No Name Lake Camping closure

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Aimless
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by Aimless » September 6th, 2019, 10:55 am

I am just supremely grateful that my parents took me camping and hiking out into wild places from a very early age, so that I never needed that kind of a "life-changing experience" to happen when I was an adult. It was already deeply knit into my life from the start. For someone to whom this was a wholly new experience, I'm sure it could be life-changing, but the fact that it took place up on Broken Top, next to that particular lake, was purely incidental.

The same life-changing experience could have happened at many hundreds of places in our lovely state, or at many thousands of places in the western USA. The fact that No-Name Lake suddenly exploded with newbie backpackers when it was featured on social media only proves how many people out there are searching for a different, more meaningful life. It's just weird that they think Instagram can point them at it.

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Charley
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by Charley » September 6th, 2019, 12:35 pm

Chip Down wrote:
September 5th, 2019, 7:30 pm
But consider this quote:

“It was such a life-changing experience getting to camp up there — the stars are insane,” she said. “It's sad that others won't have the chance to experience that because of a few people who don't adhere to Leave No Trace Principles.”

So for this person, it's not enough to visit, the "life changing experience" comes from sleeping there. But was it because of the stars, or was that an incidental comment? Anyway, I would encourage people to seek their own life-changing experience. If your life is changed by sleeping in a tent that's in a row of tents, maybe you need to recalibrate what qualifies as life changing. Heck, go sleep on top of Middle Sister. When I did that, it was all mine, which obviously made it so much cooler (I do recognize it's increasingly difficult to find that kind of experience, but keep looking).
I think the closure is okay. Maybe it makes sense. And I think that it's a bummer this place has gotten so busy that the closure is necessary.

But what rubs me wrong is this attitude that the young people who discover places like No-Name (thanks to social media that happen to be newer than this website), or who will admit that their lives are changed by their wild experiences, are somehow less worthy than you, or otherwise in need of recalibration. Chip Down has made assumptions that are not based on demonstrable fact( for instance, assuming that No-Name was crowded on Ms. Weinheimer's night, or that sleeping in a tent is only life changing if the tent is solitary). It's not up to you to decide what is life changing for a person: for all you know that trip was life-changing for her because it was her first night out under the stars!

It's fine to bemoan crowding, but when our ire becomes personal, it's highly unattractive. You want to know why so many young people aren't good at LNT? It's because of these kinds of gate keeping attitudes: "you kids suck, so get out of my woods. You're not doing hiking correctly." And so resources like oregonhikers, where young people might actually pick up some good backcountry skills, are bypassed as unwelcoming old farts' homes.

Crowding is a problem. Condescending to innocent but inexperienced young people who like to go outdoors (people just like you and me!) is not going to be a solution to the problem of crowding.

Who can solve this? The land managers! The Forest Service lacks the will for this. For example, I camped at Sahale Peak in the North Cascades years ago: there was a pit toilet up there, because they know that the alpine environment can't adequately process the volume of waste that the designated site can handle. Big surprise: people use the pit toilet and the glacier is not covered with human waste. This is not freaking rocket science.
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

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Charley
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by Charley » September 6th, 2019, 12:40 pm

Aimless wrote:
September 6th, 2019, 10:55 am
The same life-changing experience could have happened at many hundreds of places in our lovely state, or at many thousands of places in the western USA. The fact that No-Name Lake suddenly exploded with newbie backpackers when it was featured on social media only proves how many people out there are searching for a different, more meaningful life. It's just weird that they think Instagram can point them at it.
A more nuanced take! But Instagram is no more weird a way to find a meaningful life than books (like I did), religion (like I did), or hiking (I did that, too!). All of these tools or activities are potentially life-changing. I've never used Instagram, but why should it be any different than the Ira Spring books that directed the life of a couple of generations of Northwestern hikers and climbers?
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

Aimless
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by Aimless » September 6th, 2019, 1:11 pm

Charley wrote:
September 6th, 2019, 12:40 pm
Instagram is no more weird a way to find a meaningful life than books (like I did), religion (like I did), or hiking (I did that, too!). All of these tools or activities are potentially life-changing. I've never used Instagram, but why should it be any different than the Ira Spring books that directed the life of a couple of generations of Northwestern hikers and climbers?
I guess I disagree with you about the value of Instagram vs. books.

In her book, Wild, Cheryl Strayed recalls that her desire to hike the PCT was originally inspired by looking at the cover photo of the Wilderness Press PCT guidebook for California. Seeing that one photo just about summed up her entire knowledge of backpacking when she began. This to me is little different from people today looking at a lovely photo on Instagram with some enthusiastic blurb attached.

Strayed also makes it very plain that her absolute lack of useful knowledge nearly derailed her own "life-changing experience" right at the start, through a series of near-disasters she details at great length in her book, which book has been highly instrumental in inspiring the present boom in backpacking. Her book then details the long path she traveled to a greater appreciation of where she was and what she was doing.

To me, this well describes the difference between seeing a photo on the cover of a book (i.e. Instagram) and reading the book itself (Ira Spring). All those incipient Cheryl Strayeds would do better to look inside the book(s). Instagram may inspire through dreams and fantasies, which may be better than no inspiration at all, but those dreams that are untethered from reality, which can be better prepared for with more information of the sort books can provide.

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Charley
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by Charley » September 6th, 2019, 1:38 pm

Aimless wrote:
September 6th, 2019, 1:11 pm
Charley wrote:
September 6th, 2019, 12:40 pm
Instagram is no more weird a way to find a meaningful life than books (like I did), religion (like I did), or hiking (I did that, too!). All of these tools or activities are potentially life-changing. I've never used Instagram, but why should it be any different than the Ira Spring books that directed the life of a couple of generations of Northwestern hikers and climbers?
I guess I disagree with you about the value of Instagram vs. books.

In her book, Wild, Cheryl Strayed recalls that her desire to hike the PCT was originally inspired by looking at the cover photo of the Wilderness Press PCT guidebook for California. Seeing that one photo just about summed up her entire knowledge of backpacking when she began. This to me is little different from people today looking at a lovely photo on Instagram with some enthusiastic blurb attached.

Strayed also makes it very plain that her absolute lack of useful knowledge nearly derailed her own "life-changing experience" right at the start, through a series of near-disasters she details at great length in her book, which book has been highly instrumental in inspiring the present boom in backpacking. Her book then details the long path she traveled to a greater appreciation of where she was and what she was doing.

To me, this well describes the difference between seeing a photo on the cover of a book (i.e. Instagram) and reading the book itself (Ira Spring). All those incipient Cheryl Strayeds would do better to look inside the book(s). Instagram may inspire through dreams and fantasies, which may be better than no inspiration at all, but those dreams that are untethered from reality, which can be better prepared for with more information of the sort books can provide.
You're right about the deeper, more thorough benefit of books, as compared to Instagram! I read dozens of books a year, and I am constantly recommending them or loaning them out to my friends (those young outdoorspeople included).

However, I maintain that if Instagram can inspire dreams and fantasies amongst people who might not have otherwise entered the outdoors, it's not weird at all! Being exposed to a good way of life through a website or app is no less valid than being exposed to a good way of life through a book, even if, ultimately, I'd hope that Instagram is only the beginning of the journey, and many good books are found along the way.
Believe it or not, I barely ever ride a mountain bike.

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retired jerry
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by retired jerry » September 6th, 2019, 1:50 pm

when we're all dead and gone they'll talk about how there used to be mechanical typewriters and paper books

there'll still be a few in museums :)

but we'll still have qwerty keyboards, designed so that the type writer arms don't stick against each other???

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adamschneider
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Re: No Name Lake Camping closure

Post by adamschneider » September 6th, 2019, 3:04 pm

retired jerry wrote:
September 6th, 2019, 1:50 pm
but we'll still have qwerty keyboards, designed so that the type writer arms don't stick against each other???
Nah... any day now Apple will introduce the "ZPIRFY" keyboard and tell everyone that it's better that way. And if you don't like it, tough.

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