[at-l] New Baxter rules

[datto_atl@yahoo.com (Datto)]

1) The reality I saw in Year 2000 was very few
thru-hikers would have (didn't) let somebody's rules
(reasonable or idiotic) stand in their way of
finishing their northbound thru-hike. You can agree or
disagree with that approach but believe me, when a
hiker's been on a thru-hike for six months and comes
to Abol Bridge, there isn't going to be much that
would sway a thru-hiker from finishing.

2) The people at Baxter, most of them nice people,
don't really care to understand the mentality of
thru-hikers at all. It's completely a control-thing to
them. They believe they have the control and are by
God going to exert it. The many thru-hikers I knew
personally in Year 2000 didn't really care much if the
Baxter people wanted to know about thru-hikers anyway.

3) The reason the upper-ups at Baxter want to end
thru-hiking to Katahdin (and I do believe that is what
is intended for the long run by these people) is they
want to shave their annual budget by cutting off
thru-hiking at a particular date, allowing Baxter
staff to be cut without having to worry about
thru-hikers coming in after a certain date.

4) The bigshot head guy at Baxter needs some lessons
in Public Relations (assuming the guy actually cares
about the image he presents) -- the newspaper people
had him coming across as an insulting little Hitler
when the article about his opinions on thru-hikers was
printed in the Millinocket News on or about October
15th 2000 (quoting him as insinuating thru-hikers were
a bunch of drunken drug addics out on a carefree
six-month lark). I'm sure he's really not that way
(probably) but many of the direct quotes attributed to
that guy in that article made him look like he was
going to stand at the Hunt Trail with a gun and shoot
anyone going up Katahdin if anyone made him increase
his budget for the year.

Good luck on talking to those people. Whatever they
decide to do will be fine for them.

Datto


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