[pct-l] Marble Mountain Wilderness :: Sec Q is Closed!! due tofires!!

[Eric Lee (GAMES)]

Gary wrote:
>
The idea that the forest service could provide staffing for a person
at every trailhead (I assume there is more than one way to get into
the Marble MT. Wilderness) so as to actively dissuade/inform hikers  
of the dangers seems a bit unreasonable to me.  The absence of such a  
person says pretty much *nothing* about the risks/danger of entering the
closed area.
>

Yup, I don't know much about whether or not the closure was warranted or
not but I agree with Gary - that kind of dubious risk analysis seems
about on the same level as the previously-discussed fellow who fell over
a cliff in the dark and is suing because there were no warning signs.
If the trail is closed, it's closed.   The forest service has no
responsibility to post rangers at each trail head to say whether or not
they REALLY MEAN IT; especially since I imagine they're just a little
bit busy right now with more important things.

I can certainly understand the temptation to ignore a closure sign and
keep plowing right on through, but I hope people are only doing that
after some careful investigation of the current conditions.  The odds
are they'll be fine, I guess, but large wildfires are nothing to fool
around with.  A big one can move way faster than you can run, and it's
easy to not even realize you're in danger until it's too late to escape
it.

I suppose the problem is that there's no way to distinguish between a
closure that says, "There's probably no risk but we're going to be on
the safe side anyway," and a closure that says, "If you go in here
you're likely to end up dead."  The temptation is to just apply
whichever interpretation is more convenient, which works fine  . . .
until it doesn't.

Eric