Be careful, talk like that and people might think you're BissellOriginally Posted by MuddyWaters
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Love people and use things; never the reverse.
Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.
Your example of Thomas Knob needs to be explained: Massie Gap is just a couple miles away and it offers an overnight parking lot and easy, very easy, access to the AT and the Knob shelter by cars and trucks and motorcyclists.
At what point do some agencies start to care about preserving the experience? When they close the roads leading into these "wilderness" areas FIRST and then study the preservation of the experience.
Over and over again road access leads to overuse and blight. First priority therefore is to close these tourist roads, like the Massie Gap road and parking lot, the Cades Cove so-called Nature Motor Loop, the Clingmans Dome road, the road up to the top of Grandfather Mt in NC, the blighted road up to Mt Washington and the cog railroad etc.
Making a wild place easy to get to or making a mountaintop easy to reach without earning it on foot, in my opinion destroys the whole backcountry policy of nature appreciation.
Benton wanted the AT to be accessible for day hikers. What he never dreamed of was masses of people spending 6 months on the trail.
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Love people and use things; never the reverse.
Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.
The AT would not exist as we know it today without the ATC, trail clubs, and hikers. If no one hiked the trail there would be no point in managing and maintaining it. But it takes money to do this. Someone is more likely to donate and support the ATC if they have hiked it or plan to hike it. So I can see why the ATC promotes the trail. More people that know and use the trail translates to more support. Selling T-shirts, books, and now bobbleheads may add a little to their coffers. And I disagree, if you read Benton MacKaye's essay, he envisioned 40,000 people using the AT.
More walking, less talking.
The only thing in his manifesto Mackeye got right , was that a trail would be a good idea. The rest was rubbish.
The trail people chose, and that was developed, is more solitary and wild in nature than anything he conceived.
Fortunately.
People today are so desperate for meaningful experience.
Some think the Appalachian Trail with the mystique might satisfy that desperation. Being that the AT is supposedly within a one day drive for 21% of the population of the US (that's a few years old -- maybe more nowadays) and with the speed of life today, that is close-by for those seeking something they can't describe easily and are desperately pursuing.
Well, for at least two days or so until the next shiny object shows up on Facebook.
I don't doubt the Internet has had more responsibility in attracting new short-term hikers to the Appalachian Trail than Robert Redford (although he is a heck of an actor and so is Nick Nolte).
Soon, whispers on the lower right of your screen will conglomerate all the moment by moment action of hikers on the Appalachian Trail. You can stay abreast of all the action while your eyes dart back to email and text messaging and Facebook updates and voice mails (who does that anymore?),
Guy describing a new casino along the PCT when he picked up Pearson and I on our way to a maildrop -- "It's just like Vegas." Nope, wasn't. It was just purple.
Datto
It is a gateway drug for many.
For many, its just a party.
For some its a revenue or fame producing endeavor.
For others, who knows.
Last edited by MuddyWaters; 11-18-2015 at 20:41.
Just think what might have transpired had Bill Bryson hiked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in a single season.
No telling what might have been written.
It s a sign of the times. People demand immediate results -- whether it is a book with deadlines or a timeline for success or a graduation from college or meeting the requirements of a marriage.
Some things are not for rushing -- they're for savoring.
That is the gap between A Walk In The Woods and a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.
Datto
Getting back to RickB's opening post a bit... it's interesting that ATC has maintained a good relationship with Bill Bryson to this day, even to the point of having Bryson be a spokesperson for the AT. So that would seem to put to rest any notion that Bryson "exploited" the trail somehow.
Should the ATC be involved in self-promotion? Good grief, why not? It's the American Way. In some ways it's self-preservation, a necessary evil. What makes the AT different from any other path in the woods? You found out about the AT... how, exactly?
Seems to me some folks here have decided that since they're finally onto it, any further publicity is counterproductive.
just wish they would build a damn bridge over the baby creek north of damascus. been out over 2 years. the re-route is poorly blazed. both NOBO and SOBO hikers are walking the creeper trail for many miles before they realize there are no white blazes. shuttled a gal the other day who came back to damascus cuz she missed the 5 mile walk into damascus NOBO. no excuses for piss poor signage and blazing
I thnk I speak for quite a few forum viewers that a Bobblebody of Scarlett Johansson hiking the Appalachian Trail would fit nicely on the dashboard of an F-150.
Way more interesting than a Bobblehead of an old guy with a beard. Well, if I was a merchandising the AT for extra income that is.
Who needs to be contacted to get Scarlett on the AT?
This to substantially increase the number of women interested in hiking the AT. Who is not in favor of that?
Datto
meant SOBO on her thru hike
Honestly, if world-wide men knew how attractive the women are on the Appalachian Trail...
So don't tell anyone. Shhhhh. This will be our secret.
Keep promoting the Bobblehead of the old guy with the beard. No one will know.
Soon, we'll diminsh the number of AT hikers on the Trail.
Datto
You are resoundly correct. Once an individual or a couple experiences the taste of a long-distance hike it is oh so difficult to put aside and continue with life as it has been in the past. Very very difficult to put aside the experiences and benefits and viewpoint of a long-distance hike and go back to how "the rest" live a daily lifestyle. But that is to be expected.
For only a few, that is the case. For most, hiker midnight actually has meaning and one is spent from the exertion of the day. I attended quite a few parties during my AT thru-hike but ended up having to hit the sack because I was wasted from the effort of the day. The people who I saw frequently partying never made it out of Virginia.
My observation was that these people -- the fame gatherers -- were so rare as to be non-existent. Except for whatever media event the fame gatherers were capable of arranging. Almost everyone I hiked with on my AT thru-hike was against publicity, against current news, against noteriety. The people I hiked with were humbled by the experience.
So when the fame gatherers are compared to the average AT
So when the fame gatherers are compared to the average AT thru-hiker, the numbers pale in comparison. There is 99% focus on the fame gatherers who number 1% of the total thru-hikers.
It's just the media focusing on the unusual on the quirky on the 1%. If one focuses on the fame gatherers, it's an unusual skew way off of the norm.
Datto
Datto
If the media really wanted to find a story about the Appalachian Trail the public would find captivating, there wouldn't be such a focus on some blowhard trail runner claiming to be a thru-hiker and spewing Champagne all over the top of Katahdin. I consider that a complete waste of good Champagne. That whole story is fleeting and people are on to the next story afterwards and the next after that. It's only a topic that upsets a bunch of hikers long-term -- the 1% or less of the readers involved in the story.
If the media wanted to capture the long-term interest of the audience, they'd focus on the story of why people showed up to the Trail in the first place. Relationships that had gone awry and the sorting out afterward on the Trail. People who had seen the worst that man can do to fellow man and were sorting that out as they went forward. Military people who were coming out of the military world and into civilian life and struggling to make sense off all of that. People who had come on hard economic times and took time off to gather what it is they intended to be in the future. People on the Trail who were coming to terms with their sexuality. People on the Trail who had just come out of prison. People who showed up to the Appalachian Trail to find love.
Now those are the stories that would have lasting impact with viewers and readers. Imagine the cable TV title, "Love on the Appalachian Trail". Ha, way more viewers that Hoarders.
But really, not some media whore dude trail running the AT. Geez, who cares about that beyond 10 seconds of newsfeed.
This is what we have today in the media. A complete lack of depth to any story that can't be encapsulated into a 30 second sound bite.
This is why Frontline and American Experience and Nova and sometimes 60 minutes still gain popularity. There is a depth to the story presented by the media (if you can sort through the politics of the story from the meat of the story).
If the media knew how many people found love on the Appalachian Trail -- that might be a Pulitzer Prize winner for a reporter or an Emmy for a news team. Wow, that would be a blisterhouse of a story people would read over and over. A career maker for a reporter making $27,000 per year in salary.
But don't tell any of the reporters. That doesn't fit into 30 seconds of life.
Datto
;I walked this monday sobo. Not a single issue. The detour was well posted with brown metal poles with white blazes. There was signs at north junction, and map and signs at south junction of detour.
I can see no way someone couldnt easily follow this. It is better signed than most of trail. Perhaps this is recent? You can clearly see next blaze from each, except up the trail to south detour, where sign at parking lot/road says 1/4 mile to intersection with AT. There are no blazes in that stretch of trail.
Agree, bridge needs to be fixed
Last edited by MuddyWaters; 11-18-2015 at 23:45.
The ATC deserves kudos for being proactive because of how AWITW might have changed the AT experience for the worst. Their efforts will pay dividends into the future. Even without that film, the AT was becoming overcrowded in places, and abused in even more places.
When the special efforts by ATC to counter the anticipated 2016 crowds began, the expectation probably was that the film would be trendy, uplifting, and would make wannabe thru-hikers rush out to REI to get geared up.
But I also think that by next July, we'll see that the film only had a modest impact on the Trail's numbers, if any. Despite the deserved pedigree of Redford et al, AWITW was too lame to attract a huge theatre audience, and of those who saw it, how many will want to duplicate those "experiences?"
At this point in time the AT doesn't need anymore promotion than Fenway Park. What the AT needs is grass roots local care.
I agree with lame assessment of AWITW.
But.....
AWITW grossed 30million so far, at 64th for year
Wild grossed 37 million in 2014, ranked 83rd or so
Numbers suggest a measureable impact might be expected based on response to wild. Audience demographics probably plays a role though.
Last edited by MuddyWaters; 11-19-2015 at 00:06.
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