Trail Use was Re: [at-l] Psychology 101

[yumitori@montana.com (Ron Martino)]

kahley wrote:

> Wow!  That percentage of thru-hikers seems amazingly high.....
> and contrary to other numbers and personal experience as
> well.  I wonder if the timing of the survey had anything to do with it?

        Good catch. Kahley, of course, is correct - the numbers are not
for use, as I recalled, but rather /survey/ percentages. And they
specifically oversampled thru-hikers to get a representative sample. My
apologies for the confusion. I should have re-read the info before
posting the link.

        So the survey results don't help determine relative percentages
of use, but they do give a good indication of what various users
expected and found on the Trail. Especially interesting to me, and where
I spent most of my time reading, were the open-ended questions - what
folks liked or didn't like, what rangers should do to improve the Trail,
and so forth.

        Next time we discuss how to improve the AT, it would be helpful,
I think, to go back to these responses. This is the sort of feedback
land managers get every day, and it becomes very difficult to satisfy
everyone. Actually, as you read them, you'll see that it's impossible.
So who should they listen to? 

        When you can't even find general agreement within a sub-section
(thru-hikers who like the Trail passing near towns for ease of resupply
vs. those who want it relocated away), it becomes quite difficult to
formulate long-term plans. I try to keep this in mind when I start
thinking, "They really oughta..."

        Ron
-- 

yumitori(AT)montana(DOT)com