The U.S. Bureau of Land Management announced that it will triple the number of daily hiking permits at Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona, including The Wave, a beautiful and delicate rock formation; critics worry that increasing the traffic will weaken and eventually destroy the structure. For 20 years, the park allowed 20 hikers per day; now that will increase to 64 per day. Requests have doubled over the last seven years for the hiking permits, with only a 4% acceptance rate and a backlog of 205,000. (Brian Witte/AP, 2013)
