Fwd: [at-l] Best Tent for Tru-Hike? ['03]

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Sloetoe wrote:
>### You musta had a pretty smooth trail/hike Jim, 'cause I've
>*rarely* seen spots I'd care to set up a tent, had I the need.

Same trail you had on the AT, Toey ---


>But... like you:
>
> > On the PCT there were times when we walked an extra 4 or 5
>miles (and generally till nearly full dark) to find one - but
>that's another story and generally our own choice.
>### ...I'm not known for stopping early (which is to say, 'while
>there's usable daylight'), nor for stopping because some
>desolate plain of blackened earth around a leanto called for me
>to camp on/near it as ane officially designated camping spot.

"Officially designated" means "overused", "impacted", etc.  I'm with you 
here.  Stealth is good - keeping in mind that you should leave no sign that 
you were there.


> > BAD idea - on the AT it's simply rude, crude and uncalled for
> > because it blocks the trail for both other hikers
>### 1) and how is this different from passing someone who is
>parked midtrail at a rest stop? Or overtaking a slower hiker and
>requiring *one* of you to step off trail (and onto living
>plants, etc...) Or having to move around someone in a shelter?
>Or waiting for someone to clear a small spring so that you can
>have accesss to? We interact with others all the time, don't we?
>Yet we don't refer to those others' actions as "rude, crude, and
>uncalled for." So in theory, no one should feel put out.

Hey - you're the one who's talking about sleeping end-to-end --- that means 
1/ the trail is narrow, 2/ you're obstructing at least 14 ft of trail.  Not 
nice.  Why is it better to make others walk "off the trail" to get around 
you than to camp on those poor plants you were so worried about?   <VVBG)


>### 2) and by myself, or as a threesome with the SmallBoys(c),
>I've never had someone pass me in camp, regardless. And though I
>might hike later than some, no one has ever accused me of being
>the early bird in getting out of camp. So in practice, no one's
>put out.

Could be -- or were you asleep when they went by?   <VVVBG>


> > and the wildlife that also uses the trail.  In general, it's
>also a BAD habit - those who do it on the AT, will do it on
>other trails. And the wildlife may well be bigger and nastier
>than what's found on the AT.  Do that in Glacier National Park:
>grizzlies <snip> or the Weminuche: Elk-sized tracks embedded in
>your backside.
>### Come on, Jim: this is garbage. Last point first, the western
>trails do not have anything close to the same treadway
>considerations as the eastern trails, and you more than anyone
>else on this list know that.

Yeah - I do.

>The same closed-in biota that
>complicate finding a campsite in the east are absent in the
>west, where you're hiking *down* to the trees day after day. And
>the same closed-in biota that push larger mammals to
>*occasionally* utilize the AT treadway have little need to do so
>on the western trails.

You have an education coming about western trails.  Have fun acquiring it.

>And for that matter, to paint an
>impression that the larger eastern mammals are held *at*all* to
>the AT is ridiculous -- it's about as trailwise as suggesting
>that if you eat the huckleberries and blueberries and
>raspberries along the trail, you'll be starving the bears and
>birds in for the winter. (As if those bushes along the trail, or
>the passage the trail provided, were *at*all* the only ones --
>or even the most-often-used.)

Large eastern animals are like large western animals are like large humans - 
they take the easiest path to get where they're going.  Why do you think 
there are things called "deer trails"?  We see them every time we hike.  I 
suspect you've never met the 8-point buck that I met in the Shenandoah - as 
he traipsed down the AT between head-high shrubbery on both sides.  Scared 
both of us.  I know you haven't trailed a bear for miles through the Bog.  
Or followed a herd of cows along the PCT for 5 miles with them leaving a 
very liquid trail all the way.  Not ridiculous at all - my question is - how 
do you miss seeing these things?  Puzzlement.

> > BAD habit.
>### Next time Mara tells the story of having the moose step over
>her occupied Nomad, ask her where she was camped. Moose are not
>real particular, and will walk through an entire wall of
>vegetation as willingly as any trail. To think that they (or any
>other wildlife) care a whit about whether the clear spot they
>might be strolling through was a camping spot off trail, near
>trail or on trail is ludicro - ludicru -   well, silly.

Didn't say they cared - just that they use the trails.  And some of them are 
not at all pleased to find those pesky humans underfoot when the trail is 
the easiest way to get where they want to go.  Ask the moose that let us 
know she wasn't pleased when we set up camp in her path to the lake in 
Maine.  Or the monster moose who didn't like us setting up in his path in 
Idaho (and we were in an impacted campsite at that).  Or the bear that ran 
over a friend - and took out his tent.  Or the guy who was helivaced from 
the PCT two summers ago when a deer tripped over his guyline and kicked him 
in the head. That'll end a thruhike real fast.

>LNT for me, baby.

LNT = stealth camping.  Not camping in the trail.

Walk softly on that western sidehill, my friend,
Jim



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