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Can the Appalachian Trail Survive ‘A Walk in the Woods?’
- meursault334 11y agoWas it even a good movie? I've heard pretty negative things about. I'm a fan of long distance walks but I've been reluctant to see the movie thus far.
- davidw 11y agoI enjoyed the book a lot, like all of Bill Bryson's books.
- DanBC 11y agoThe movie Wild is a good film. It might not be good if you know anything about long distance walking and wilderness trails. In the same way that movies get coding and cracking wrong, even if they make an attempt at honesty.
- meursault334 11y agoYeah Wild seemed like a good film but I didn't like how much they got wrong. I'll check out Do More With Less per the other poster's suggestion.
- nether 11y agoIf you want to see a thru-hiking film, watch Do More With Less: https://vimeo.com/126514281 https://vimeo.com/126514281. It's a fantastic documentary on the PCT filmed last year.
- cakeface 11y ago"Baxter officials say thru-hikers are openly using drugs and drinking alcohol, camping where they aren’t supposed to, and trying to pass their pets off as service dogs." - Sounds like a pretty good time to me. I don't think that I can get behind a complaint that people are hiking in the wilderness _too much_. This is a good problem to have.
- GavinMcG 11y agoI doubt many would disagree with you, if the people hiking were dispersed. But there is (obviously, I think) such a thing as overuse when it comes to a given natural resource. More importantly, treating this like it's an issue of "people hiking... too much" ignores an awful lot. The hiking isn't the problem, it's discourtesy, entitlement, and destructiveness that are worrisome.
- jqm 11y agoFor some reason wherever there are lots of people (at least in the US...I don't know about the rest of the world) discourtesy, entitlement and destructiveness seem to abound. Personally I think the answer is better policing and giving out large tickets for litterers and destroyers. I don't see people smoking some weed why they hike being a real problem.
- davidw 11y ago> I don't know about the rest of the world My experience in Italy is that they manage a high number of users pretty well without getting so uptight about things. Just one bizarre example: you can bring a rifle into a wilderness area and kill an animal with it, but riding a mountain bike or even using a baby stroller is forbidden. People in the US seem to get into all these NIMBY sorts of huffs, despite the vast amounts of space available. Look at this, for instance: https://www.reddit.com/r/MTB/comments/3jfrf5/someone_asked_about_trail_sabotage_recently/ https://www.reddit.com/r/MTB/comments/3jfrf5/someone_asked_a...
- GavinMcG 11y agoI agree. Not all of the trail is on public land, but that sort of thing would be helped a great deal by having an adequate number of law enforcement rangers patrolling the Appalachian Trail land managed by the National Park Service. But there are nowhere near the number of rangers employed by the NPS as are necessary to have broadly effective enforcement. I'm on a flight right now, and am not readily finding concrete figures to support this, but I am a member of the Association of National Park Rangers (though not a ranger myself) and have a little bit of familiarity with related issues.
- debacle 11y agoThe biggest problem I see today is that there are so many hikers who say "leave no trace" and then kind of just treat the outdoors like their bedroom. You can't do anything about the boat campers and the cooler campers, but the backpackers and hikers that I have been around have been less conservation minded than I would like.
- Crito 11y agoIn my experience, backpackers are the least inclined to bring their trash back out with them. Too many selfishly prioritize their comfort (particularly, how much weight they are carrying) over respect for the environment.
- aero142 11y agoReally? Where? I've done several multi day backcountry backpacking trips in national parks recent years, and I can't think of a single piece of trash I've seen or person I've seen leaving trash at camp.
- jandrese 11y agoTrash is light, and you already carried it that far, what's a few dozen more miles? Maybe with toilet paper, but that should be buried anyway, not blowing in the wind across the trail. Or is burying poop out of fashion again? I've been out of the hiking scene for some time now.
- chiph 11y agoI hate to see a quota imposed, but if the problems increase (who takes a hairdryer into the wilderness??) maybe there needs to be some qualification hikes, much like how you have to finish a certain number of marathons before being allowed into the Boston marathon.
- crctnt 11y agoYou only have to finish 1 marathon before running Boston, you just have to run it fast enough to qualify. http://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/participant-information/qualifying/qualifying-standards.aspx http://www.baa.org/races/boston-marathon/participant-informa... You can also get in with a charity slot without qualifying.
- jqm 11y agoMaybe coming soon: a toll gate. Onstensibly to pay for trash pickup. Really to pay for a park official mid-management bureaucrat's pension.
- meritt 11y agoNot a fan of either film but I really enjoyed both books. I think Wild has substantially further reach, especially among women, while Bryson's book is amusing and entertaining, yet ultimately forgettable. Either way, an increase in Americans focused on exercise, spending time in the wilderness, and general soul-searching activities will be a good thing.
- ghaff 11y agoI did like the Wild film as well as (for the most part) the book. Certainly it's much more polarizing than Bryson's book which--like a lot of Bryson's work--is breezy and engaging but doesn't have a whole lot of depth. I likewise think getting people outdoors is a generally positive thing although it's also the case that Baxter in particular has a definite limit to how many people it can handle.
- jlarocco 11y ago> Either way, an increase in Americans focused on exercise, spending time in the wilderness, and general soul-searching activities will be a good thing. I disagree. The problem pointed out in the article is that a lot of people aren't there to exercise and soul search, and they're ruining it for people who would like to do so in the future by trashing the place. It's absolutely not a good thing if many of the people are going into the wilderness and destroying it with trash, vandalism, and dog shit.
- meritt 11y ago> dog shit You know the woods are filled with animals that shit in the woods all the time, right? People should be burying it or at least moving it off trail but feces is a purely natural occurrence. The trash and vandalism I absolutely agree with you.
- cowsandmilk 11y agoThe reason you aren't allowed to have dogs on Katahdin is because that type of animal doesn't actually go up into the alpine zone of Katahdin. The plants there are extremely sensitive and cannot survive being stepped on by animals. And they are only able to grow for a couple weeks a year, so one dog can kill decades of growth by stepping on a small plant. So, I agree with the woods part, bring all the dogs you want onto the trail when you're in the woods, but when the rangers in Baxter State Park complain about people bringing dogs up the mountain, they are absolutely in the right.
- WDCDev 11y agoI REALLY want to explain this away as the complaining from some grumpy park rangers. Then you have these stories and you begin to wonder if there is something generational going on. Prom Date spray painted on Black Rocks -http://jonathanturley.org/2015/05/08/destinys-child-police-search-for-teenager-who-defaced-park-cliff-to-snag-a-date-to-the-prom/ http://jonathanturley.org/2015/05/08/destinys-child-police-s... Casey Nocket - http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2014/11/08/ams-woman-paints-faces-defacing-8-national-parks-including-zion-canyonlands/#.VenrqBHBzRY http://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/archive/2014/11/08/ams-woma...
- Crito 11y agoPunishments need to be adjusted. As it is, people think that this sort of vandalism isn't a big deal. They may not respect our national parks, but maybe heavy fines and stints in prison for serial offenders will get through to them.
- GavinMcG 11y agoWhy jump to a generational explanation? It could just as easily be a function of population growth, easier access (e.g. more info available about how to get outdoors), better marketing by the NPS to attract more visitors, etc. More people visited the parks last year than ever before.
- WDCDev 11y agoBecause in both cases I linked to, the perpetrators were under the age of 25. Sure it's anecdotal ... but you did ask.
- DanBC 11y agoOne of the articles you linked to mentions two boy scout leaders (both over the age of 25) who destroyed an ancient natural formation for a Youtube video. They escaped prison and a felony sentence and got a fine. (That's probably a good thing; I'd have preferred it if they'd had to place some signs as a restorative justice gesture).
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- sandworm101 11y agoThe generational shift isn't between people, but between decades. Many of the "leave no trace" hikers today were very different in their youth. Look through the history and you will find people in the 60s regularly doing things that today are simply not allowed (fires, cutting down small trees etc). So it isn't that people are different today. There are just more of them on trails. Some would say the answer is to provide more services such as better camping accommodations and harder trail surfaces to handle the extra people. I do not support this. I suggest that making trails easier attracts more people, only exacerbating the problem. It's a game that cannot be won. So rather than try to accommodate all these people, perhaps parts of the trail should be made less accommodating. Rock climbers do this all the time. See debates over sport (heavily bolted) v. traditional climbing methods. Adding safety features to a route attracts more traffic. Making/keeping a route difficult or even dangerous keeps beginners away, which reduces traffic. If we assume that there will always be more people in the future than there are now, that if nothing changes population pressure will always increase, then actively trying to keep people away may be the only sustainable plan.
- thaumasiotes 11y ago> So rather than try to accommodate all these people, perhaps parts of the trail should be made less accommodating. Rock climbers do this all the time. This makes perfect sense if the goal of being a hiker is to show that you're more macho, or otherwise more morally worthy, than non-hikers. It makes no sense at all if your viewpoint is that nature is beautiful and people should be encouraged to experience that.
- ctdonath 11y agoSometimes demand exceeds supply's ability to cope therewith, and some form of "friction" need be applied to reduce that demand lest the supply be destroyed. It's not about being macho etc, it's about "experiencing nature" unavoidably leaving a trace which, in great enough volume, destroys the beauty of that nature - and preserving that fragile beauty requires SOME barrier to persuade some it's not worth pursuing.
- sandworm101 11y ago
- maresca 11y agoI don't think this is as much of an issue as being portrayed. I've hiked 2 sections of the AT this summer and found no trash in either of them. I could see certain parts like the beginning and ending being worse, which would be expected. Designated camping spots weren't overcrowded. Besides cheeky motivational sayings written over trail markers, everything in both sections were pristine.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- protomyth 11y agoGary Player had an epic rant[1] about public golf courses getting harder and its affect on amateur numbers. I point to that example to explain my worry about making the trails more inaccessible to cut down the traffic. Making the normal person see the trail as a plaything for the elitist will not help future funding. 1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha59iKfjTxw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha59iKfjTxw
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoFundamentally, the Earth is finite and people are growing geometrically. If we're not at the 'natural spaces and trails' load limit now, we will get there sometime soon. Rationing is a frustrating solution. It means, only the special few get to enjoy these spaces. Then it no longer 'belongs to all of us' i.e. isn't a public space any more. So should the Federal Govt even administer it? Why do we all pay for it, when only a special few get to go there? I'm not anti-conservation. But these questions inevitably will arise as population (& demand) grows and the public spaces stay exactly the same size.
- erikpukinskis 11y agoWhat makes you think we are near the limit? There are two major north-south trails in the U.S. and the PCT is not crowded. It seems totally reasonable to increase the number of such routes by 10x or 100x. There is a lot of open space, and backcountry trails and camps are not particularly disruptive.
- JoeAltmaier 11y agoPopulation grows geometrically. Land area is a constant. QED
- astr0n0m3r 11y agoHere's the ALDHA's newsletter from this past winter which gives a more detailed account of the problems at Katahdin. http://aldha.org/newsletter/2014D_winter.pdf http://aldha.org/newsletter/2014D_winter.pdf I thru-hiked in 2007, and many of the problems now were in their infancy but not out of hand yet. There has always been a couple bad apples, but this is simply a result of the numbers. In June, I was visiting family near the trail at the same time the wave of thru-hikers comes by, and I couldn't believe how many there were. I also gave two thru-hikers a hitch, so I had a chance to talk to them about some of this. They estimated about 4x as many hikers compared to the year I thru-hiked. And I think they said there was one campsite somewhere down south with 89 tents (or hikers I can't remember) in a single night. One of them said they were hiking this year specifically because they heard the movie was coming out.