The East is steadily losing its struggle to maintain postcard-perfectviews of favorite remote summer vacation spots while the West iswinning, according to a 10-year analysis of air quality in 12 U.S. national parks by UC Davis researchers. The unexpected findings by research physicist Robert Eldred and atmospheric science professor Thomas Cahill were published in a recent issue of the international journal Atmospheric Environment. "On many days in the summer, visitors have no view at all except a strange, gray fog from many of the most popular lookouts," says Cahill, head of the UC Davis Air Quality Group. "But it's not fog. It is almost pure dilute sulfuric acid, with lots of water attached." The immediate bad news for folks planning to get away to the great outdoors soon is that the air quality in most of the Eastern parks declines sharply during the summer months. Despite sulfur emissions holding roughly constant in the decade 1982-1992, summer sulfate hazes in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tenn., soared almost 40 percent, making it the clear loser of the decade. Typically, a summer day in the great outdoors in the East has about 10 times the concentration of sulfates as the West, the researchers found.