In Search of Solitude

Go to Alaska. (oh, shhh!!) Naw, no worries. Our mosquitoes, rain, cold, wind, fog and bears keep most of y’all out of here.

It’s interesting because I’ve recently seen a bunch of Gen Z’ers on TikTok labeling any attempt to not share as gatekeeping and going after those people.  Frankly I couldn’t care less what they think, but there certainly seems to be a disconnect between those who wish to preserve pristine areas from getting trampled by the “Instagram” masses, and those who feel that if you’re willing to share a photo then you should also be willing to share where that photo was taken.

The recent graffiti incident on the Yosemite Falls trail is another shining example of how providing access to everyone increases the risk that someone is going to come along and ruin it badly, and it’s no longer a question of “if” but “when”.

I don’t care if anyone thinks badly of me for having my “secret spots” because quite honestly every one of them is easily discovered if you invest the time to find them…just like I did.  If you need a road map or a pin drop to find an interesting place in the woods then IMO you are missing a great deal of the joy of being in the woods.

So what did we miss, or what did we get wrong?

What happens if millions of hikers read your blog and follow your tips to find solitude? Your article will soon have to be edited to read: Go even further. Climb even higher. Go even earlier…Which is essentially what us solitude seekers have been doing for time immemorial.

If John Muir had just kept his big, fat mouth shut about the High Sierra….

“Range of Light! Range of Light! The mountains are calling….”

Yeah, great job John.

(The process is inevitable. Nobody is to blame. It can’t be stopped.)

Some of y’all sound like cranky old boomers! Don’t we want younger people to love and appreciate public lands? Don’t assume any and all vandalism or other bad behavior is done by the young.

In general, I don’t seem to have a problem finding solitude (and I camp in the Sierras). In general, stay off the JMT & PCT and don’t go into the Valley or any trail up to Half Dome. Once I am about ½ mile off the trail, I typically don’t see many people. When I do see people nearby, I think that I must give off a vibe that says “I am not here for your entertainment, so thank but don’t talk to me”.
Location also matters, hiking in places like Escalante and you will probably not run into too many people. My 2 cents.

Some of y’all sound like cranky old boomers! Don’t we want younger people to love and appreciate public lands? Don’t assume any and all vandalism or other bad behavior is done by the young.

That’s certainly been the long standing argument in favor of sharing public lands with everyone.  That if more people appreciated them, they would also join in wanting to protect them.  And that’s fine.  I largely agree with that sentiment.

But if people are going to go out and act like 2 year-olds (graffiti, trash, loud music), then they deserve to have some of their toys taken away (metaphorically speaking) in the same way that you restrict driving for a repeat DUI or reckless driving offender.

And perhaps there’s space for some access to be earned rather than just openly disseminated on social media.  I’m not talking about “earned access” as in paying for it, or having to join a secret society where knowing the secret handshake and password reveals some arcane knowledge.

But rather, for your average joe sixpack, here are all the fun places on public lands that we talk about often on social media:  Inspiration Point in the Tetons, Vernal Falls in Yose, Rainbow Falls near Reds Meadow, and the geysers and hot springs at Yellowstone that are surrounded by boardwalks.  But maybe what’s not so often shared is that other lake in the hanging valley just a few more miles up the trail, or this other set of hot springs that lie at the end of a discretely marked road and trail, or this other waterfall that’s marked on a map but doesn’t have a mile of 5 foot wide manicured trail leading to it.   I’m not asking the government to blur images of some locations off of maps like they’re Area 51.  They would be clearly marked on a map for anyone to find just as they always have.  But, the lack of  “in your face” attention on social media would slow the cumulative impact of throngs of people stampeding such areas.  Heck, you could probably publish all the details about such places in a printed trail guide and still not see a fraction of the traffic that popular areas get when they go viral on Instagram.  Today, it’s all about Instagram, TikTok, instant gratification and attention.  What I’m suggesting is a wish I have, that by forcing people to do a little research of their own, that some places wouldn’t be ‘discovered’ by people until they’re ready to discover them, because they’ve acquired some maturity, a greater appreciation of being in the outdoors, and want to dig a little deeper and go a little farther.

This is all just wishful thinking, of course.  (We) Americans will do what Americans do, which is to proclaim our freedoms and act however we like until some authority steps in to tell us otherwise.

Or, you eventually will pay for access, like they’ve done to Hanging Lake in Colorado, where it now cost $12.00 to get a permit to visit.

As an angry old boomer that finds it increasingly more difficult to find solitude in the outdoors, I have mostly stopped sharing routes and places and have adopted the approach of encouraging individual discovery.

Most are too afraid of venturing off the established trail and those that do can find more solitude and personal reward in the process and those individuals will likely make better stewards of the outdoors.

I wonder if we’re defining solitude as, “me and and hiking friends didn’t see anyone for three days’? Usually I hike solo. I like that for a variety of reasons. I’ll often spend hours or even days without seeing anyone. But, when I do, I don’t feel like my outdoor experience has been spoiled. Sure, once or twice I’ve ended up camping near a boy scout troop–d0n’t do that!!! But, even in popular parks, it’s always possible to camp entirely on my own if I want. Usually I don’t! I like have others to chat with come evening.

Once familiar with an area, it’s relatively easy to choose great routes that leave the majority of people behind. I'[m happy to share the mountains with the few who are out there with me, and vice versa.

Maybe things have got much worse due to Covid crowds showing up in the Sierra. I haven’t been out for a few years.

I don’t think that seeing another hiker spoils my wilderness experience, but I do also appreciate the times when I have been somewhere wonderful and “had the place to myself.”  Or, since I usually backpack with my wife, “to ourselves.”

And that is a very different experience from arriving at our proposed destination to find many, if not all, of the legal campsites occupied.  It doesn’t matter to me what age those people are, as long as they are well-behaved, but it does detract from our wilderness experience.

And teaches us to find other, less publicized places to hike.

Sometimes, when we do find another group in an isolated area, I am conscious of the fact that THEY may have been coming there for years, and always had the place to themselves.  And I am the one who has changed that. I try to behave accordingly!

Sometimes, when we do find another group in an isolated area, I am conscious of the fact that THEY may have been coming there for years, and always had the place to themselves. And I am the one who has changed that. I try to behave accordingly!

This is a good point and something I try to keep in mind, too. There have been times where I’ve gotten to a lake I thought was pretty remote and found another group there, chatted with them, and just like you mentioned they say something like “Wow, we’ve been coming here for years and never seen anyone else camped here”. If it’s early enough and I’m not too tired, I often just continue on to another spot to camp so they can have “their” solitude back. Not always feasible, but I try to give people space when I can.

This is a dilemma for me, because I love to share my favorite places with others, but I’m also aware that we live in a viral world, and if I put the name of a trailhead, lake, or other geographical feature on the internet, it’s likely that search algorithms will direct every casual internet browser to my report, and it could even become the go-to trip.

Like many others on this forum, much of the information in my head about locations is hard-won through personal experience and tedious exploration. So while I don’t imagine that I can keep these places to myself, I don’t really have much sympathy for people who are outraged that every piece of information isn’t immediately available to them as they lurk anonymously behind their keyboard.

My recent compromise has been to avoid posting place-names in searchable locations, but freely sharing information privately, including by personal message on this forum. I have been pleasantly surprised by how often people have actually contacted me, and this gave us an opportunity to connect and share information.

Thoughts from another prolific backpacker:

https://www.trailgroove.com/issue36.html?autoflip=61

Thanks for posting that link, Jeff, much of that article resonates with me.

Perhaps a topic for a different thread, but I have gotten myself in trouble once or twice by putting too much faith in a trip report on the internet. It’s a hard but useful reminder about self-reliance. There are many reasons why a so-called route posted on the internet might not be plausible or possible in reality. Conditions change over time (e.g. deadfall due to fire or infestation), skills vary from person to person, and it’s even possible that some reports might be maliciously deceptive. You never know. Even in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, there are known examples of papers where authors deliberately (i.e. fraudulently) included incorrect protocols to sabotage potential competition.

Heck, you could probably publish all the details about such places in a printed trail guide and still not see a fraction of the traffic that popular areas get when they go viral on Instagram.

We have a great outdoor trails guide for our local area. I doubt anyone under 40 has read it (okay maybe one person). On our hiking club FB page, people are always asking for basic info on area trails, and despite multiple responses referring people to the printed guide, people prefer getting their info on FB. A few trails get hit hard, but most stay “secret,” only within the pages of a book. There are a lot of really old books that have trails and river routes in them that are no longer well known at all. Check your local library for these. There’s some amazing stuff out there. I won’t post any of it to social media (or did I just do that?).

AK Granola – Same here.  In fact, the same questions get asked over and over even in the regional hiking FB groups, and sometimes they are answered with, “This has been asked many times.  Go use the FB search tool for the group.”

And people even resist using THAT.   I get so tired of reading posts that read, “Heading up north this weekend.  What hikes should I do?”

“Up north” is a Michigan thing.

I feel like a curmudgeon saying this, but many people don’t want to do research.  They want the answers to pop up on their phone so they can just grab and go.

If they are calling that “gatekeeping,” then I’m all for gatekeeping. I like to fight virality.

Speaking of research, here is a trick that I don’t mind sharing because it requires work, so I know very few people will do it.  :-)

In addition to reading old books, it can be useful to download ancient quads from the USGS site. For whatever reason, the Forest Service has decommissioned a lot of trails over the last 50 years. In my area, there are many trails that are no longer maintained, but even with deadfall, they are still the best way to access off-trail destinations.

In my mind there’s a qualitative difference between authors that are attempting to monetize their trip reports through blogs, articles, or sites…or perhaps cast themselves as outdoor “influencers” on social media (again, attempting to attract clicks for the sake of clicks)…as opposed to people just sharing trip information. Even in the latter category I would think hard about what information you’re posting, why, and where, but blowing places up because you’re trying to make a buck or “be someone” in the community…I find that pretty distasteful.

In regards to the search for solitude, one thing that I find very helpful is cultivating a sense of appreciation for the humble. I truly enjoy every outdoor space I can find and will happily bypass a majestic but crowded waterfall to sit alone by a trickle on a stream.

We started our website more than ten years ago, always with the idea of encouraging people to express backpacking and explore the Sierra. And while we are now a reference for a number of conservation and volunteer organizations, we still aim at that target: encouraging people to get out in the wilderness, and to use good practices when they do.

But our site is heavy on text, using only a few photos as illustrations.  No Facebook posts, no Instagram.

And the site is huge….literally hundreds and hundreds of pages. Yes, I hope it is organized effectively, but even so, there is an avalanche of trip reports—well more than 100 trails reviewed, and many many pages about appropriate practices and cost effective gear. We try to make the whole thing approachable…

What leads me to believe we are being mildly successful is that the questions we get are from people who have obviously spent some time on the site, and are asking for us to help them with very specific info.

Meanwhile, we have noted a few articles printed for much larger audiences that clearly “borrowed” our reports and drew a lot of attention to a particular route or trail-+and we’ve seen that have an impact.  Not sure what can be done about it …

Another perspective on social media and the outdoors: www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/jul/07/instagram-hiking-tags-geotags-great-outdoors

Good wisdom