I'm sure he did not know it, but our Webmaster Steve was the subject of some discussion last week, at a conference of about 100 wilderness rangers who convened for a yearly gathering in Ca.
It had to do with Steve's complaint of going in to the permit office, and getting a limited permit for a trail, only to go out onto that trail and see virtually no people.
The rangers, to a person, responded that Steve had experienced exactly what was in mind when the legal concept of Wilderness was created in 1964, but that he doesn't "get" it.
Unlike other areas of forest, "the land of many uses", where the goal seems to be to maximize possible utilization of resources, wilderness is about minimizing impact and notice of humankind.
Some of the words of that act:
In order to assure that an increasing population, accompanied by expanding settlement and growing mechanization, does not occupy and modify all areas within the United States and its possessions, leaving no lands designated for preservation and protection in their natural condition,
A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation;
I'm sure many people have misunderstandings about wilderness.
why do we have trails if there is to be no sign of humans?
-well, animals do make trails.
-trails concentrate impacts, and preserve the off-trail impacts to a minimum.
-HUGE effort goes into minimizing the ability to see that any work has been done. ie, when cutting overhanging branches, they are cut flush with the trunk, and the cut branches are thrown far from the trail, with the cut ends deposited AWAY from the trail, so you can't tell they were cut. ie, when a tree is cut on a trail, dirt is rubbed onto the cut surface, to make it look old, not fresh.
