooperation by local lo-cal people has added greatly to the public's enjoyment of the national na-tional forest recreation resources." re-sources." The ieport estimated the numbers num-bers motoring through Intermountain Inter-mountain national forest areas in 1953, at 5,314,000. This was in addition to those stopping at campgrounds and other areas. |