RE: [at-l] Shelters: + or - ?

Leslie asks >>OTOH, aren't the "mini-cities", as you put it, Ron, something
like the camps
that Benton McKaye envisioned? <<

I guess you could stretch your imagination to cover that. However, I read
McKaye's original treatise on the AT to be more like little communes spread
across the mountains. Each a days walk apart. The people from the cities
would go there and stay several days and work. Obviously McKaye was somewhat
influenced by Marx and Lenin of the time. 

Avery realized that McKaye's idea of a chain of communes was unworkable, but
the notion of a trail was doable. This difference of opinion is probably why
they hated each other. 

Today's thru-hiker seems less inclined to what to arrive at a shelter
prepared to do manual labor. They'd prefer to arrive into the comforting
arms of a trail angel ready to service their every need. Not, I'd imagine
what McKaye had in mind.

As to Kahley's comments about traveling without walls, I'd agree. Last
summer I spent some 120 plus nights sleeping on the PCT. On those nights, I
spent 2 nights in a shelter (well there are only a few anyway), less than a
dozen under my tarp and the rest sleeping under the stars. Fortunately rain
isn't as much of a problem. Sleeping out under the stars night after night
is a liberating feeling. 

Most of the time we stealth camped away from established sites. When we left
camp there was little if any indication someone was there. If I were to do
the AT again, I would hope to do it that way also.

Ron "Fallingwater" Moak
--------------------------------------------------------
PCT 2000 - http://www.fallingwater.com/pct2000


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