This guy / gal has it right. There are LOTS of places to stealth, but you don’t know that until you get through the whites. Hunting around on top of 5000 foot mountains at dusk or night time for a stealth spot is a little scary. The only people that would tell us about stealth sites were south-bounders. The AMC people didn’t tell us about them.
For all future thru-hikers, make sure you check out stealth sites in the whites. They will save you an arm and a leg.
Dave and Miranda
I saw this online.
http://www.guidestar.org/controller/searchResults.gs?action_gsReport=1&npoId=223306
Dave and Miranda
Yes. Feel the love.
Sometimes we don’t like the answers to some questions, but the Punque raises some interesting points about the hut system.
The wilderness is a big place and there are lots of options that don’t involve being hut-bound, as our GUY, Aswah, illustrates so well.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the mountain chains west of the new england population centers were the exclusive playgrounds of the well-to-do. I wonder if the hut system is a vestige of or a throwback to that time? The era of the exclusive hunting clubs and exclusive lodges and big “camps”? (Yes, too lazy and Thanksgiving food-comatosed to search out the history of the AMC system.) Those kind of roots wouldn’t surprise me. Reminds me of the Eastman trail club in north carolina, roots in the Eastman camp? Interesting thread, anyway.
Tyger
There is no such thing as a free lunch - someone eventually has to pay. Why should thru hikers be exempted?
Personally, I think all shelters and huts ought to be burned down and the surrounding areas slowly transformed to some kind of people-visited natural state.
This is similar to the equestrian argument out west. Huts / horses allow a lot of non-adventurous folks to enjoy the outdoors. But there is a price to be paid in modification of the environment.
Hell, I don’t know who - if anyone is correct. Valid arguments on both sides to keep us occupied til spring.
Happens every year ‘bout this time. I’m getting seriously afflicted with the “itch”’
Booger
It was the Tenn. Eastman Club I was thinking of…BTW. According to the link above from D&M, looks like AMC made about $5 million in 2002. Not bad for a charity!
The AMC web site, www.outdoors.org, seems also to be in a food coma. Couldn’t find any information about its founders, ie., the AMC equivalents to the AT’s Benton MacKaye and Myron Avery. Who exactly founded the AMC in 1876?
Tyger
AMC in the Whites deals largely with crowds of people that drive up to a trail head from the suburban areas. The Whites are national forest, not national park. Management of the Smokies and Shenandoah is different. You wouldn’t think of barging into Big Meadows Lodge and demanding food and a room. So, why do some people expect it from AMC?
Caretakers are at certain campsites in the Whites, and along the Long Trail because people are slobs. If you ever stayed at the popular sites before caretakers, you will appreciate them. And if you didn’t find out about alternative places to camp before you hiked through the area, then shame on you. The information is available if you read up on it, or ask.
Remove shelters? A controversal topic. Many shelters have been removed without building a replacement. But who among us doesn’t truely appreciate a dry shelter after a cold rainy day?
Not all shelters in the Whites have caretakers and collect a fee. We all have choices. In the Carter Range along the AT, would you rather stay at Imp and pay, or hike on down to Rattle River shelter and not pay? I think that we will all agree that the caretaker makes Imp a nicer place to stay.
Peaks
Seriously? if you see something that you feel is an injustice you would just accept it because that is the way it is? That is the mentality of a sheep. No disrespect intended but I disagree with that thought process. If thru hikers are such a small minority then perhaps the attitude of the Smokies would be better. And whomever said that even without the huts the whites would be full of people. Go dust off your copy of Desert Solicism (or Solitaire as it was later chenged to) by Edward Abbey and re-read. I will allow that a certain portion of the woods should be set aside for those who do not ever want to leave their cars or motorhomes to experience the wilderness. I also think a section has to be left completely wild for those who want that experience. I like Ed Abbey’s ideas of National Parks. You drive your car to the gate and walk or horseback in. Leave the woods to the woods. Building a system of roads, huts and visitor centers encourages humans to come in. Humans that normally would not venture in. If there were no developed roads, huts and visitor centers do you honestly believe people would still come by the drove? Of course not. It is a tragedy to have one of the most beautiful and challenging sections of the AT also one of the most peopled. I wish they could find an alternate route that was more rugged.
Peace
ASWAH
aswah
Well put, Aswah. Cactus Ed got that right…
“You wouldn’t think of barging into Big Meadows Lodge and demanding food and a room. So, why do some people expect it from AMC?”
The difference:
—Big Meadows is run by ARAMARK, Inc. A HUGE corp.
If you get look sideways at those guys, they will have you arrested.
—The AMC is a registered 501©(3) public charity which happens to make millions. Public Charity.
Public charity or tax shelter?
Hmmmmm.
Peace, all.
Skool
Aswah…is Edward Abbey the same guy that wrote the Monkey Wrench Gang? What you are saying kind of fits with that wonderful book!
leah
If I may … yes, Abbey wrote MWG.
Desert Solitaire is a classic. The most recent University of Arizona Press hardcover version is definitive, as Abbey revised it befor he died in '89.
I gave my copy to a now ex-girlfriend last Christmas … dammit!
Cactus Ed lives!
Tyger
Hayduke Lives!
He is a great author and one well suited to those that love nature, naturally.
Happy Holidays!
ASWAH
aswah
Work for stay? No thanks. The younger ones can do that. Just take my money and give me a bed. I have stayed at every hut, and I have been turned away. when I was turned away, the hut crews told me where I could camp. Regardless of where I slept, I was hiking through. The huts were a pleasant, welcoming experience.
bluevist
“But love of the wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need - if only we had eyes to see.”
“The real work of men was hunting meat. The invention of agriculture was a giant step in the wrong direction, leading to serfdom, cities, and empire. From a race of hunters, artists, warriors, and tamers of horses, we degraded ourselves to what we are now: clerks, functionaries, laborers, entertainers, processors of information.”
“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit”
Ed Abbey
Abbey’s rejection of violence and clear definition of sabotage as focused on machines, not people, remained part of his principles of monkeywrenching. Among his three key rules, as explained in Hayduke Lives! by Doc Sarvis, rules 2 and 3 were “don’t get caught” and “if you do get caught you’re on your own.” But rule number one, as Doc insists to Hayduke, is “Nobody gets hurt. Nobody. Not even yourself.”
As Abbey argued in his essay “Eco-Defense,” the people destroying wilderness and life-forms were the real terrorists, whereas the conscientious saboteur was engaged in an act of self-defense, as an anti-terrorist, trying to protect life against death.
ED from the DEAD
“These are things that should be considered into your finances before you begin your hike because, like it or not, they are part of the trail.”
I didn't mean that one should simply accept something that is and let it go. Perhaps I didn't explain it well enough. Most people know about the fee-based huts and shelters in VT, NH, and Maine before they begin their thru-hike. Therefore, they take that into consideration. HOWEVER...should you disagree with this system, by ALL MEANS, do something about it. Voice your concern. Write your letters. Raise money to launch an all-out campaign against the AMC exposing their faults on national television even. But, should you still decide to do a thru-hike before these huts disappear or at least change, then accept the fact that they will be there while you thru-hike, so plan, adjust, or comprimise accordingly. (Also, and I'm not sure on this one, but weren't the huts there before the AT? IF that's the case, then perhaps the AMC is being nice enough not launching a campaign against us?)
Leki-Less
The AMC and thier huts and the trails leading to them were around long before the ATC and AT.
wolf
They were an eyesore then as well i suspect.
I told my English friends about the hut system, they laughed…rather loudly. If you go up into the English or Scottish mountains, not unsimilar to the Whites in terrain, you’re on your own, the way it should be (until you break your leg or twist your ankle, then you wish for someone to come along). What has been done can’t be undone, they are there to stay, it is our choice to avoid them or use them. I’ll be hiking in the Whites for as long as i am able, as i’m sure will many other hikers.
Cheers
Cheers
So the AMC owns the mountains? The rocks? The trees?
The very wind and water?
This has nothing to do with thru hikers thinking they are owed something.
Just because AMC has been there for a long time doesn’t mean its policies make sense now.
1876!
WHO founded the AMC? Does anybody know?
Once you know the “who” in the roots of an organization, you begin to understand the “what” and the “why” of it.
I bet it wasn’t the choirboys of Boston who founded the AMC.
AMC: Rich people helping rich people since 1876.
AMC: A registered public charity with more than $49 million in assets!
AMC: Has more political clout and lawyers in its pockets than God.
AMC: Amass More Cash.
AMC: A registered public charity that YOU PAY MONEY to join.
AMC: Self sustaining, self serving, self perpetuating.
AMC: Assemble More Checks
AMC: All Money Converges
AMC: Attorneys Must Cowtow
AMC: Americans Must Comply
AMC: Amoral Male Caucazoids
AMC: Authority Made to Control
If you’re not a part of the club, you don’t belong:THAT is the message these huts send to thru hikers.
Make everyone pay a fee, make everyone get reservations (including thru hikers) but whatever the policy, make it equitable and as random for everyone as it is for thru hikers.
Maybe we’ll have food for you.
Maybe you can stay, maybe you can’t.
With $49 million in assets, you’d think they could afford to be a little less vague.
Or get rid of the stinky little huts altogether and let people walk to the mountains.
Amen.
Skool
I have to agree with most post here that AMC’s “huts&shelters”{shouldnt they be called hotels?]should be removed.Once, the exclusive haunt of the "leisure"class ,they have now become the domain of the bourgeois.Most come to the Mountains to be taken care of;to be fed& bed at the “hotels” in the White Mountains.
If we elimate the “hotels”,a lot of the over crowding will be take care of.No Bourgeois,no problem.
old&in the way
Clearly we are all victims of the capitalist system. Let us form a revolution and plant trees for peace and equality around the world.
Rowboat