5 ms·

Why have the trails at all then? This sounds like some gatekeeping bullshit, where you think people who take a few pix along the trail are not enjoying nature c

• strken 4y ago
  The gatekeeping happens because less experienced people who drive to a spot are more likely to leave used toilet paper and discarded snack wrappers everywhere, not because they're "not enjoying nature properly".
  • plugin-baby 4y ago
    > leave used toilet paper and discarded snack wrappers everywhere This sounds like a good example of not enjoying nature properly.
• subpixel 4y ago
  Many trails are, in fact, private. Land trusts and similar organizations often maintain the trails on private land, for private landowners, and are charged with both protecting the land and _managing access_. A very common occurrence is for miles of trail system to be accessible by less than a dozen parking spots. This is not convenient; and that is on purpose. Another common thing where I live are preserves that are only accessible via paddle, and only via membership in the organization (often a land trust, sometimes another kinds of nonprofit) that stewards the land, and sometimes only if you are lucky enough to "win" a reservation. (That process used to be by mail, like Grateful Dead tickets; now it is a single morning when everyone wakes up at 6 and tries to snag a reservation online.) There is simply no way to allow mass access and maintain the circumstances that make these locations special and worth preserving. In the US, the most popular state parks (where wild landscapes are ruined, wild animals molested, and deadlocked vehicle traffic are the norm) are an example of how attempts to do so fail.