Thank you, that is what I mean.romann wrote:These elements are important imho, but discussions about user impact centered on hikers take focus away from far bigger problems.
Thru-hiking really changed my perspective on this. Nobody wants to see beer cans, TP flowers, eroded switchbacks, or other signs of "improper" hiking. It demonstrates a lack of respect for nature. But... have you seen what we did to the countless square miles of forest that are now vast residential and industrial areas? Have you seen the clearcuts, mining, roads, farms? The cars and trucks burning millions of gallons of petroleum every day? Do we realize that the products we rely on every day, the food we eat, the houses we live in, and the cars we drive, directly drive the destruction of the environment in a much more significant way? To me it feels hypocritical or petty to complain about trail erosion while still participating in our society. And Bosterson I'm not trying to make a dig at you personally for starting this thread, I know you avoid meat for example and make other choices to reduce impact; I'm more complaining against a general attitude that I see from "nature lovers" who really view nature as a personal therapy zone where they can go once a week when they are able to escape their crazy jobs, and throw a fit if it doesn't cater to their needs. They take from nature with their lifestyles all week and then when they visit in person they expect to be surrounded by pristine perfection. If someone has discarded trash or trampled a plant or plays music, it's a disturbance to their inherent right to have the nature experience they need. Sometimes the anger is because "I only have a short amount of time to enjoy this and they're ruining it for me!", in which case I think the real angst is that they're choosing to spend their lives working a job they don't like.
An analogous complaint I have is "animal lovers" (people who have pets), when they still eat meat, and they feed their animals bags of other animals. OK you're excited about the way a certain animal makes you feel and are willing to protect that, but the billions of "designated food animals" can suffer all day and it's fine. That's not being an animal lover that's just being a human pet lover.
My view isn't that we should accept increasing damage to wilderness areas because meh, people. My view is that realistically, our civilization is insanely destructive, and just because we've arbitrarily designated one section of land as wilderness and another section as privately owned, it doesn't make it OK to destroy one area and terrible to litter in another. We need to be accountable for what we do everywhere, because our boundaries make no difference to the ecosystems that live there. Legality is not the same as morality. Even if our wilderness areas remain perfectly pristine, the rest of our environment is going to shit so how does that help?
I'm not saying we should or shouldn't post about unofficial trails and destinations... sometimes I choose not to reveal my favorite places because they seem better as a secret. So I get what you guys mean. Yet I find places like cool hot springs by finding other people's reports so I also benefit when people share secret places. I guess I feel neutral about it overall. I don't think the availability of information is the problem, I think it's what people do with it. I kind of think all we can do is go where we enjoy going, and do our best to help out with cleanliness and educate people when we get the opportunity. And understand that nature isn't always there to meet our expectations, we need to accept whatever reality we see.
