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While some parks have struggled to catch up to the sudden demands of tourists, at The Wave, a formation run by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) on the Utah-Arizona border, protections have been in place since the 1980s. Every year, over 150,000 people apply to a lottery to visit the unique formation. Only about 10,000 are selected, which comes out to about 20 people per day. But recently, the BLM has begun to consider increasing the number of permits to 96 people a day, which is a 450% increase.

\"What we’re doing with The Wave, really, is an environmental assessment that helps us look at where the balance point is,\" said Mike Herder, district manager for the Arizona Strip District, BLM. \"Can we, in fact, increase the number [of people] without tipping that balance where solitude is lost and it just becomes a line of people.\"

But Taylor McKinnon from the Center for Biological Diversity believes the land is already endangered at its current levels of use. Calling The Wave \"one of the most visually interesting geologic formations that there is,” he said that the “very fine, delicate sandstone structure\" is already seeing \"impacts that BLM never anticipated.\"

McKinnon said that the soil crust in the desert around the wave is \"actually alive.\" It absorbs and holds water when it rains, \"and it’s very sensitive to people and being stepped on.\"

\"Photographer
Jerry Ginsberg
Photographer Jerry Ginsberg captured this photo of "The Wave" in Arizona. See more of his work on his website, www.jerryginsberg.com.
>

\"Nightline\" entered the lottery just like everyone else and was lucky enough to be among the 10 selected in person to visit, embarking on the hike before sunrise with guide Corey Unsworth, owner of the Kanab Tour Company. Unsworth said that there is a delicate balance between preserving nature and basking in all its glory — even if that means fewer tourists and therefore smaller profits for his company.

\"The reason I do this is because I love it,\" Unsworth, who has guided tours for five years, told \"Nightline.\" \"This is one of those spots you don’t yet have that overcrowding sensation so it’s nice that we still have a few places around that we can still have a unique experience on our own.\"

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