I found a list of Recent Adirondack Search and Rescue Incidents that goes along nicely with our discussion of tourism today. Our definition of a tourist was someone who was visiting a place they didn't intend to live in and someone who didn't know how things were done in the place they were visiting (think: a tourist standing in the middle of a street looking at a map and getting in the way).
Well, hikers who get lost (which are the majority of these search and rescue incidents) are kind of like tourists who get in the way. They might not know the area they are hiking in well, and they do something that creates extra work for the locals. I'm sure that helicopter rescues are expensive and difficult.
This does well to emphasize the paradox of tourism. Money is brought into an area by tourists who want to visit, but in order to sustain tourism, money must be spent. The Adirondacks need to be under the watch of rangers and have wilderness medical teams and helicopters in order to respond properly when people who are visiting the Adirondacks need help. This also does well to illustrate why being a tourist has such a bad connotation.
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