Re[2]: [at-l] shelters

[rickboudrie@hotmail.com (rick boudrie)]

>We still build them, I suspect, because "building things" is one of > the 
>many hobbies of trail maintainers.

I think that you may be on to something.  My theory was that they keep 
building them in the mistaken belief that back-country travelers should be 
contained in as small of a footprint as possible at night.  Sorth of like 
the AMC concentrate the impact philosophy.

I came to this conclusion in part because even when tent platforms are added 
to a site, these are most often situated very close to one another rather 
than down a series of individual short feeder paths.

Frankly, I never much though about this until I graduated from thru-hiking 
and off-trail bush wacks to the refined art of car camping.  Perhaps I've 
been lucky, but almost everyone of the drive-in car camping sites I have 
enjoyed accross this fair country have afforded me much more of a private 
experience than that of many of the tent-platform sites I know along the AT.

Not sure why that is.  Perhaps because many people who camp in the back 
country enjoy the a sence of security that a snoring, drinking, 
MSR-Xwhatever blasting bunch of strangers a short distance away affords, and 
those placing the tent platforms are responding to their demands.  Or 
perhaps because those setting up the sites think that packing the platforms 
close together keep the moose happy (a proposition that I rather doubt).

In any event, I think you are on to something about re-thinking how shelters 
and campsites are designed now that each gets so much use.  Tradition is a 
hard thing to modify, however.  To my way of thinking the huge new 
highly-engineered shelters that most everyone adores should not be 
encouraged.



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