I just read the comments from another retired NPS person (WT). His were pretty close to what I posted: zones unworkable, make a distinction between stock use and grazing (not the same).
You're spot on with administrative stock. That's half the use nights and a major, major impact that affects commercial users.
But I just don't understand how grazing of meadows by stock is accepted as part of the natural state of wilderness. It's not just you, it's everyone in NPS now. The whole management program is directed towards tweaking grazing nights, which is great. But what about people (and the meadow's ecology) who want and deserve a totally grazing, stock-free meadow? It's outrageous NPS doesn't provide that.
I've used this quote many times, but Randy had it absolutely right:
g.All the meadows in Evolution Valley were grazed this summer, and they all looked it. Yet Franklin Meadow apparently was not, and in October it was a place of knee high grasses, ripe and open panicles drifting on the moving air, luminous-bronze in the backlight. It was a very different place and a very different emotional experience of a mountain meadow, and entirely consistent with what one might rightly expect of a national park backcountry. It was a garden. I sometimes wonder whether range management concepts are any more applicable to our business than timber management concepts. The difference between a grazed meadow and a logged forest may only be one of scale.
--Randy Morgenson