Shelters: plus or minus? was Re: RE: [at-l] New GA Selter to be build.

### Oldphart Sloetoe wades in......... noticing that oldphart FallingWater
has a season or three on 'im...

--- Paul Nickodem <Dharmabum64@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
> Come on Ron a big part of the AT experience is the shelter life.  You
> used them when you hiked the AT didn't you?
### For me: there was NO "shelter life." I hiked for weeks and weeks
without seeing another throughhiker.
But some history:
### When I finished the AT, there was a rather vigorous debate about
whether to replace the numerous, aging CCC shelters up and down the length
of the trail. The sites were black with char, the roofs worn, the
foundations split and sagged, and the surrounding sites worn and in need of
recovery of some sort. The debate ranged between moving the structures (and
creating new areas of disaster) or rebuilding/hardening what was there. 

### One camp entirely suggested the best course was to remove all shelters.
Period. Disperse everybody and everything, get people back in the woods,
recapture the wilderness artiface which had begun to be eroded by
party-animal use of AT shelters, and save everybody a boatload of time and
hassle and money.

### The course set, obviously, was to first move/dismantle the "trouble"
shelters, then replace the aging shelters, then fill in the shelter "gaps"
which had not previously been filled. At the same time, it became
increasingly popular to fund these (and other) projects with donations made
in memorium. Seemed like a great idea, except it was *too* great, and the
donation "supply" outstripped the "demand." (Trying to get someone to fund
the "Peterson Privy" or the Twelve Angry Steps is just hard.)

### Still, there *are* projects which need to go on. And the one being
executed in memorium to WildBill's brother-in-law is one such project.
Which brings us to Ron Moak's thoughtful post:

> Ronald Moak wrote on 11/13/00 12:15:
> 
> With all due respect for Wildbill and his family, but does the AT need
> another shelter? When will there be enough shelters along the AT? When
> this one is built, is another one removed?
> 
> Just what defines the wilderness experience on the AT these days? Is it a
> train of people tromping between shelters scattered every couple of miles
> along the trail? 
> 
> I realize that shelters are here to stay, but someone has to ask when is
> there enough? I'm sure Wildbill's families intentions are honorable and
> sincere. I'm just wondering if there's a better way.

### Now, this post itself is both honorable and sincere, and raises quite
thoughtfully the VERY same questions posed some twenty years ago, and
before WildBill's time. Unfortunately, the answers to these questions were
never really examined seriously...
Here's my too-quick responses to Fallingwater's four basic questions:
1) No, the AT does not need another shelter.
2) There were too many shelters along the AT a long time ago.
3) Building shelters will go on, because the ATC and the clubs can't stop.
4) What defines the wilderness experience on the AT these days is taking
what goes on in towns and bringing it farther and farther out of town, up
the trail and further into the woods. My own attendance at Trail Days,
fwiw, adds to and substantiates this binging hedonic socialization, and
makes me guilty, guilty, guilty of contributing. Trail Angels? Trail
*MAGIC*? It stopped being magic or angelic long ago. The key was 'unsought'
AND 'unexpected.' Certainly, this thought will be hard to swallow by some,
including some of our dearest listers (and some of my most excellent
friends in all of the world). But for that matter, were *I* closer to the
trail, it would probably include me, too.
### There are two facts in all of this that we should keep in mind. First
is that a leanto is like candy -- it's fun, but it really doesn't help you
grow, and may in fact stunt your growth. Does that mean that *I* was not a
bit of a shelter rat in 1979? Nooooo, it means that even in 1979, I knew I
would have had more of a "wilderness" experience if I stayed OUT. I didn't.
Why? Lazyness, the water sources were right there, word hunger (the
register)... blah blah blah. The second fact is that we're seeing in this
conversation a conflict between two AT "generations" little different from
how the comments of Earl Shaffer (back in '98) were received with (hushed)
scoffing from some corners. The trail, and I'm forced to think the
"throughhiking experience" is *different* now than it was loe those many
years ago, and in particular, I am forced to think it is watered down. (Not
lost, not spoiled, just diluted.) Are there other things that make up for
it? I *think* so -- I remember feeling like an absolute *outcast* in
Damascus, and I think aspects of Trail Days (eek!) would have done a LOT to
my hike.... In closing, 
I'm sure that shelters are here to stay, but someone has to ask when is
there enough? I'm sure WildBill's family's intentions are honorable and
sincere. I'm just wondering if there's a better way.

Sloetoe
(soon to be hitching around the Smoky's eastern flank,
and hoping like hell someone miracles me a ride.)

=====
There is little use for the being whose tepid soul knows nothing of the great and generous emotions of the high pride, the stern belief, the lofty enthusiasm, of the men who quell the storm and ride the thunder.

T.Roosevelt 4/23/10

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To:            Orange Bug <orangebug74@yahoo.com>
Cc:            kahley7 <kahley7@ptd.net>, at-l@backcountry.net