Everyone is a thru hiker until December 31.
Everyone is a thru hiker until December 31.
If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything.
I believe the thought is most groups planning to party are more likely to hike 1/2 mile from road and have a party at a fire ring. you see a lot of fire rings close to roads. But there are some shelters close to roads where this could also be a problem.
Except they are all on the AT at pretty much the same time.
Just as the ATC encourages alternative thru hike itineraries to avoid over crowding, weekenders can help by avoiding AT shelters during periods of high use.
Its fine to suggest everyone has equal claim, but that is just common sense.
Seems that if there are rules for usage of shelters they should be posted at the shelter. Don't ever remember seeing any. Maybe rules would clarify things. People go to the woods to get away from rules, and signs. But going down the AT with a lot of other people around is not really going to the woods, it's just travelling to villages with more primitive structures and smaller thoroughfares than a town. If there are people there needs to be rules. And rules need to be posted so everyone knows what is acceptable behavior.
i agree, there should be some rules posted. sometimes there are, but the only place ive ever seen the rule i'm talking about printed is, i think, on the back of the maps for SNP.
it is definitely printed there, but if ive seen it anywhere else i dont know where it was.
i do know if there was something i could point to in the case of the people at the hemlocks i would have done so in as polite a manner as i could have mustered.
For those too lazy to use google...
https://www.hikingupward.com/GWNF/ThreeRidges/
It sucks to be a shelter baby...
Lonehiker (MRT '22)
Give me my hammock and tarp any day of the week.
Blackheart
One should look at the history and reason for the shelters as well as the common use today as to why they are still there and replaced and added to.
overnighters have equal rights to shelters
Every thru hiker is really just a section hiker taking smaller breaks between their sections.
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I am not young enough to know everything.
What's a shelter?
"If you play a Nicleback song backwards, you'll hear messages from the devil. Even worse, if you play it forward, you'll hear Nickleback." - Dave Grohl
Section hikers typically have jobs and are either squeezing a hike into a weekend or perhaps taking a little time off work to enjoy a slightly longer period of time on the trail.
Thru-hikers are either jobless, or have taken a leave of absence and have temporarily checked out of normal society.
The idea that just because someone quit their job to hike somehow elevates their privilege for the use of the trail (and facilities) doesn't even sound right, and it is clearly not part of the rules.
I should point out that I've rarely (if ever) met a thru-hiker that claimed they had more right to a shelter than another hiker.