[pct-l] What do you think?

[AsABat]

There was a time when I would have preferred to have no trails in the
wilderness, having us instead explore find our own way. I spend more time on
trail now, but back then found almost anywhere I wanted to go off trail I
still found a sense of a trail leading there.

As for signs, I don't trust them anyway. They fall down, burn down, get
turned around. I saw one this year clearly pointing the wrong way in Section
P (sorry, can't remember where). I tried to reorient it, but couldn't budge
it without a bit of work, and it appeared the herd's footprints had found
the correct way anyway.

Some years back the USFS removed the toilets on the Mt Whitney Trail,
instead requiring users to pack it ALL out. They gave various reasons, but I
still disagree with their decision, because more than a few don't bother,
pooping in their bags and then leaving the bags behind. As Miner said,
sometimes more use helps preserve more wilderness, and that particular trail
gets a lot of use by backpackers who will never backpack again, they just
want to do Whitney. I'd prefer to see that trail (only) managed to
accommodate a larger use to educate the masses on the need to preserve
wilderness.

AsABat

On Sun, Sep 5, 2010 at 7:50 PM, Sean 'Miner' Nordeen <
sean at lifesadventures.net> wrote:

> Actually, the past several years in SoCal, I've seen the occasionally
> vandal defacing wilderness signs by trailheads with anti-sign propaganda.
>  Ironcially, I find their illegal messages far more intrusive on the
> wilderness experience then any trail sign.  I'd like to point out that these
> vandals are not supported by the NFS.  It seems to me that different
> wilderness areas interpret the rules differently depending on who is
> managing the area and isn't a universal movement against signs as I haven't
> seen that in the areas I visit regularly.
>
> I've often wandered if these anti-sign people are anti-trail as well since
> its also a man made scar on the "pristine" wilderness.  IMHO, the best
> protection for the wilderness areas is to get people to use them.  This
> increases awareness of the area and leads to more people advocating to
> protect its natural features that were the reason the area was protected in
> the first place.  If our public lands were allowed to become completely wild
> where only a small elite could use them (while those few may want it that
> way), this would lead to less funding and less protection in the long term
> as the rest of the population would start asking why are we protecting
> something that few use.  I'm all for encouraging people to use our public
> lands.  Sure we end up with things like trailhead quotas in a few high use
> places, but the rest of the lands get very few visitors and languish under
> neglect.
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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