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Re: [at-l] Issue in the Whites

>Not knowing all the facts it's difficult to form an opinion but from what I've
>seen the full service huts may be actually be doing a dis-service to the WMNF
>and to the independent hikers and thru-hikers alike.  For a fee, from $38 to
>$50 for AMC members and thru-hikers, up to $60 for non-members which include
>may include breakfast, dinner and lodging,  two to four thru-hikers may be
>able to do a work for stay program per night, if needed.  For the most part,
>the people that use the huts, carry nothing but clothes and a bottle of wine.
>If you can neither afford the fee nor work for stay, you're forced to an
>alternate area.  I'd like to see shelters for hikers, as they are along the
>entire trail,  in the areas directly adjacent to the huts at a nominal fee.

They've tried that, I think. FWIW, here's a relevant selection from FOREST
AND CRAG, A History of Hiking, Trail Blazing, and Adventure in the
Northeast Mountains, by Laura and Guy Waterman. Boston: Appalachian
Mountain Club, 1989. $24.95

>"In the White Mountains, most of the change came later, during the early
>1970s, but here too 1969 saw one landmark event; the release of a report
>by an AMC trail crew study team (Edward Spencer and Mark Dannenhauer) on
>the sorry state of White Mountain shelters and their environs, which were
>reeling under the impact of the backpacking boom. (578)
>...
>On July 26, 1970, the time-hallowed Liberty Springs Shelter in the woods
>below the Franconia Ridge was torn down by the AMC trail crew. In its
>place, wooden platforms on which backpackers could put up their own tents
>were constructed at scattered sites throughout the nearby woods. A new
>outhouse was installed. The "goat" [trash pit] was closed up.  ...   In
>1971 the Liberty Springs experiment was followed up by tearing down the
>old shelter at Garfield Pond and closing that lovely, fragile, much abused
>area to camping. A new site was chosen, on the other side of Mount
>Garfield, and once again emphasis wa on tent platforms and the
>educational-managerial presence of a caretaker. In succeeding years the
>trail crew moved through the chain of most used shelters--Guyot, Ethan
>Pond, Mizpah, the Imp, Speck Pond--forcing White Mountain trampers to
>convert from shelters and campfires to tents and stoves at designated
>sites.
>
>   " These strong measures reflected changes in management thinking, both
>in the White Mountain National Forest offices and at the AMC. For the
>WMNF, the unprecedented crowds assaulting the White Mountains elicited the
>most innovative response in the history of backcountry management in the
>White Mountains. In 1971 WMNF officials banned all camping in Tuckerman
>and Huntington ravines except at designated sites and prohibited all
>campfires there. The next year, the WMNF broadened (582) the attack,
>designating seventeen "Concentrated Use areas" (later "Restricted Use
>Areas" or "RUAs") throughout the White Mountains, including many of the
>sites where the AMC had built tent platforms an installed caretakers. (583)
>
>     "With much greater numbers of guests each night, the experience of a
>night in the huts acquired an altogether differnet flavor from preboom
>days. Then a hut had been a quiet, backwoods haven shard with perhaps
>three or four like-minded outdoorspeople. During the 1970s and 1980s it
>was an animated sociable scene, with thirty or forty guests mingling and
>sharing the experiences of the day. The management style of the crews
>changed accordingly. Where the old  crews had enjoyed the privileges of
>being extremely informal with guests--sometimes to the point of being
>surly, with impunity--the crews that ministered to the demands of the
>crowds of the 1970s and 1980s were selected for their ability to be
>efficient and friendly and to provide a climate of "mountain hospitality
>for all." The price of this service climbed understandably, so that many
>backpackers of those years found themselves priced out of the AMC huts. A
>gap grew between the hut-user and other backpackers... (592)
>
>     "In many areas, the AMC took strong steps to protect the environment
>at the expense of hikers' short-run preferences, as in tearing down
>shelters, charging fees, and building scree walls above treeline, all of
>which showed genuine commitment to protecting the physical resource.  ...
>The AMC and like-minded observers insisted that *overuse* was unproved,
>that *misuse* was the problem, and that through education and adroit
>backcountry management the crowds could be accomodated and a broader
>political base in support of conservation obtained" (631).







--Rhymin' Worm

(Robert Rubin) GA>ME '97 -- RHYMWORM@MINDSPRING.COM
Newsletter Editor, Piedmont Appalachian Trail Hikers (PATH) 


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