Blazes removed from*Dugger Mountain and Cheaha Wilderness*

[Deacon]

No man made structure shall be permitted in a Wilderness Area either.

Don't say this too loud. The next thing you know the NPS Service in the Smoky's will be removing all the new privys they just installed.


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[TNhiker]

The next thing you know the NPS Service in the Smoky's will be removing all the new privys they just installed.

the Park isnt a wilderness area per se..........

in some regards, they treat it as a wilderness area but the rules and regulations are different with a national park...........

[Matt65]

A lot of times they are painted over with tree color paint, then allowed to 'fade away'

As mentioned, this is what we saw from High Falls to Nubbin TH.

[billnchristy]

That's way better.

[Another Kevin]

Wow. Even the Adirondack Park Authority hasn't gone quite that overboard.

They allow man-made structures where necessary for resource protection or user safety (for instance, a bog bridge that protects marsh vegetation, a fixed cable on an otherwise deadly rock slab, or a suspension bridge to protect the 'ice meadow' ecosystem of the river bank). Lean-to's actually have a variance owing to their historical importance to the Adirondacks.

The trails are typically cut, brushed out, and have a blaze about every quarter mile. It's not like the A-T, where you're almost never out of sight of a blaze, but just enough to offer reassurance that you haven't gone miles down the wrong trail. And a lot of the trails aren't all that well maintained. You do expect that you will occasionally lose one and need to do some map and compass work until you pick it up again.

Then again, it's an area where bushwhacking is lawful and expected.

Going overboard on the protection backfires. If you protect the wilderness to the point that only a few humans actually have either the wealth or the determination and fitness to be able to visit it, you do away with the next generation of people who would protect it, because they never get to discover it.. Protecting it to death is just as bad as selling it off. Alas, it appears that in our dysfunctional government, those are the only two options.

[Astro]

Wow. Even the Adirondack Park Authority hasn't gone quite that overboard.

They allow man-made structures where necessary for resource protection or user safety (for instance, a bog bridge that protects marsh vegetation, a fixed cable on an otherwise deadly rock slab, or a suspension bridge to protect the 'ice meadow' ecosystem of the river bank). Lean-to's actually have a variance owing to their historical importance to the Adirondacks.

The trails are typically cut, brushed out, and have a blaze about every quarter mile. It's not like the A-T, where you're almost never out of sight of a blaze, but just enough to offer reassurance that you haven't gone miles down the wrong trail. And a lot of the trails aren't all that well maintained. You do expect that you will occasionally lose one and need to do some map and compass work until you pick it up again.

Then again, it's an area where bushwhacking is lawful and expected.

Going overboard on the protection backfires. If you protect the wilderness to the point that only a few humans actually have either the wealth or the determination and fitness to be able to visit it, you do away with the next generation of people who would protect it, because they never get to discover it.. Protecting it to death is just as bad as selling it off. Alas, it appears that in our dysfunctional government, those are the only two options.

Excellent Point AK!

[billnchristy]

Great points. Luckily, our daughter has been the one who drove us to our hobbies (obsessions?). She wanted to learn to shoot so we bought guns, she wanted to climb a mountain and camp, so we started hiking. She's not your typical kid in that she has a love for things before even doing them, but I know that she would be passionate about saving nature either way. If she has kids she will take them and they will experience the same.

Government is like school (well, duh, it's government), there is no grey, just black and white, good and bad, no consequences, just reasons for more restrictions.

[SouthMark]

Having done both of these sections multiple times I never saw the need for the blazes anyway. It would be extremely difficult to get lost.

[Drybones]

A lot of times they are painted over with tree color paint, then allowed to 'fade away'

I hear they painted over them with brown...therefore...brown is now the blaze color.

[golfjhm]

Wonder what they did on the grey trees and rocks?

[LuckyMan]

Then why don't bureaucrats practice what they preach? I recently hiked the Benton Mackaye Trail and couldn't help but notice loads of government "bear sanctuary" signs posted along the trail along the N.C./Tenn. state line in the wilderness area north of the Cherohala Skyway. Delicate geniuses can't stand to set their eyes on those awful blazes, but these more-intrusive signs are OK? Also noticed plenty of recent car tire tracks along this route - must've been government vehicles, no public vehicles allowed behind the locked gate. (And too bad the bears can't read those signs to tell if they're in their sanctuary or not.)

[AL canyonman]

A lot of the comments in this thread indicate a lack of understanding of how NF lands in the National Wilderness Preservation System are managed with different priorities than other lands in the National Forest System. The Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act of 1975 are the basis for the designation of these wilderness areas and are the foundation for the guidance by which these areas are managed.

Wilderness trail markers are intended to serve one function only -- resource protection by keeping visitors on the trail where it is indistinct. In wilderness, we don't manage for convenience or even visitor safety (for natural hazards).

Those who criticize wilderness management decisions as bureaucratic bumbling are obviously not familiar with the challenge of balancing the mandate to provide wilderness visitors with "unique opportunities for solitude and primitive and unconfined recreation" with the impacts that such recreation has on wilderness character. The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute and the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center have done an outstanding job, in my opinion, of providing wilderness management guidance based on inter-agency strategies and rooted in the law. Wilderness management decisions are rarely black and white and require a lot of consideration of many diverse factors.

[kenbrenner]

RE: Removing blazes in the Wilderness Areas.
I lived in the Birmingham area in the 1990's.
I recall how nice the trail system was in the Cheaha area was (Nubbin Creek, Cave Creek, Pinhoti, etc.).
All were nicely but not overly marked.
Then, the wilderness areas happened.
Then, the Forest Service grossly mis-interpreted the Wilderness Act and made it harder to find the route of the trails.
I am a lifetime hiker, and have hiked the first 800 miles of the Appalachian Trail (AT).
The AT goes through MANY wilderness areas and the Forest Service in those areas still allow the trail to be blazed, signed, and have shelters.
The Pinhoti should be no difference, and is no different.
The real difference is the Forest in which the Pinhoti and its side trails run.
It's a really sad thing the way this once fine trail system is being treated.
It almost appears this Forest Service office does not want people going into their Wilderness areas...
I actually really appreciate the US Forest Service and it's fine, dedicated employees.
But, this is one situation where something has gone very wrong, and the hiking community of Alabama is paying the price.

[Traveler]

Then why don't bureaucrats practice what they preach? I recently hiked the Benton Mackaye Trail and couldn't help but notice loads of government "bear sanctuary" signs posted along the trail along the N.C./Tenn. state line in the wilderness area north of the Cherohala Skyway. Delicate geniuses can't stand to set their eyes on those awful blazes, but these more-intrusive signs are OK? Also noticed plenty of recent car tire tracks along this route - must've been government vehicles, no public vehicles allowed behind the locked gate. (And too bad the bears can't read those signs to tell if they're in their sanctuary or not.)

Having posted property in Maine, it has been my experience that hunters suffer from lack of literacy if they believe there is game on the property. Posting sanctuary signs are not all that attractive, but necessary to provide the legal platform to prosecute those who ignore, or are unable to read the warnings.

[golfjhm]

Forest service wants to remove blazes from Dugger and Cheaha but is all for fracking in the Talladega NF. Go figure a blaze is worse than mining equipment.

[Traveler]

Forest service wants to remove blazes from Dugger and Cheaha but is all for fracking in the Talladega NF. Go figure a blaze is worse than mining equipment.

There is a difference between a wilderness area and a national forest. The difference being, a National Forest is still a "working" forest and can issue leases for timber, minerals, and obviously fracking. However, there is some real danger for all public lands, including wilderness areas in a bill (HR 2728) that would insure fracking on public lands would never be regulated.

Oy...

[MuddyWaters]

Reminds me of when a friends child had lightly highlighted their hair during summer, she was banned from school until it was dyed to close to natural color when school started, because dyed hair wasnt allowed.

[flemdawg1]

In Cheaha Wilderness this shouldn't be much of an issue, its well traveled enough that blazing is nearly unnecessary. In the Dugger Wilderness, however, its so lightly used that this might be a safety issue. But when I hiked that section last year there were very few blazes there already

[Another Kevin]

A lot of the comments in this thread indicate a lack of understanding of how NF lands in the National Wilderness Preservation System are managed with different priorities than other lands in the National Forest System. The Wilderness Act of 1964 and the Eastern Wilderness Areas Act of 1975 are the basis for the designation of these wilderness areas and are the foundation for the guidance by which these areas are managed.

Wilderness trail markers are intended to serve one function only -- resource protection by keeping visitors on the trail where it is indistinct. In wilderness, we don't manage for convenience or even visitor safety (for natural hazards).

Those who criticize wilderness management decisions as bureaucratic bumbling are obviously not familiar with the challenge of balancing the mandate to provide wilderness visitors with "unique opportunities for solitude and primitive and unconfined recreation" with the impacts that such recreation has on wilderness character. The Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute and the Arthur Carhart National Wilderness Training Center have done an outstanding job, in my opinion, of providing wilderness management guidance based on inter-agency strategies and rooted in the law. Wilderness management decisions are rarely black and white and require a lot of consideration of many diverse factors.

I hope I don't seem quite that ignorant. I'm fine with mostly or entirely unblazed trail.

Sometimes blazing is resource protection, particularly if lack of blazing will cause a maze of social trails to spring up, or tempt users to do their own marking with flagging tape, inappropriate paint or cairns, or even such destructive practices as hatchet blazing.

And sometimes nonconformant practices have multiple reasons for them. There are some splendid suspension bridges in the Adirondacks, for which since the 1970's, the practice has been to let them fall to ruin (not remove them, which would be even more destructive, but not authorize work to preserve them either). In the last ten years or so, the opinion has gradually reversed, recognizing that the bridges have historic and archaeologic value, offer significant benefits for visitor safety, and (perhaps most important) protect the "ice meadow" environment on the riverbank the feet of hikers fording the rivers. The riverbank is a unique island ecosystem, where all vegetation beyond a certain size is swept clean by frazil ice annually. It harbors species found nowhere else. There's also a recognized space for nonconformant bridges where visitors would otherwise be forced to swim or packraft rivers of significant size, although this is usually handled by labeling a corridor along the river as "primitive area" or "canoe area", paying lip service to an eventual transition to "wilderness" while actually looking at the practicalities and maintaining the nonconformant use.

I happen to think that the Wilderness Act and related legislation places too little value on history and archaeology. It leads to intentional destruction of archaeologic sites such as abandoned ranger stations, camps and fire towers, and worse, archaeologic remnants of the First Peoples, for not having the wilderness character. It similarly assigns too little value on diversity of land use, with its emphasis that all "wild forest," "canoe area," and "primitive area" lands should eventually be upgraded to "wilderness." Not all seekers of solitude are athletic and experienced wilderness travelers, and there is a place for more accessible, and yet wild-seeming, lands. Nevertheless, the legislative intent of the Act was clear and so this is the affair of the politicians, not of those who are tasked with implementing the Act as written.

[kenbrenner]

A classic example of government bureaucracy.
In the 1990s, I hiked the entire Pinhoti Trail in Alabama (as much as existed up to 02-10-1999).
At one time, it was a great trail system, fairly well marked.
It was Alabama's version of the AT!
Now, the powers that be have decided to change all of that.
I now live in north Georgia and have hiked the Appalachian Trail (AT) from the southern terminus to the 800-mile point.
The AT goes through many wilderness area, and is blazed as it is outside of the wilderness areas.
It's a shame the government agencies and their leaders lose track of who they work for.
The destruction of the Pinhoti Trail system does not stop with the Cheaha area. Now, they want to ruin the hiking experience on Dugger Mountain.
This also goes for the other trails that form loops with the Pinhoti (Skyway Loop, Chinabee Silent Trail, Cave Creek, Odum Scout Trail).
And I ask this question, what could offer less distraction than a simple paint blaze. Certainly their famous "signs at trail intersections" look more man-made that the occasional paint blaze.
What a shame, no one seems to care, and the bureaucrats are going to have their way again.