[pct-l] trail guides and authority - pros and cons

[jape at nethere.com]

Quoting Adam Bradley <tooloouk79852 at yahoo.com>:

<snip prior typing>
>
> 3.  moral of the story, yes it is illegal.  no, not
> everyone who ignores the law gets busted.
><snip more typing>

Why are you sharing this with us?  To what purpose?  Are you boasting that
*you* got away with it?  Are you seeking validation or praise from the list
for your actions during your hike?

Perhaps you wish to promote civil disobedience among new hikers, or are
merely venting the personal angst you built up during the hours you wasted
tediously reading erroneous text?

Or are you trolling (and very successfully I might add)?

Is it so that when we do get stopped by a ranger suffering a bad hair day,
we can escape a citation because "Mr. Listo said it was okay"?  Okay, I'm
not being fair.  You didn't say it was okay, just that "not everyone gets
busted".  And that leaves the semantic content of the message pretty much
nil.  In which case why are you sharing this with us?

It still boils down to the hike planners having to make a decision based on
empirical evidence available to them.  Third hand evidence that someone was
lucky when they weren't carrying a bear can isn't much to base a decision
on.  Telling hikers that they will have to make route finding decisions is
simply stating the obvious.

How about writing something along the lines of, "I got away without a bear
can", or "I would have had a better trip if I hadn't read Yogi's guide
book".  Or, how about, "I didn't see a ranger on top of Forrester".  This
might actually prove beneficial to a potential trip planner.

During your hike, you occupied one point on the map at one given point in
time.  Your perspective on that map point at that time is important, and
I'd be interested in hearing it. But I have no interest in
unsubstantiated,sweeping statements like "instead they [sic] spend their
time down in the valley" as if you were privy to the NPS ad USFS work
schedules.

Finally, I'd be interested in reading what you found to be a positive help
in your trip.  Give us the Pollyanna version, not the Grinch.  Jeez, you
just came off a great multi-month trip and your postings to the list have
mostly been about crap you've had to endure.  I do hope your memories are
more pleasant than what you've shown us here.

Eckert