[pct-l] "Business"...."THE NATURE OF THE BEAST"

[Stephen Adams]

So true, so true.  I was recently at a camp site in the Sierra where a couple were playing trail angles and doing quite a bit to help hikers out.  Basically they over did it, and it was only the tail end of the herd.  Feeding and ferrying many hikers per day and leaving a sign at the trail head was a wee bit conspicuous.  Great folks trying to do the right thing, but in this local there have been a few issues over recent years.  Granted a much more gracious camp host has been put in place, but in conversation it slipped that it was becoming a problem.  I doubt this will be allowed to continue in future.  Not so much the fact that some nice folks simply wished to be involved and offer help, but because of the shear volume of hikers.  Day in and day out for the six days I was close by there was a constant flow of hikers.  At one point there were 12 people in a campsite limited to 6 max and all eating food prepared for them and drinking sodas and beer provided for them by the nice folks who left the donation jar out in plain sight.  Kinda left me wondering, and I'm only thinking out loud here and pretty much still on the fence about it.  Mind you I left a bunch of beer and food with them, and I got to meet a lot of the hikers which is always good, but it was quite the scene.  That's why I caught the camp host in a moment of chit-chat after hours and asked what he really thought, and he suggested he was getting kinda tired of it.  Which with that said, it might be a good idea in future to be more low key in an area where there is not only paying camp guests, but also a camp host employee paid to clean and take care of the area.
Thus I see the problem in the near future, years to come, as being one of volume impact, just too many people (it already has been a problem for some people).  I think maybe that's why we are having discussions with relation to experienced trail helpers vs part time good samaritans.  This has already been touched on here recently in better language than I can spell out , but it is going to effect everyone in the social community of the PCT, those hiking, and those helping or wanting to help.