Covid-19

[Charley]

Is it still legal to drive around in GPNF? What about car camping? Cycling/"bikepacking"? Fishing? I don't think they have answers figured out just yet.. The primary motivation for the order seems to be city people stopping at local businesses and spreading infection, so they may want to shut down ALL recreation.

The main problem seems to have been all the Portland folks taking "social distancing" to mean driving long distances through rural areas to the only places they knew about: Instagram-worthy outdoor destinations. Apparently last weekend was super crowded!

The new orders were intended to curb that unsafe behavior, and if the authorities had to go to the length of specifying exactly what could possibly be allowed and disallowed, it would have taken them weeks to get around to these closures, and of course we don't have weeks.

The secondary problem is that, just with people being out on the road and out in the hills, a certain number of inadvertent infections with occur, as well as a certain number of vehicle accidents and SAR situations, which means more risk of inadvertent infections, as well as increased burden on the healthcare system. Of course, any one person's risk of such is very small, but reducing the population's overall risk right now helps our healthcare system. That's why it's frustrating to read legalistic, nitpicking comments about what's legal and what's not legal.

The rules were not written with legalistic interpretations in mind, but rather with crystal clear intent: don't travel for recreation.

[A. Hugh Jass]

The Washington Trails Association has a good page on Hiking in the Time of Coronavirus: https://www.wta.org/go-outside/social-d ... oronavirus

Also, there is a instructional video on how to best use your leisure time, but this is only for Chip Down, if you're not the user known as Chip Down, do not click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMhlF4_pLXI

[drm]

He hikers, look at the bright side (which we need to find these days) - this didn't happen in summer. Nobody knows when things will reopen, but good chance it will be right around when the snowmelt is in high gear and the high country is opening. Yeah, some of us like to get out there early when there is still some snow. But being stuck inside, or stuck in town, during the sunny summer would be far worse for most of us.

[retired jerry]

epidemiologists say that from the time we implement sufficient enough social distancing that new infections are greatly reduced, it takes about a month for the infections from before that time to flow through the system and hospital load to greatly reduce

maybe that happened a week ago in Oregon and Washington, or maybe we're not there yet, you don't know until later

so maybe things will loosen up the end of April

then, we'll have to closely monitor because new waves of infections are likely at which point we'll have to tighten back up, so maybe this summer we'll get to hike but we'll have to stay careful until there's a treatment/vaccine in maybe a year

[adamschneider]

He hikers, look at the bright side (which we need to find these days) - this didn't happen in summer.

Unfortunately, for those of us who plan our excursions based on wildflowers, the timing couldn't have been much worse.

(If only this could have started in October!)

[retired jerry]

You're going to jinks things, there might be another wave of infection in October

[Chip Down]

... there is a instructional video on how to best use your leisure time, but this is only for Chip Down, if you're not the user known as Chip Down, do not click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMhlF4_pLXI

That was sweet of you to go to all that trouble just for me.

[A. Hugh Jass]

I went out for a local hike in Bend today. The streets and trails were filled with more people than I have ever seen here in the past ten years. Most people practised good social distancing, but others including a family were oblivious to the needed distancing.

I got fed up with the all the people not taking social distancing seriously. Later in the day I headed East to a BLM area. The trailheads there were overrun with cars and lined up along the road. The "secret" trailhead I know about had one car. I hiked for a couple hours with some good heart-pounding effort for a steep ascent and I was rewarded with great views. There I encountered nobody.

I'm hanging up hiking the local trails. A 30 minute drive to BLM (well, the right area of BLM) provided the kind of solitude experience that seems hard to find now.

So, the Gorge, State Parks, and 46 million acres are closed. But what I witnessed today, in town, was terrible. Trying to "fix" a problem by closing so many trailheads really dumps people into dense areas in town, and popular BLM areas. Not sure it was a good call to close so much.

[Aimless]

Just a reminder: people who live together in the same household are not required to remain six feet apart in a public place. They must maintain that distance only from those with whom they do not live.

[retired jerry]

ahhh... that explains it... those huge crowds are all living in the same household

(stupid joke, sorry )