Rules and Denial

imported
#1

In another thread, someone asked about weather on Katahdin and a reply contained the following statement:

“2000 miles is a long way to go to be denied the last few miles.”

I replied with the following:

“If being denied those final 14 or so miles means that Baxter State Park doesn’t become Smoky Mountain National Park, then please, go out of your way to deny me. I beg you. If it means we don’t become another Mount Washington, and that we can hold onto some semblance of wilderness, then call me a river in Egypt (de-nile, heh-heh).”

I’d like to know how others feel about this.

For me, I hate rules. That’s the reward of hiking in Maine. The Maine AT really has no rules until you get to Baxter STate Park, just ‘codes of ethics’, i.e. Leave No Trace.

But if a place has rules in place WAY before the AT was routed there - as is most definitely the case with the Whites, but also Baxter - and hikers do very little (I won’t say nothing) but COMPLAIN, well, I just don’t get it. The AMC has every right to charge and impose whatever fees/rules they want, even on the AT, even at the inconvenience of the AT Thru-hiker, because remember - the AT was not and probablly never will be designed SOLELY as a trail meant to be conquered in a single season. WE (meaning, the AT) went to the Whites, and consequently the AMC. They didn’t come to us. That’s a fact.

Even the park in New York that the trail passes through has some rules, as does the Smokies. And these places were around long before the AT came even there. In my opinion, I’d much rather follow the rules imposed by these various organizations than follow the rules imposed by . . . purists.

I can imagine, that somewhere, sometime, some hiker just came 2,100 miles or more, entered Baxter and was told Katahdin was closed for the season, when suddenly some smug purist leaps out from the underbrush and declares to the unlucky hiker that “YOU ARE NOT A THRU HIKER!!”

Kinda makes you want to smack the bastard, doesn’t it? Better him than some park official.

Kineo Kid

#2

We hike to get away from rules and the BS of the world.

Unfortunately there are rules out there too, some anyway.

Purists make their own rules and I suppose to an extent we and all of society are purists to a certain degree, but certainly not to the extent some purists are.

People want to hike to escape, but yet want to hike with a partner and stay in shelters — so they really don’t want to completely let go and escape. It’s like hold on to me, least I should fall.

It baffles my brain and makes my head hurt. It’s time to hit the trail. :cheers

Maintain

#3

The reason they do not let you hike up katahdin during “class 4 weather” is because they do not want YOU putting rescuers at risk when you get into trouble up there and call in on your cell phone for help. of course, after waiting for 4 days you could always sneak on up at 2am like i did in 93, at some point you have to make the choice to follow the rules or not and suffer the consequences. my consequences were a beautiful (but COLD) hike up with a full moon (our water bottles froze solid), and sunrise at the top for the 10 minutes or so that we could stand being up there with the wind and cold.

HY

#4

Those rules at Baxter are for the safety of the flatlanders and goatropers that drive into the park and do not know their own physical limits. Unfortunately the park service as a public entity cannot choose who has to follow them so they are applied to all of us. We run into the same thing in the presidentials. Its dangerous up there if you do not know what you are doing. After 2000 miles I think thru hikers know their physical limits and the dangers of hiking above tree line in bad weather better then most people. My brother when he thruhiked in 1978 got to Baxter after October 15th but snuck into the park and finished his hike anyway. If he ran into trouble that day he would have been on his own. A big price to pay for your moment of glory for you and whoever has to go and drag your body off. But I would trust a thruhiker to make that decision way before the average weekend warrior.

Big B

#5

IMHO, thruhikers complain about the AMC in the Whites far more than they complain about Baxter. Part of the anti-AMC sentiment is for good reason, part of it stems from associating the Mt. Washington autoroad and smog railway with the AMC (there’s no actual connection). Granted, these alternate routes to the top of the highest peak in the northeast have been around for a long time, but in my opinion they are relics from the past and are detriments to the area (anyone read The Monkey Wrench Gang? hmmmm…) The only place on the entire AT that I witnessed unashamed littering was on the summit of Mt. Washington. Because it makes the peak so accessible, you get all sorts of people up there - many of which don’t know nor care about outdoor ethics. The AMC exacerbates this negative impact with some of their huts. LNT states that you’re not supposed to camp above treeline, yet Lakes of the Clouds and Madison Huts clearly violate this principle. I would also bet that having the huts attracts more people, and causes more environmental impact because of the types of people, than would be the case without them. On this issue, the AMC has decided that revenues for Joy Street are more important than preservation.

Baxter on the other hand was established on the condition that it be preserved in perpetuity as pristine wilderness. Thus there’s no electricity and a limited number of people admitted each day. I would think that most thruhikers would support and respect these kinds of rules because they are in the spirit of a wilderness experience. As HY said, closing the mountain on bad weather days is just a practical measure to decrease danger to visitors and rescue personnel. The AMC could learn a lot from Baxter.

Wedding Singer

#6

A lot of the complaints about Baxter are uninformed complaints. There is no rule saying that you can’t hike Katahdin after Oct. 15. There is a rule prohibiting overnight stays in the park after Oct. 15.

If you want to hike Katahdin after Oct 15 and assuming the conditions are accomodating (which is an issue even before Oct 15), you have two choices:

  1. Get a ride into the park in the morning, hike the mountain, get a ride out.

  2. Use the Blueberry Ledges trail to hike from Abol Bridge making it 9.7 miles to the summit and another 5 miles back to the campground for 14.7 total. If you are a purist, you’ll have to hike the 10 mile AT route and Blueberry Ledges the previous day to avoid staying in the park but that is an easy 14.7 miles.

Of course the October 15 rule is known to thru-hikers long before they start hiking Springer. It isn’t too hard to plan accordingly and get to Katahdin before it even becomes an issue.

Radar

#7

After 2000 miles I think thru hikers know their physical limits and the > dangers of hiking above tree line in bad weather better then mot
people

I’m not so sure of this. It is true that thru-hikers can generally cover trail miles quicker than most “other” hikers but I actually think thru-hikers are less cautious about bad weather than other hikers because they feel like they have more “experience”.

When I hiked over Mt. Washington this year there was 90 mile visibility from the summit. For an hour we stayed at the summit enjoying the views, writing postcards, eating. The weather changed for the worse last year when I hiked over Washington and I was itching to get moving along the ridge before weather conditions changed (as was forecast).

By the time we got out of the building, the clouds had snuck up on us from the west and before we had made it to the base of Clay about 30-40 minutes later, the summit was obscured by clouds. Soon after the entire ridge was engulfed. We were lucky that day because it stayed warm and the rain held off until we made it down the Osgood trail several hours later. There are plenty of trails down off the ridge but thru-hikers are less likely to take them in bad weather than to press on thinking they can outrun the bad weather. I saw several day hikers turn-around that day.

Many thru-hikers who had never hiked the Whites or grown up in New England hearing Mt. Washington’s notorius reputation were amazed at how quickly the weather changed that day.

Similarly when I hiked Katahdin last week there were several folks who were quite surprised to find it much colder at the summit than they expected. They had left pants and gloves behind to save weight on their last day. The conditions weren’t threatening but all it would have taken to change the situation was a twisted ankle or blown knee and suddenly it would have seemed silly to leave the long-underwear and gloves behind.

Radar

#8

I agree with radar. Through hiking does not mean you have alot of experience above treeline, especially in cold and dangerous conditions. when we went up katahdin at night (it was closed due to bad weather the previous day) we had lots of extra clothes, sleeping bags, tent, extra food etc in case we got stuck. and we both had lots of winter camping and hiking experience, coming from the pacific northwest where even in august you have to expect rain and/ or snow, and if you want to go out at all in the early summer you must deal with snow, and lots of it.

HY

#9

I noticed quite a bit of contempt for “weekend warriors” and other non-thru-hikers in this thread and similar ones from the past. The gist seem to be that weekend warriors are more likely to take stupid chances than thru-hikers. Reading through the journals posted here, I find example after example of outright ignorant behavior from the thru hiker community. Walking on ridges during thunderstorms and fording storm-swollen streams come to mind.

As to the unwashed heathen who dare take in the beautiful vistas from Mt washington or any of literally hundreds of other spots on the AT and elsewhere without having earned the right by busting their hump on some rockstrewn trail, I say condemn them to death by deep fat-frying. AMC arrogant? Looks to me as if there’s plenty to go around.

Excuse me, this weekend warrior feels the need to find a wild and unspoiled place in which to dump some spent uranium.

Saluki Dave

#10

Yup Dave. Being a “thru-hiker” is way overrated. I know. I was one 5 different times. I much rather hang out with section hikers, overnighters, weekenders, etc. No cliques with these folks.

Wolf

#11

SD, let the record show that I hold equal contempt for ANYONE in the wilderness who doesn’t attempt to follow LNT principles. Whether they hike to Mt Washington from Georgia or get chauffered up to the summit makes no difference. In my experience though, tourists are far more likely to litter and not understand or even want to understand their environmenal impact. Most thruhikers and weekenders know how to behave in the woods from experience, something many of the tourists don’t have the advantage of. I don’t think that’s arrogant, I think it’s just the truth. Maybe I’m a little personal about it because I’m from NH and actually felt embarrassed when I reached MW because it was so bad in contrast to the rest of the trail (we got there at noon on a Saturday - dumb move on our part).

As for stupid thruhiker tricks, I agree that thruhiking in itself does not make you any kind of wilderness expert. I think thruhikers can sometimes get a sense of invincibility that can contribute to poor decision making. After overcoming so many things for months, you start to believe that perseverance will get you thru anything. That’s no excuse, but I think it’s a factor.

Wedding Singer

#12

Are you making mushrooms glow green again?, how many time have I told you about that. Stupid human thru-hiker tricks? How 'bout the Presidentials in shorts and a wind breaker in 16hrs. Strider is indeed a fruit cake. I won the B+Js prize for guessing his arrival time and body temp. 10:45pm and 97*. :eek:

Bushwhacky