Death OF the AT…

[Gregory Petliski]

"1)The Entitlement Generation has come of age. 2)Doing the trails has become the thing to do instead of being something that called to you. 3)Twice as many people on the planet since you were a kid. 4)People suck." Entitlement generation's fault? And who was it that did the Yosemite firefall? Or allowing bears in garbage dumps and building grandstand seating for people to watch? Cmon now. While under the guise of "we didnt know any better" the standard practice in the 60s was to bury all trash, metal cans included! You can cite cultural relativism all you want, people should have known better than to carve names in trees and such. People have not changed one bit, and if they have, its actually for the better, as I've evidenced. Its the rules and regs that have changed, bringing to light what has always been there. People are just naturally destructive, unless educated otherwise. Anyhow, the more important matter, instead of assigning blame, is to figure out what has to be done and then go do it.

[Ken Thompson]

The Entitlement Generation. Never said which one I believe that is. No comments on the others?

[Tom D.]

"Entitlement generation's fault? And who was it that did the Yosemite firefall? Or allowing bears in garbage dumps and building grandstand seating for people to watch? Cmon now. While under the guise of "we didnt know any better" the standard practice in the 60s was to bury all trash, metal cans included! You can cite cultural relativism all you want, people should have known better than to carve names in trees and such."

---

It was the National Park Service (who've pulled many other boneheaded moves that you didn't mention), and yes, they should have known better and at least when they finally did, they stopped. I don't see this happening with the "entitlement generation" though, which is very real I believe. People are getting more and more stuff handed to them without the need to earn it, care for it, or maintain it, and as a result they take it for granted. In my area, a large special interest group is asking the US President to use executive powers to provide free daily bus travel for them into the San Gabriel Mountains, an area that already sees more than 3 million visitors a year. Most people still care for the trails and dont take their access to it for granted. But a great many do not know what its like to be restricted or denied access because of a few who don't care, and will move on to some other activity once they've gotten their fill. I encountered this with climbing and with mountain biking. If something doesn't change, it will happen with hiking trails as well, we are on an identical path. I hope I'm wrong…..

[Gabriel Harper]

If I want solitude, the last place I'll go is the AT. I'll occasionally do a bit of the AT as part of another hike, but inevitably I'll run across ten different groups along the way. It's a freakin freeway. It's not for solitude hikers: it's for bragging rights and sport hikers these days. Seems inevitable to me that as it grows in popularity, the small percentage of shitty people will become more obvious. "The Entitlement Generation"?? Just a label being regurgitated by the media and everyone else who struggles to form a unique thought of their own. (Present parties excluded… but geez I can't stand these catch phrases people use to complain and shame others). I'm pretty sure every generation is the "entitlement generation" to their formers. However, as someone who grew up in the Maine woods, the last thing I'm interested in doing on a hike is signing up for shelter space, paying huge fees to get shuttled if there's no room, or planning months ahead to sleep on some plank in the woods. I understand why people do it but I won't cry if they pull every shelter up plank by plank and make everyone bushwhack to Katahdin. The future is pretty clear: more hikers, more rules, more regulations. Hopefully those who do actually care about the AT will take it upon themselves to pitch in, educate young hikers, and do something about preserving this trail that so many have put their sweat and blood into. Me? I'll probably be somewhere else looking for my own trails!

[Kyle Meyer]

This isn't a brand new issue. When I was doing the JMT two years ago, we met three humans we dubbed "The PCT Guys". These were three bearded, filthy guys that had heard hiking the PCT south through this area was the best way to do it, so they took a bus from Whitney to Yosemite. I had a few run-ins with them: 1. My wife and I pass them headed up from Happy Isles. We don't see them on this section again. 2. We run into them at Tuolumne. They weren't feeling like hiking so they turned around and took a bus from the valley to Tuolumne. 3. We see them again at Red's. They took a bus to Red's too. 4. They finally start hiking the actual trail, and we run into them at Purple Lake where they proceed to build a massive fire in a makeshift campsite during a fire ban, while on mushrooms and smoking out of a 3' tall bong one of them was carrying around. 5. We see them a final time at VVR where they were begging beers off folks and generally being fucked up as much of the day as possible. It seems like there are folks treating the California section as a party because of all the support that's been built up over the years. Maybe the end of some of this support will keep people from lazily mooching off of it for a summer.

[Paul Magnanti]

"It's not for solitude hikers: it's for bragging rights and sport hikers these days." I have no desire to hike the AT; it is not the hike I'd want to do at this point in my life. However, there are valid reasons why people would want to do the AT beyond those two harsh reasons. For some, the community is the draw. Or seeing the eastern mountains. Or experiencing what is arguably the most famous continuous footpath in the world. Or want to experience a little bit the outdoors but in a (perceived to be) safer environment. Or enjoy the easy logistics, planning, and ample services. And so on. I am sure there are plenty of people who hike the AT for "bragging rights" and being "sport hikers", but once can say that about any outdoor activity beyond the AT or even hiking. And it is arguable if those reasons are necessarily bad ones. In life, it is easy to mistake what one likes as the correct way. And anything different as wrong or inferior. I know I am guilty of that at times. We all are.

[Kattt]

"In life, it is easy to mistake what one likes as the correct way. And anything different as wrong or inferior. I know I am guilty of that at times. We all are." +1 I would add that if one is truly at ease with how they do something, then they are much less likely to pick on others for doing it a little differently. Like the loudest preachers are still trying to convince themselves .

[Matthew Frye]

Pretty much finished my AT thru a few weeks back.(Missed a section between Big Meadows and Harpers, returning next week to complete it)It seemed one of the most popular topics of conversation was this very issue and after months of hearing it I started to feel as everything was being blown out of proportion. I'm not saying that problems don't exist, of course they do. It's also very easily seen how these problems have increased in frequency year after year. That said, though I witnessed negative behavior, I can't agree that the issue has reached the magnitude that it's popularly made out to have reached. Much of what I'm hearing from folks is stories of incidents passed down from hiker to hiker (Think the old kids game where a message is passed from one child to the next with the goal of keeping it intact, the end result usually being the opposite.) or even more often I would hear stories about other hikers that amounted to pettiness masked as criminal. Stories from people perhaps not used to living around such a diverse group, people used to being the king of the household that get irritated when they don't get their way. As for the hostels and towns which have had problems with hikers, it's unfortunate. I don't see how it's avoidable though. As the numbers of hikers increase, so will these happenings. Sad but likely inevitable.

[Steven Hanlon]

your missed section is the one with the most egregious examples of the problems on the AT. you will be hiking them out of "season" so you will not have seen the insanity.

[Matthew Frye]

Did you just tell me after hiking 2100 miles that I don't understand the magnitude of the situation because of a 70 mile or so stretch I have to complete still? You have to be joking… Besides, I'm from the area and that section happens to one of my most frequented spots. It is heavily traveled but it is not a section notorious for crappy behavior.

[AK Granola]

I am so sad and disappointed to read all the horror stories about the PCT and AT. The JMT has been on my list for many years, but now I'm not even sure I want to bother. On one of my Alaska backpack trips this summer, a trail only two hours from town, we saw only two other groups in three days time, both there to enjoy the solitude and wildlife, and friendly and peaceful. That's pretty typical. Car camping up here is another story, but backpacking leaves the losers behind quickly. I'm now thinking I'm already in the right place and shouldn't try the Sierra. OTOH absent the crazies, it sounds so lovely!

[Justin Baker]

The PCT/JMT is crowded. There are plenty of places in the Sierra that aren't crowded. The places that are crowded are a days hike from the parking lot. So if you can hike far/fast and get really deep in there, you can find solitude off trail. Look at the Sierra High Route.

[W I S N E R !]

Crowds and corresponding bad manners are not hard to avoid. Seems to me that through poor choice of season and trail many people are just setting themselves up for bad experiences. I don't know anything about the AT or that part of the country, but days and days and days of solitude are not hard to find in the High Sierra. It's pretty simple: get off major trails or trails altogether.

[Art …]

"" Crowded "" is a very relative and subjective term. on 80% of the JMT you can go hours without seeing anyone. and on the 20 % that is crowded, well, uh, get creative. I once left Happy Isles at 4:00 am heading south on the JMT and saw no one on the usually crowded first 5 miles.

[Lori P]

It's somewhat annoying when people take a handful of events and decide to discount an entire state/park/area as somewhere they want to go, despite the fact that it's not a representative experience of what you'd experience on the other zillion miles of trail in that state/park area. We are so good at grabbing a horrific or disturbing story and generalizing. I am still safer and more at peace in the Sierra than anywhere else, precisely because I won't thru hike the popular trails and don't park my tent within a couple miles of the trailhead (the end of the road). I have no desire to hike trails with such easy and frequent access that anyone can jump on and off at whim (EG: the AT) and don't consider such places to truly be wilderness in the sense that you are only ever going to see wilderness and backpackers. The AT is a poor example with which to judge the other trails out there. Women in one of my women-specific backpacking group are having hysterics, because of course "we're going to get raped/killed in the backcountry" because of something that happened across the country from us, on a trail that visits civilization a lot more than ours do – never mind that we have NEVER encountered anyone remotely threatening in our local wilderness areas in YEARS of day hikes and overnights, and there are so few recorded violent incidents here you can't find statistics… It's frustrating that we are socialized to be afraid, instead of taught real risks – car accidents on the way to the trailhead, hypothermia, dehydration, injury, random acts of nature (remote risk but IMO more of one than being assaulted 10 miles out and 2 miles off trail). The history of the AT, if one cares to look it up (there are books), will tell you that the risk of such crimes is far greater in your home town. There's a crime rate – for trails, it's quite high. Compared to general rates in towns, you have better chances on the trail of not being a victim – and that goes for men as well as women. Frankly, the trails in California you want to avoid, if you're going to be terrified of trail crimes, are trails like Skyline to Sea — the trail is less than 1/4 mile from the highway for a good third of the way, and crosses the road several times. I do it every year with a large group (it's not so much about being in the wilderness as it is about socializing — it's quite difficult for me to consider camping in designated sites with pit toilets backpacking, and when staying at the backpacker camp in Big Basin lets you do a beer run…. To the newbies and inexperienced backpackers I take, it feels quite primitive but to me, it's just not wilderness). Only once did we run into anyone of concern – squatters with a camp on a private road (there are plenty of those too, crossing the trail between the top and Waterman Gap) who were obviously high and running around in the trees shouting. A little alarming, but we hiked right on by, and told the rangers at Big Basin on our way through. To sum up: To get away from herds of people, crime, or loud yahoos, avoid trails that are famous and trails that are close to roads for a portion of the route. Have fun, stop worrying. Don't sit around in Yosemite Valley – go backpacking, and the millions of tourists that bring with them some amount of crime, noise and irresponsible behavior will be far behind you. Don't camp in the heavily used, easy accessed places. Even the JMT can bring you some measure of solitude if you time it right and plan side trips — while hiking a section to connect to some backcountry awesomeness, we met lots of thrus. Not a single one of them even knew where Goddard Canyon was, let alone why they would go there. Big Name = Big Crowd.

[Pedestrian]

"The PCT/JMT is crowded. There are plenty of places in the Sierra that aren't crowded. The places that are crowded are a days hike from the parking lot. So if you can hike far/fast and get really deep in there, you can find solitude off trail. Look at the Sierra High Route." Actually REAL hikers hike the Sierra Crest Route – the SHR is for newbies. ;)

[Paul Magnanti]

I'm a fake hiker myself… I've been known to go, and enjoy even, car camping too. probably shouldn't go there… :) )

[Matthew Frye]

I sort of enjoy the folks who come out to a crowded trail and proceed to rant about it being to crowded. Normally these are the same people making every mole hill into a mountain. The trail has issues, but the amount of attention it's been getting lately is absurd. The crappy behavior is really a much smaller issue made big by other hikers and officials such as Jensen exaggerating the problem. These trails weren't exclusively built for any one of us, but for all of us. You don't like someones behavior? Move on that day or suck it up and deal with it till morning. We should all conduct ourselves with a certain level of etiquette, but that doesn't mean conducting ourselves to someone else's standard of what that amounts to. If you see a criminal act or some huge violation of regulations, call the cops. Whatever happened to HYOH? It seems like so many us just assume our way of behaving and going about things should be followed by everyone else.

[AK Granola]

Excuse me, but did I exaggerate the problem ? Since I've never been to the Sierra it might be hard for me to do that. My post was in reaction to previous posts by the experts on this forum. Read.

[Matthew Frye]

LOL. I'm so sorry Karen, I was talking about the director for Baxter whose name happens to be Jensen. Oh and I wasn't referring to the Sierra, but my stomping grounds which is the AT corridor. Apologies again, I didn't even realize someone with the same name was posting in this thread. Just bad luck on my part.

[HkNewman]

…doing 8 miles a day, treating it like a moving party … It would seem easy avoid with a higher daily mileage and earlier start date on these long trials. Young people of course, have been known to party and even uncrowded forests/deserts have those who want non-stop drinking away from authority … been going on since humans discovered fermented beverages probably. On an increasingly crowded trail, it could bring paid "ridge runners" and law enforcement Rangers (aka authority) admittedly .

[Author]

Posts