This is an old thread but somebody bumped it back up and I noticed the word "etiquette" in relation to the rat-box AT shelters and had to laugh. Hikers who depend on these hepatitis-boxes are probably the same kind of people who dial in a SPOT rescue as soon as a snowflake falls and the temps plunge to 40F. It's the entitlement generation I guess.
AT backpackers need desperately to spend 10 years backpacker in areas without these shelters and they would sing a different tune. "What shelters??" should be the main thought in your head when you're out backpacking. Have everything on your back to survive rainstorms and thunderstorms and blizzards and arctic cold snaps to -10F.
Somebody needs to write a decent screed against AT shelters and I guess it's up to me:
http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=480560
MAIN POINTS---
** Shelters erase any feel of wilderness . . . a shelter becomes an Interstate highway Rest Area so take the exit along with everyone else.
** What normal man would want to sleep butt-to-butt with other strange men??
** Hikers who sleep in shelters are like urban squatters sleeping under a bridge abutment.
** QUOTE: "The only good thing about these AT carports is they lure in and congregate the idiots whereby I can disperse camp a mile away and avoid the lunacy."
** THIS SUMS IT UP FOR ME:
BOX DEPENDENT
" The shelter residents actually have the gall to say the shelter has rules like no dogs and yet they are wrong as the shelter is a wide open piss tank available to anyone for any activity. If you're dumb enough to use them on your backpacking trip and too lazy to set up your own shelter then you have nothing to say for yourself in defense of your space while in one of these rat boxes. Because once you air a single complaint you are advertising your unwillingness to rely on your own shelter system. You willingly have allowed yourself to be box dependent and this choice negates any indignation you may have with fellow occupants in the same box. You're all in the same boiling pot of sewage and slowly cooking in a rat box induced retardation."
" Once dependent on these mud homes people get prickly as if shelters have rules and they develop a strong sense of entitlement to these open sores. "No dogs! No tents inside! No smoking! No room except for me and my friends!! No noise after 9pm!! Full up, sleep in the rain!!! I was here first!! Here, take a hit! I'm a thruhiker, you're not so make room for me! I've been on the trail for 4 months and will now take your questions! We are high mileage experts, now you may ask your questions! Gotta catch up with my friends Turd Blossom and Semen Tank!!! Did they sign the register???!!"
This was written in January 2015, well before thecyclops original post and is therefore not personally directed at him, actually.
Originally Posted by Tipi Walter
This is an old thread but somebody bumped it back up and I noticed the word "etiquette" in relation to the rat-box AT shelters and had to laugh. Hikers who depend on these hepatitis-boxes are probably the same kind of people who dial in a SPOT rescue as soon as a snowflake falls and the temps plunge to 40F. It's the entitlement generation I guess.
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