Backcountry as an alternative to wilderness

Backcountry areas have been suggested as recreation alternatives to wilderness. A problem with the concept is that areas which could be managed as backcountry are already used by recreationists. Visitors to a wilderness in Oregon and to a nondesignated roadless area in northern Idaho held many of the same values and sought the same kind of experiences. Therefore. redistribution, as proposed by backcountry proponents, may be equivalent to shifting use from officially designated wilderness to de facto wilderness rather than from wilderness to a backcountry recreation area.