Related to the changing standards for giant sequoia preservation were equally different standards for much of the rest of the foothill and forest country of the two parks. Originally, these lands were perceived largely as buffers, lands of little value in themselves. As the concept of the parks shifted, however, from places of object preservation to places of ecological preservation, so, too, did the value of the parks' original buffers. Owing to their low perceived value, these areas had escaped both extensive development and some of the mistakes of past resource management schemes. Fire had been suppressed in these areas, and wildlife management had included predator elimination work. But in some ways these areas remained less affected than the more highly prized areas of the parks. Problems did persist, however. In the foothill country above Yucca Mountain, which comprised the northwestern part of Sequoia National Park, trespass cattle continued to graze, reflecting the low opinion parks' management held for this resource area. By the 1980s, however, with the Leopold group's concepts thoroughly embraced by parks' management, the importance of the buffer lands changed fundamentally. The biological integrity of these regions now began to receive serious protection through reintroduction of fire, tighter policing of grazing infractions, and serious research about chaparral ecology.

If Sequoia and General Grant national parks were originally created to preserve Big Trees, both reservations were later expanded to include extensive portions of the southern Sierra's high country wilderness. In the case of Sequoia, this transition occurred in 1926, when the Kern Canyon and Mt. Whitney regions were included in the park, and was reinforced in 1978, when the Mineral King transfer occurred. In the case of General Grant, the shift to wilderness management took place when Kings Canyon National Park was established in 1940. Again, when compared to the expectations expressed by their creators, both parks succeeded completely in their wilderness preservation responsibilities. Sheep and cattle ceased to graze the high country's meadows, mining quietly disappeared, hydroelectric development was thwarted, and access remained primitive, limited to foot and horse traffic. The resource problems that typified the high country an the beginning of the twentieth century—mainly severe overgrazing—were largely mitigated, although pockets of heavy grazing remained as a result of recreational stock use. As recreation replaced grazing, however, a new set of resource impacts appeared, mostly related to the large number of people entering the region each summer. If turn-of-the-century recreational users could have returned to the high Sierra in the 1980s, they would have been excited by the fact that Congress had designated the area as a permanent recreational wilderness, but shocked by the prospect of between 30,000 and 40,000 people entering the region annually, despite quotas. In many ways the legal wilderness designated by Congress was not a true wilderness an all in the traditional sense, a place where civilization and humanity could be escaped.

In the face of heavy recreational use, the changing standards of preservation also made themselves visible in backcountry management. As the management goal moved towards one of total natural systems preservation, many previously acceptable recreational behaviors ceased to be permissible, including building camp fires in alpine areas and burying garbage. Even the grazing of horses and mules became illegal in certain meadows. Once again, as with the sequoia groves, changes in management philosophy and goals often caught large portions of the public by surprise. Many traditional users still demanded to use the backcountry as an arena for recapturing the frontier and the historic American cultural legacy of unlimited resource use.