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I completely agree with your comment about democratizing of our outdoors with mediums like Instagram. They provide a phenomenal view into the beauty of our plan

I completely agree with your comment about democratizing of our outdoors with mediums like Instagram. They provide a phenomenal view into the beauty of our planet, but open that beauty to a lot of bad actors, or, at least, ignorant actors. Fortunately, there are a few 'grammers who adhere to digital leave no trace and always leave a blurb about the real 'leave no trace' within each post. I would love that to be the norm. From a personal level, I came to the same logical conclusion as you - push ever deeper into nature via mountaineering, bc skiing, etc. At the end of the day though am I not just a hypocritical ass? I can explore further into nature due to gps, maps, synthetic materials, lightweight AT ski gear, etc. Are not the 'original' explorers just looking at me like I look at the wave of new 'for the gram' hikers?

ahelwer 8y ago
Of course the original explorers feel that way! Heck, I sport climb, which at one point was nearly grounds for a beating in some circles. I think people worry too much about hypocrisy. Arguments of the form "you believe X, but if we take X to its logical extreme then you yourself run afoul of X!" lost all weight with me a long time ago. Sure, in the long run all attempts to avoid the crowd fails, and of course you yourself are part of "the crowd" to some people. But human life doesn't take place in the long run, it happens in the time preceding it. I can enjoy my favorite backcountry spots (which I learned about from someone else, and so on) for some number of years before they are overrun with crowds, but the inevitability of them being run over by crowds does not take away those years.