[at-l] 'Wilderness' definition(s)...

[rcli4 at comcast.net (rcli4@comcast.net)]

> >> 
> I've never reached the point that the most important thing confronting 
> me is what someone else's pack contains. The amount of time I've spent 
> thinking about what was in someone else's pack is slightly less than how 
> long it's taken me to write this sentence. 
> 

Sometimes when I hike with Liteshoe I worry about whats in her pack.  She gives me food when shes tired of carring it  :>))

ClydeFrom ellen at clinic.net  Tue Aug 16 18:55:35 2005
From: ellen at clinic.net (Bob C)
Date: Tue Aug 16 19:58:05 2005
Subject: [at-l] On the cell phone argument
In-Reply-To: <0ILC00C6Z4358V2S@vms046.mailsrvcs.net>
References: <20050816170007.A7BDE1D1E0@edina.hack.net>
	<0ILC00C6Z4358V2S@vms046.mailsrvcs.net>
Message-ID: <20050816205535.420304509.ellen@clinic.net>

"I have no problems with someone carrying or not carrying a cell
> phone, as long as the person that has it doesn't intentionally invade 
> my space.  What ever happened to 'Hike Your Own Hike?'" asks Rusty.

I despair of getting folks to understand. HYOH is here, and will remain. The anti-cell phone battle, as I've said many times, was lost long ago. My role is simply to point out the obvious that few seem capable of understanding.

Discrete use of pack-carried cell phones are harmless as long as they are carried by a minority of users. But the nature of the trail will have changed when cell phones are found in most packs, as surely they will very soon, if not already.

Quite quickly we'll be hearing the same argument folks have made about maps and guide books. I.e. you don't need to carry your own, someone will have one. That knowledge that "someone" or eventually, "most everyone," has the means for instant communication with the outside world is something new to the nature of "wildness."

Surely, Colin Fletcher's sense of knowing "that I had left behind the man-constructed world. Had already escaped from a world in which the days are consumed by clocks and dollars and traffic and other people. Had crossed over into a world that was governed by the sun and the wind and the lie of the land. A world in which the things that mattered were the pack on your back and sunlight on rough rock and the look of the way ahead. A world in which you relied, always, on yourself," would have been different had he had a cell phone in his pack or had he known that most likely everyone he met had one.

It's more difficult on the AT with its frequent town stops, but I can attest that even on the Appalachian TRail it is possible to escape from a world "in which the days are consumed by clocks and dollars and traffic and other people." and to cross over "into a world ... governed by the sun and the wind and the lie of the land. A world in which the things that mattered were the pack on your back and sunlight on rough rock and the look of the way ahead. A world in which you relied, always, on yourself.''

Some call this disconnectiveness and applaud. Others choose connectiveness. But with too many artifacts of communication, soon there may be no choice.

Weary 





 

> ------------Original Message------------
> From: "Martin Fors" <revmrf@verizon.net>
> To: at-l@backcountry.net
> Date: Tue, Aug-16-2005 5:41 PM
> Subject: [at-l] On the cell phone argument
> 
> FWIW,  I have no problems with someone carrying or not carrying a cell
> phone, as long as the person that has it doesn't intentionally invade 
> my
> space.  What ever happened to 'Hike Your Own Hike?'  
> 
> If you want to be 'pure' then be so.  I've yet found anyone to be able 
> to
> define the parameters that can be agreed upon.
> 
> Again, as I was sayin'  rusty  :-]
> 
> 
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