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Keep it Wild! Rob's Caveat
Wilderness needs no defense, only more defenders.
I enjoy writing and publishing the trip reports. But, I experience pangs of guilt about publishing the reports. Please visit the Wild Activist Links Page and do something wild today!
Please do something every week to preserve wildness. I hope you are acting to preserve the tiny bits of wild country we have. Write a letter, support a conservation group, call an agency or senator or congressperson, etc.
I enjoy hiking, biking, and otherwise exploring the wild country portrayed in the trip reports. And, I enjoy writing and publishing the trip reports. But, I experience pangs of guilt about publishing the reports. Does knowledge about an area increase its use and degrade the area? Look at the traffic jams in Zion and Yosemite for examples. Can knowledge and enjoyment of an area lead people to act and officially protect more areas and treat our wild country with the respect and provide the stewardship it deserves? Does dispersed recreation help preserve what we have? This is my hope and why I wrote this caveat. It is part of why I write the trip reports. It's easier to protect something we know about. As Ed Abbey said "Wilderness needs no defense, only more defenders."
Overpopulation by people, "tourism" by mechanized dolts of all types (ORVs, winnehogos, "scenic" overflights), agencies and our representatives over-focusing on commercial exploitation of our wild lands, and the roads, noise and air/water/ground/visual pollution that many of these activities create are the greatest threats to wild country of all types....
And, what about that noise that we need roads to everywhere? My good friends Jim and Lori visit the wild country with their disabled toddler, and they are hoping to have roads removed, not added. Consider how many miles and miles and miles of roads already exist, how many million acres of public land have been sacrificed to ORVs, all the private profit multiple abuses.....
Essentially, we are paying for the destruction of our heritage and future via timber welfare, mining welfare, roading our wild country into oblivion, condo-ization of open lands, overpopulation, decimation by the blue smoke (ORV) crowd, ski industry expansion, etc. But, it is really public land!
Do something wild today! Take action!
Thanks, and I wish you exciting and enjoyable exploring, and a respite from the less sane portions of "life." And, please recall: Wherever you go there you are! (Wherever You Go There You Are is the title of a book on meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn, and particularly relevant to those more interested in stewardship of our public land rather than engaging in mechanized and commercial ecotrashing.)
Take good care, Rob Jones
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