Re[2]: [at-l] shelters

[lwbooher@halifax.com (Leslie Booher)]

Putting us in close proximity for the evenings is a response to the fact
that humans are, at heart, a social animal.  Despite the fact that most
people proclaim that they go onto the trail for solitude and all the "right
and good" reasons, when asked about their trips, they tell about the
wonderful people they met along the way.  I like being with other people in
the evenings.  I am a social creature.  anklebear

----- Original Message -----
From: rick boudrie <rickboudrie@hotmail.com>
To: <ellen@clinic.net>; <at-l@backcountry.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 21, 2002 12:45 PM
Subject: Re: Re[2]: [at-l] shelters


> >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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