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  1. #41
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinMusic View Post
    Right up there with bringing a "Maverick Missile " into this discussion........
    Hehe, it made perfect sense in the context of your own words,

    It's classic waste.

  2. #42
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by burger View Post
    Maybe it's just because I'm an ecologist, but I think that the study mentioned in the article is badly needed. As most hikers know, the trail up north is increasingly steep and rocky. Where the trail is very steep, the poor construction and lack of drainage have caused the soil to erode away completely (that's why it's a granite ramp in a lot of places--there used to be soil there). As the soil washes away, hikers widen the trail by grabbing onto the vegetation and stepping on the roots and dirt at the edge of the trail. This makes the exposed rock area get wider and wider and leads to more vegetation damage, as hikers trample the plants at the edge of the trail and break off branches pulling themselves up or letting themselves down. It's a vicious cycle that does not get better.

    If someone can figure out a way to make a trail that doesn't cause soil to erode away and damage the vegetation, I'm all for it. I hope that the results of the study are put to good use.

    (Also, for all you complainers--you're too late. The researcher already has the money. Whining here will not change anything--try writing your Representative or Senator instead.)
    When it comes to wasteful spending, I AM a whiner and I vote.

    Rebar, wooden steps, and carved steps.

    I don't know how long I can continue with this free advice.
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  3. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinMusic View Post
    When it comes to wasteful spending, I AM a whiner and I vote.

    Rebar, wooden steps, and carved steps.

    I don't know how long I can continue with this free advice.
    OK, that's a very good start.

    Now, recall that some of the trails that the A-T follows in New Hampshire are a century-and-a-half old. In that length of time, rebar would have expanded as it rusted and split the rock, most likely doing even worse damage than the countless boots have done. The same goes for the ironmongery that would be needed to anchor wooden steps on those precipitous scrambles. Carved steps, in New Hampshire granite, would be quite a daunting job. I don't think you could get a water jet cutter up to most of those places, so it would mean thousands of man-years of work with hammerstones. Where will you find the labor? Will it be all-volunteer, or will you have tax money pay for it? If the latter, can we please have a study to investigate whether these approaches are the most cost-effective?
    I always know where I am. I'm right here.

  4. #44
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    I know what will make everyone happy. Solar-powered escalators........
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  5. #45
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    Right on cue, to prove Rain Main's point.
    I've never been able to understand how being afraid of the boogeyman is intellectual, but that seems to be the case. My point, which the "intellectuals" won't bother to consider, is that the invoking of the Holy Graille, or Holy Hand Grenade, or Holy Climate Change, ought to come with more than a sprinkle of skepticism. In the article referenced in the first post, there is this line,

    "With climate change, I believe there will be more catastrophic climate events, such as heavy and extended rain events that really stress trails," Marion said. "We need to create more sustainably designed trails that will handle these rain events as well as increasing traffic."

    Where in the world did that come from? What climate change models forecast heavy and extended rain events along the AT? I'm not buying that you can claim any outcome you want, attribute it to Climate Change, and get public money. Anti-Intellectual? Maybe. Anti-Bulls***? Definitely.
    "Waning Gibbous" would be a great trail name.

  6. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobTheBuilder View Post

    Where in the world did that come from? What climate change models forecast heavy and extended rain events along the AT?
    use the google, luke "climate change us northeast"

    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/imp...northeast.html

    Over the last several decades, the Northeast has experienced noticeable changes in its climate. Since 1970, the average annual temperature rose by 2°F and the average winter temperature increased by 4°F. [2] Heavy precipitation events increased in magnitude and frequency. For the region as a whole, the majority of winter precipitation now falls as rain, not snow. [2] Climate scientists project that these trends will continue.

  7. #47
    International Man of Mystery BobTheBuilder's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    use the google, luke "climate change us northeast"

    http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/imp...northeast.html
    My bad - I used the NASA forecast of less rain and longer, sustained drought. Hard to know who to trust these days!
    "Waning Gibbous" would be a great trail name.

  8. #48

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    Jeff Marion's professional page
    https://profile.usgs.gov/jeff_marion
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  9. #49

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    When you folks read over the grant application, what specific parts did you think he's got wrong? It sounds like he is in the beginning stages of the project. You could probably contact him at that link and give him some advice.
    "Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
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  10. #50
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    Quote Originally Posted by BobTheBuilder View Post
    My bad - I used the NASA forecast of less rain and longer, sustained drought. Hard to know who to trust these days!
    No, NASA's not on your side either:


  11. #51

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    I think most didn't even bother to further read what the study was aimed to accomplish before they made their comments. I welcome the study. I'll also say "it's about time!" As a Landscape Architect, horticulturalist, naturalist, and long distance hiker I can see a multitude of good coming from it. I'm not one who narrowly envisions the AT only from a human centric perspective. I applaud the improvements at Annapolis Rocks as well which is a definite improvement over the way it was!

  12. #52
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Most people do applaud the use of OPM on things that interest them.
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  13. #53

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    Quote Originally Posted by Skyline View Post
    C'mon people. You cannot limit access to the AT. Not sure you could logistically enforce an admission or use fee over most of the AT.


    So--what are you going to do--fence it all in? Because that has worked so well thusfar on the Mexican border. :-( You anti-government folks must have better scenarios to contemplate.



    I see this and other studies or actual construction projects coming out with recommendations for how to better build/maintain tread, the wisest use of checkdams/waterbars/switchbacks, where NOT to locate tread, etc. when relos are done. And maybe identify places where relos should be done. That sort of thing. Like the model created and repeated many times with roots in the Annapolis Rocks project.
    C'mon people. You cannot limit access to the AT. Not sure you could logistically enforce an admission or use fee over most of the AT.

    I agree, but we all know big Gov loves to try, and when change is in the air, it usually starts with a study. Not saying that's what's going on here at all, just playin Devils dummy.

    So--what are you going to do--fence it all in? Because that has worked so well thusfar on the Mexican border. :-( You anti-government folks must have better scenarios to contemplate.

    I'm not anti Gov, but I'm very much "Don't fence me in"

    I see this and other studies or actual construction projects coming out with recommendations for how to better build/maintain tread, the wisest use of checkdams/waterbars/switchbacks, where NOT to locate tread, etc. when relos are done. And maybe identify places where relos should be done. That sort of thing. Like the model created and repeated many times with roots in the Annapolis Rocks project.

    I would hope for this as the best scenarios, not limiting use by simply numbers per day.

  14. #54

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    Folks, we've already closed a number of climate change/global warming threads, so putting that aside, if there are other aspects of the study you want to discuss go ahead but move off the climate change arguing.

    Thanks!
    "Sleepy alligator in the noonday sun
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  15. #55

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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinMusic View Post
    300K here, 300K there, pretty soon we are talking real money..........

    It's classic waste.
    So....just to be clear....knowing things is bad? Actual, research-based facts gathered by well trained professionals that can help us develop strategies to husband our resources is a waste? Incredible...just... incredible. I need a drink.
    Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

  16. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by ChinMusic View Post
    Most people do applaud the use of OPM on things that interest them.
    I'm trying hard to be civil here but this remark p!sses me off. Jeff Marion has done plenty for US trails already, as other posters here have already pointed -- what's your contribution, ChinMusic?

  17. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by full conditions View Post
    So....just to be clear....knowing things is bad? Actual, research-based facts gathered by well trained professionals that can help us develop strategies to husband our resources is a waste? Incredible...just... incredible. I need a drink.
    We have a string of clubs and groups of volunteers along the AT corridor. There have been many strategies to deal with problem areas. Some work and some do not.

    Nothing new will come from this 300K.

    I'm having a Diet Coke.
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  18. #58
    Registered User ChinMusic's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by rafe View Post
    I'm trying hard to be civil here but this remark p!sses me off. Jeff Marion has done plenty for US trails already, as other posters here have already pointed -- what's your contribution, ChinMusic?
    Is this a resume question or my tax bracket?
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  19. #59
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    Quote Originally Posted by Alligator View Post
    When you folks read over the grant application, what specific parts did you think he's got wrong? It sounds like he is in the beginning stages of the project. You could probably contact him at that link and give him some advice.
    Indeed!

    Moreover, the guy actually has a proven track record, as I indicated earlier, in his studies of shelter design. Rather than brutal solutions like, "build more shelters," "rip out all the shelters, because they're sacrificial areas," "institute a permit system to limit the number of hikers," and the ever popular "do nothing and let things continue their descent to Avernus in a hand-basket," he came up with some fairly minimal interventions: "mark some distributed campsites at a good spacing from the shelter, and require that hikers use them rather than tenting right by the shelter", "distribute the sites just far enough that the sense of privacy makes them more attractive than the immediate shelter area while still near enough to socialize in the evening", "stabilize the surface in front of the shelter where people do camp chores and socialize," and "improve the drainage and surface of a tent footprint at each distributed site, to avoid widespread surface damage." These interventions are considerably less obvious than the brutal ones, and there are equally plausible ones that do not work as well. It takes some experimentation to find these things out. And I can see that I'm reaping the benefits. As I said: the sites that have been redesigned support more hikers in a less damaging fashion than the older sites do.

    Of course, there are certain individuals who believe that any government spending, particularly on research, is waste: after all, they know everything already, or something. (I'm not accusing anyone in this conversation of that, but I am sure that everyone can identify politicians who campaign on that premise.) If that is the belief, it leads to the logical conclusion that a tremendous return of money could be bought for the taxpayers by auctioning off the trail and letting someone like Disney take it over as a "wilderness theme park." If it can't be run profitably, then obviously the market has spoken that the people don't really want it, and it would be better to break it up and sell it off in pieces to developers. Think of all the money that would bring for whatever your favorite cause might be. Or perhaps we want to keep it a government monopoly, in which case we need to institute a system of user fees set high enough to make sure that it runs at a profit to the taxpayers. I've actually heard some self-proclaimed libertarian politicians espouse the idea of privatizing the National Park Service and the National Forests - because they perceive a potential financial windfall to the taxpayers in doing so.

    If you don't accept that argument - which I concede ought to be a barely plausible straw man - then we have arrived at the conclusion that some amount of government attention to the A-T at taxpayer expense is necessary and appropriate. Now we've opened the door to discussing which interventions are most effective at the lowest cost. Where disagreements arise, we can resolve them by screaming across the political aisle, knowing in advance that our way is the only way, or perhaps we can try to gather actual evidence to support one approach over another. How much is it reasonable to spend to support evidence over advocacy? I don't claim to have an ideal answer, but I'm pretty sure that the answer isn't zero.
    I always know where I am. I'm right here.

  20. #60
    International Man of Mystery BobTheBuilder's Avatar
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    With all that said, I have no problem with a study to determine how to make the trail less susceptible to damage from use, and I support the idea of taking that information and presenting it to the local trail maintaining organizations. I understand and agree that the surface conditions along the different sections of the trail require different solutions. While I am not advocating spending OPM wildly, I would much rather have people seeking that money write individual grant requests justifying the need for instead of funding a full-time Federal Department of Recreational Trails.

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