4 ms·

For 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 s

by jqm 11y ago

For 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 ago
I 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.
- jMyles 11y ago
  > an adequate number of law enforcement rangers Is this seriously what we want? This is a good thing to think long and hard about.
  - sp332 11y ago
    Yes. The trail is not a natural phenomenon; it has to be maintained.
DanBC 11y ago
Also, when you have very many people you only need a tiny number of them to leave litter for it to be a problem. That surprised me though. The few times I've been to the US it was absolutely litter free. I've only been to a very small number of places, and those places probably don't have people dropping litter, but after seeing those places it feels weird to me that Americans would leave trash in the wild. Over here (UK) there is trash everywhere. David Sedaris picks litter as a hobby. Or perhaps crusade. He picked so much (and wrote about the experience) that his local council (when he lived in England) named a bin lorry (garbage truck) after him. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0304pdh http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0304pdh

by jqm 11y ago

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 ago

I 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.

jMyles 11y ago
> an adequate number of law enforcement rangers Is this seriously what we want? This is a good thing to think long and hard about.
- sp332 11y ago
  Yes. The trail is not a natural phenomenon; it has to be maintained.

DanBC 11y ago

Also, when you have very many people you only need a tiny number of them to leave litter for it to be a problem. That surprised me though. The few times I've been to the US it was absolutely litter free. I've only been to a very small number of places, and those places probably don't have people dropping litter, but after seeing those places it feels weird to me that Americans would leave trash in the wild. Over here (UK) there is trash everywhere. David Sedaris picks litter as a hobby. Or perhaps crusade. He picked so much (and wrote about the experience) that his local council (when he lived in England) named a bin lorry (garbage truck) after him. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0304pdh http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0304pdh