Master of Science

thesisWith the ever growing numbers of visitors to protected areas across the United States, research is needed to help address management issues that come with this influx of recreationists. As these populations increase, protected areas that fall within close proximity to urban centers have begun to feel these impacts. One of the main aspects of these "wild" areas is the concept of solitude. The 1964 Wilderness Act considers Wilderness as an area that must have "outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation." In past studies on experiences of solitude, both field-based and lab-based research have been used to collect and analyze data. However, it has not been determined the strengths and weaknesses of one method in relation to the other. Using an urban-proximate wilderness area in the Uinta-Wasatch-Cache National Forest, this study aimed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of the types of monitoring for solitude in urban-proximate areas, ranging from completely field-based to completely lab-based. This study also provides a comparative analysis of types of monitoring for solitude in urban-proximate wildernesses areas, in order to help identify the best practices for each type of monitoring. The results of this study showed that solitude monitoring methods and techniques can be better viewed on a spectrum and that each method used has its own unique strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the monitoring situation, a combination of methods from along this spectrum of strictly lab- based to strictly field-based creates the most optimal practices for monitoring solitude