Thanks for the kind words, obxhiker.
So, the evasion tactics. I don’t believe this to be any sort of ironclad box that I’m putting things in, but the idea is:
Sometimes we hike off the beaten path a bit, and that’s what I worry about disseminating too rapidly. The trails–well, the trails are fine. People hike the trails all the time, and there are already books that divulge those experiences in great detail. Besides, trails are basically 1d adventures. You go forward or backwards on the trail. There are discrete choices at junctions, and that’s it. So there never was that much to discover to begin with.
Off the trail, though, we can be a bit more careful. If all of the information–detailed route finding descriptions, annotated photos, gpx tracks–if all of that is out there, there’s no adventure for the next person; just the choice of which slabs to hop on as they make their way at 337 degrees across the first of three talus fields.
So my goal is to not have someone search for an obscure off-trail pass, and bring up my photos and descriptions (which are still intentionally vague–I don’t want to spoil the adventure of a reader either!). Take a cross-country pass, for example. If I copy and paste directly into the BPL forums, then a web search may bring it up (it still may not, because Google tends to be smart enough to know that if you’re looking for something useful, one of my trip reports is not where you want to be!). For example, let’s make up a pass… call it “Beige Spoon Pass”. If one Googles that pass, they won’t come up with my TR, because that information is in a pdf that is uploaded to an obscure, rarely-visited blog. It’s probably not searchable at all.
(Example: A Google search for “with most of our tendons attached” only returns BPL, not the pdf hosted on that obscure blog, which contains those very words.)
Unfortunately, we’re kind of going in the wrong direction–we’re accelerating the de-unknowning of the wilderness. I think the most impactful factor in this is quite simple: it is that people keep making up routes, then naming them, then writing guides to hiking those routes. Then–lo and behold–people come flocking, because it’s a Thing, and there’s a guide, and we’re all completionists–we love doing Things. Let’s do that Thing! Then they write about it, and soon it achieves critical mass, and a use trail with infinite footprints.
Ten years ago, if you searched for Beige Spoon Pass, you’d get one measly page on High Sierra Topix, and maybe a vague, sandbaggy reference out of Secor. Now, you get blogs.
This is both a recent phenomenon, and obvious in cause and effect. It’s probably controversial, but I say: We don’t need more named routes.
(Roper gets a pass–he wrote his book in 1982, before one could even fathom such a result.)
And it’s not just because the crowds flock to the named routes–but it’s the question: Where is the adventure in hiking someone else’s route? I mean sure, there’s always some adventure, but isn’t a lot of it in creating your own route, and owning all of the “where to next” decisions? I mean, it is for me. I want others to experience that; it’s rewarding and empowering. I know this undoubtedly has a HYOH tinge to it, but I’ve always been surprised to discover that it seems that the vast majority of hikers just go and hike something that someone else named and wrote about. I don’t get it. I mean I do; I hiked the JMT; it was a named Thing and I wanted to do a Thing so I did it. But after that–is it just the comfort of knowing it’s a Thing for most, so you know you can’t be doing anything too crazy?
Anyway, now I just upload pdfs and yell at the kids to stop naming routes and get off my lawn.
I guess I better step down carefully from this soapbox, lest I injure myself… Just one opinion among many, where none are wrong or right.
Regarding the stuck lug nut: I think the surprise was that it all happened before Andy was straining too hard. It wasn’t one of those situations where he pushed and it wouldn’t go; then he pushed again and it wouldn’t go; then he paused and looked at me, and then pushed again–it was just a thing where he pushed, then pushed a little harder–then POP, and it was done, before he ever got to the point of questioning whether or not additional leverage (not coming from a bicep tendon) was needed.
I’m actually thinking of just throwing a cheater bar in my trunk for future stuck lug nuts. I’ve come pretty close to injuring myself jumping on a tire iron too–a cheater bar seems safer for someone with my level of coordination.
