Virginia Tech professor to lead team studying hiker impact on Appalachian Trail - Kin

[WhiteBlaze]

Kingsport Times News

Virginia Tech professor to lead team studying hiker impact on Appalachian Trail Kingsport Times News Jeff Marion, right, shown measuring cross-sectional soil loss with Holly Eagleston, will lead a team to create a comprehensive data set about trail and campsite conditions on the Appalachian Trail. (Virginia Tech photo) ... Va. Tech professor to launch AT trail studyStaunton News Leader all 2 news articles »

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[HighLiner]

Not to be too negative but I can think of a few better uses of $300,000.

[chiefiepoo]

All knowledge is good but, yeah, $300,000.

[ChinMusic]

Not to be too negative but I can think of a few better uses of $300,000.

Sadly this is status quo.

[OCDave]

Is there a trail without hiker impact?

[ChinMusic]

Is there a trail without hiker impact?

No, and that was free.

[Skyline]

Jeff Marion is an accomplished catalyst for smart camping practices and has designed and supervised the creation and also renovation of sustainable campsites and shelter environs along the AT and other trails.


He is one of "us," and I feel better about him getting research dollars than disinterested academics.


http://frec.vt.edu/people/faculty/fa...er/marion.html

[Venchka]

No doubt a good cause and good people.
However.
It only takes a handful, probably less than 1% of total users, of inconsiderate, rude & obnoxious users to trash a shelter or section of trail close to road access. Note that I said Users, not hikers. The farther away you get from parking spots, the less impact we humans seem to have.
Study impact of people all you want. You can't fix stupid.

Wayne

[Rain Man]

Kinda amazing how the anti-intellectual crowd can always take gratuitous cheap shots at education, learning, and knowledge.

... received a $300,000 grant from the National Park Service to characterize visitor impacts on vegetation and soils, develop sustainability guidance to minimize impacts, provide workshops on trail design for maintenance staff and volunteers, and provide education materials about Leave No Trace practices and outdoor ethics for schools, youth groups and trail users.

$300,000 is a pittance compared to the cost and value and maintenance and preservation of the Appalachian Trail.

He observed that the trail becomes steeper and rockier as he has hiked south to north, and the sustainability of its design has declined.

AMEN to that observation!!!

Rain Man

.

[T.S.Kobzol]

Are wages incorporated into the Grant proposal? If so then 300,000 is not a lot of money to involve several highly qualified scientists in this study.

[Odd Man Out]

Kinda amazing how the anti-intellectual crowd can always take gratuitous cheap shots at education, learning, and knowledge.

It's nothing new. During one of his State of the Union addresses, Reagan used all these pointless research projects funded by the government as examples of government waste. He then read the title of one of these "pointless" grants. I was in grad school at the time and it happened to be a grant by one of the profs in our department, and he found out that he would become the "poster child" for government waste at the same time everyone else in the country did, watching it live on national TV. As it turns out, it was a perfectly legitimate and potentially beneficial plant pathology research project, but to anyone outside the field, the highly technical grant title would sound very obtuse.

[VTATHiker]

That money will go for wages, equipment, travel and conference presentations, and I bet this is all before the overhead that the departments will take out. Even if it was only wages, it would be only enough to fund 1.5 PhD dissertations in a typical engineering department... at best. Not only is $300,000 is a pittance for preservation of the Appalachian Trail, it's miniscule compared to other quality academic studies out there. Science is expensive. This is a small grant.

[T.S.Kobzol]

People do work = people should get paid. (period) :-)

[ChinMusic]

300K here, 300K there, pretty soon we are talking real money..........

It's classic waste.

[T.S.Kobzol]

actually we should instead first focus on the REAL money granted out - where is the outrage about corporate welfare that runs into billions?

[Ktaadn]

$330k is nothing compared to the value of preserving the AT/wilderness. I know, it is difficult to classify much of what we have left as wilderness, but preserving it is priceless.

[Skyline]

I first became acquainted with Jeff's work when he took on the total rehab and redesign of the Annapolis Rocks tenting area on the AT. It had been so used and abused that it would have qualified as a slum in Calcutta. Jeff's study and solutions, which resulted in a new improved camping area, is the model on which many, many other similar projects have since been based on the AT and elsewhere.

The major feature of the Annapolis Rocks project involved the elimination of concentrated "tent cities" with tents nearly touching each other in favor of dispersed individual tentsites built into sidehill. This required some initial sweat equity to dig out each footprint, and occasional ongoing minor maintenance, but it vastly improved the camping experience for many. Other changes at Annapolis Rocks eliminated muddy areas and the garbage that inconsiderate hikers had left behind over the years.

Here is another link that catalogs much of Jeff's work on behalf of the AT and other "wild" places....

http://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jeffrey-Marion/-554554

[BobTheBuilder]

Thank goodness he cited climate change as one of the causes, or he might not have gotten the money.

[rafe]

Kinda amazing how the anti-intellectual crowd can always take gratuitous cheap shots at education, learning, and knowledge.

Thank goodness he cited climate change as one of the causes, or he might not have gotten the money.

Right on cue, to prove Rain Main's point.

[T.S.Kobzol]

Yes, there is a budget from which money gets awarded and every year the grant writers try to get some of the money for their project. The most successful will learn what it takes to get the award. Derping on climate change is shortsighted.
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