The COVID 19 outbreak. Does it mean MORE backpacking this year?

[AK Granola]

Kattt – our download speed is even slower than yours, .84 on the best day! Upload about the same, which doesn’t let you do much of anything. We have an internet “free market” here but it does no good. No internet service provider will go into a small market; it’s just not profitable enough.

At one point in our country’s history, rural electrification was considered the right thing to do  – to ensure that all people would realize the benefits of modern society. Now with internet – arguably just as if not more important than power lines –  it’s “self reliance” that is advised, resulting in digital deserts. It’s not something we can do on our own. One argument I hear often is that all rural people should crowd into the cities if they want access to this fundamental part of modern life. Imagine how that would impact our current epidemic. But it is easier to control and manage the population that way. Some people who argue this are utterly clueless that there is no affordable housing available for all these people. Want some more homeless in your state/city?

I think our state services in Alaska are mostly really excellent, and very responsive to the public, although there are fewer services than elsewhere. Good government can be done, but I don’t know how to make it do so, maybe a mgmt issue. I’d love to see Alaska step in and be an ISP but that won’t happen in this budget climate. I’ll be lucky if my road gets plowed two weeks after a storm! (Right now it’s 4-5 days). Our self reliance is just doing without.

[Kattt]

I can live with our internet; I have a class via zoom today so we’ll see how that works.

” our state services in Alaska are mostly really excellent, and very responsive to the public”

that right there is key, IMO. Same in Switzerland. Partly that happens because there are incentives ( both the carrot and the stick). Accountability at the  city, regional and cantonal level is something that produces trust from the public. Otherwise you get France.

 

[jscott]

Otherwise you get France.

[Eugene Hollingsworth]

No disbursed camping here in MN until May 5.  Not going to be out solo. By Myself. Away from people. I am not allowed to be by myself in the woods, alone, until quarantine is over.

Government at it’s finest. I suppose a blanket coverage of “no gatherings and that means public camp sites” has to include any camping, but it’s still really …. confining.

[jscott]

“I suppose a blanket coverage of “no gatherings and that means public camp sites” has to include any camping, but it’s still really …. confining.”

It would be impossible to issue an effective ban and take every possible reasonable exception into account. There would instantly be 40 caveats and exceptions. And then people would complain that ‘BAckpackers get to do it why can’t I’ etc. Others would see it as indicating there’s not much of a problem.

And then people would say things like “government at its finest. They can’t even issue an effective ban on group activities.”

[W I S N E R !]

“And then people would say things like “government at its finest. They can’t even issue an effective ban on group activities.””

; )

[Geoff Caplan]

jscott

I think you’ve nailed it. They have to keep the message simple and consistent to cater for the lowest common denominator. As soon as it becomes nuanced it would fail. The responsible people have to suffer because the irresponsible people would abuse any exceptions.

Easy for me to say. I’m lucky enough to be self-isolating in an area with fabulous walking and swimming literally on my doorstep. I feel kind of guilty considering what most people are going through, though I guess I’ll get over it :-)

But I can’t see any practical way around this blanket ban, grim though it may be. It’s undoubtedly saving lives.

[BlackHatGuy]

“And then people would say things like “government at its finest. They can’t even issue an effective ban on group activities.””

Stop picking on me.

[Roger Caffin]

^^ Why?

[BlackHatGuy]

No reason. Just felt like whining.

[Edward John M]

Would you like some stinky cheese with that whine?
I can stay home and tidy up rather then spend Easter in the hills where I prefer to be if that helps curb the epidemic.
Besides which the $1500- fine for taking an unnecessary trip helps with motivation to not drive anywhere

[Jerry Adams]

people congregate in crowds

then they close more areas, no alternative

I bet if you went to an area where there weren’t other people they’d probably ignore it

[Ryan Jordan]

One of (many) of the reasons we moved from Bozeman to Laramie in 2016 was to take a few years off of a “busy city” (yes, we did have that impression of Bozeman, having lived there for  20+ years) and enjoy a slower pace of life for a while.

Maggie Slepian (Trek Editor) lives up there and she mentioned that all the trailheads near town are pretty full right now. Ugh. We talked about this a little in our Covid-19 & Backpacking Podcast interview with her and Jeff Garmire.

Our trailheads are not full, and we have a lot of easy cross-country travel open space down here where it’s nice to have a lot of land to yourself.

A recent trip, hiding among Sherman granite outcroppings, about 1.5 miles from the car and less than 400 feet of elevation gain, just a few miles off of I-80. Cow trails, mostly. No footprints followed to get here, and I still have  3-4 bars of cell reception so I can stay in touch with loved ones, which I think is kind of important right now.

What makes me feel good: we have no deaths in our state, only a few hundred known cases in the state, 4 cases in our county. No population density (our county is 75,000 times less dense than NYC), lots of open space.

What makes me not feel good: we are in a pretty rural area with an ICU/ventilator unit that will get overwhelmed by just a few severe cases.

I’m not sure which is better, but I’m doing what I can to stay far away from people nonetheless, whether in town or outdoors.

[James Marco]

Nice pic, Ryan, you give my feet the gottawalks.

I suppose I could get my wife to drop me off up in the ADKs. While most trails are listed as open to solo hikers, they omit family groups, mostly through oversight, I believe.  Any family group that normally live in the same household could qualify.

I miss the woods, not that your pic shows much woods.  While we are technically under a shelter in place rule, there are several trail heads we could make on a half a tank of gas. That means we would not have to put anyone at risk to get up there and back. Most of my dehydrated food (60 suppers worth) has already been purchased/dehydrated over the winter.    I can dream can’t I?  I really hate to rock the boat right now, NY is right about even with the disease.

Anyway…

 

 

[HkNewman]

Still need to social distance if hiking, running, walking, and biking, … plus stay out of the slipstream (as if BO wasn’t enough reason) according to a Belgian-Dutch study:

https://medium.com/@jurgenthoelen/belgian-dutch-study-why-in-times-of-covid-19-you-can-not-walk-run-bike-close-to-each-other-a5df19c77d08

 

May have some application to walking in neighborhoods and shops too.

[Jeff McWilliams]

James,

Would visiting the Adirondacks go against your state’s #RecreateLocal guidance?

Communities in Utah are closing down public lands because too many visitors are coming from places like Salt Lake City.  https://www.sltrib.com/news/environment/2020/04/08/local-leaders-shut-down/

Seems there is a lot of push back from small outdoor communities telling people to stay away.  I have an acquaintance in Moab who posts on FB seemingly every day, upset with the out of town visitors during these troubling times.  Also on a Red River Gorge, KY forum I follow, they finally closed almost all the trailheads and campgrounds because of people visiting from the bigger cities.

Don’t get me wrong.  I know you said you’re only dreaming and that you’re not going to rock the boat.  I’m just speaking in hypotheticals here and not trying to shame you for having “impure thoughts about being outdoors.”  haha.

I’m in the same boat.  Stuck in SE Michigan, watching the weather get nice and wishing I could just go off for a quiet night in my tent to calm my emotions.  The only back country spots within 90 minutes of me are on State land, and I believe they’ve banned all camping in accordance with our Governor’s orders.

 

[James Marco]

Yeah I do around 8mi per day with about 50 pounds. Well….most days andyway. But, I really miss getting out. Yes, I think this would be against the NY rule “No unnecessary travel.” Though, I admit it is getting damn close to mentally necessary for me. The wife is less afflicted by this debilitating a addiction. But, there are a few places I know about that are good for several short hikes…

Yeah, there are several mixed attitudes about the shutdown. Some say it is an economic catastrophe the equivalent of which has not been seen. Some say they don’t want ANYONE going through their community because they don’t want the disease in their community since they have a larger proportion of the elderly.  Unfortunately, none have locked down their communities yet since most have state highways running through them (they can’t since they HAVE to import food, minamally.)

Sooner or later, they will get it, with no vaccine available yet.

I really wouldn’t feel right about stealth camping along the trails. Just a droolin about the folk that actually are out there…

[Kattt]

At what point will the negative effects of no one being allowed to even hike/surf/bike/walk on their own (!) outweigh the benefits? People are losing jobs, feeling stressed and lonely and not being able to do an outdoor activity all by themselves is going to add to the negatives. When it comes to doing something outdoors all by yourself the “positive” is that people don’t see you and get the idea that things are normal out there and decide to go back to behaving as before the quarantine. The “negatives” are that there is a toll on a human when they cannot engage in something c that helps them stay sane during extreme stress. What about strained relationships. Is this not even worth a discussion ? Is that “positive” so much bigger than the negative?

[Jeff McWilliams]

Kattt – I’ve seen several concerns being expressed with regard to these lock downs.  Physical and mental well being are most often cited.  I also have an acquaintance that is involved with battered women.  This has a serious impact on the ability of such people to “get away.”

In our community, the local school district closed all the school running tracks.  I objected via their Facebook page.  The response I received was as one would expect:  A)  This was in accordance with a county-wide directive and B)  People has been spotted on school owned tracks who weren’t social distancing.

Our Detroit suburb has a population of 80,000 but only 4 parks and 10 smaller “neighborhood parks”: small green spaces with playground equipment, baseball diamonds, and tennis courts.  The parks are technically open but the playground equipment has been fenced off and obviously all organized group activities have been banned.

Shutting down the running tracks simply takes away one more of a limited number of ways people can get outside, exercise, and get fresh air and some vitamin D.  It feels like having recess canceled for everyone because 2 misguided kids were caught misbehaving during recess.

[BlackHatGuy]

I think it’s quite sad that as a nation, overall, we didn’t take this seriously from the start. Some targeted lockdowns and social distancing early on, with widespread testing to find the areas that needed lockdowns, could have prevented, I think, much of the chaos we are experiencing now. And I think had we taken those steps early we wouldn’t be suffering the economic calamity we are experiencing now.

And it wasn’t just trump, de blasio and cuomo (and many others) didn’t take it seriously at the beginning either, one of the things that led New York to such devastation.

Will we learn for the future. My cynicism doubts it.

[Jerry Adams]

Taiwan mishandled SARS in 2003 and had a lot of deaths

They learned from that and handled this epidemic much better

We will do better in the next one

To use an analogy, we are now inoculated against mishandling the next epidemic.  When the people experiencing this epidemic die off, in maybe 80 years, we’ll go back to mishandling epidemics

[W I S N E R !]

For all of the negatives that people are facing under stay at home orders, I think we have absolutely no idea how much worse things could get if we weren’t.

To compound it, we simply don’t handle this sort of unknown very well.  It requires a hell of a lot of trust to keep going like this.  In my experience, trust is one of the most fragile emotions we have…very hard to win and very easy to lose.  Socially speaking, I can feel that trust faltering by the day.

Add to this the fact that people are being asked to trust that their current situation, which could indeed be very bad, is in fact better than an alternative they cannot even see…

It’s a lot to ask.  When I start hearing stirrings of  “personal freedom”, I suspect our collective patience is dwindling.

And then, depending upon how quickly this virus spreads and how close to home it hits, we’ll be having a different conversation, one that could be much, much harder.  But we won’t know until we’re there.

It feels very lose-lose to me.

 

 

[Kattt]

“For all of the negatives that people are facing under stay at home orders, I think we have absolutely no idea how much worse things could get if we weren’t.”

My point was about people going on a hike or ride alone, so we actually do know. I never talked about two or more people. Me going on a bike ride alone can have the negative effect of looking like everything is fine by encouraging others to head out, but we know for sure that it would not alter the infection rate.

[W I S N E R !]

I was speaking generally, not directly to your post Kat.  Yes, going out alone is quite different.  I’m talking about the increasing restlessness I’m hearing nationally to call the whole thing off ASAP.

[Kattt]

We are also going to see our health decline, both physical and mental. If it reduces infections then I am all for it but if it’s so that Mary and Mike don’t have a hissy fit seeing someone outside alone then I don’t know. I am back at work and my blowing the pathways and picking weeds is somehow more crucial than you being able to hit the trail in the mountains all by yourself, apparently.
I have miles of trails from my front door so it’s all good for me but there are people with difficult relationships and stresses and not allowing them any activity outside at all is questionable imo.

[Author]

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