[pct-l] What do you think?

[Sean 'Miner' Nordeen]

Actually, the past several years in SoCal, I've seen the occasionally vandal defacing wilderness signs by trailheads with anti-sign propaganda.  Ironcially, I find their illegal messages far more intrusive on the wilderness experience then any trail sign.  I'd like to point out that these vandals are not supported by the NFS.  It seems to me that different wilderness areas interpret the rules differently depending on who is managing the area and isn't a universal movement against signs as I haven't seen that in the areas I visit regularly.

I've often wandered if these anti-sign people are anti-trail as well since its also a man made scar on the "pristine" wilderness.  IMHO, the best protection for the wilderness areas is to get people to use them.  This increases awareness of the area and leads to more people advocating to protect its natural features that were the reason the area was protected in the first place.  If our public lands were allowed to become completely wild where only a small elite could use them (while those few may want it that way), this would lead to less funding and less protection in the long term as the rest of the population would start asking why are we protecting something that few use.  I'm all for encouraging people to use our public lands.  Sure we end up with things like trailhead quotas in a few high use places, but the rest of the lands get very few visitors and languish under neglect.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Check my 2009 PCT Journal out at http://www.pct2009.lifesadventures.net/Journal.php