Wilderness provides natural, undeveloped, untrammeled, unconfined recreation opportunities in conjunction with a sense of primitiveness and solitude. Effective wilderness management ensures that these qualities endure over time. However, wilderness management, as noted by Nash (1982), is a paradox, meaning that there is human influence in areas where such influence is meant to be absent. Search and rescue (SAR) is just one sphere where the National Park Service (NPS) faces a wilderness management conundrum. Managers are faced with preserving life while preserving wilderness qualities, and often these management objectives are mutually exclusive. Wilderness SAR operations in the national parks can have significant and lasting ecological, social, and economic impacts. This article focuses on economic impacts of search and rescue and proposes feasible approaches to search and rescue and to reduce wilderness impacts.