[pct-l] Re: New On-Trail List?

[nstrauss@bigfoot.com (Nathaniel Strauss)]

It sounds like some people might like to benefit from a mailing list like
this. For all others, don't subscribe and your precious wilderness
experience will not be ruined.

Another thing. Yes, a lot of information may flow by word-of-mouth on the
trail, but as Ken Powers says, it's not always reliable. I would trust an
e-mail that quotes a public announcement by the USFS infinitely more than
an offhand statement by a weekend hiker.

Fleischman

----- Bighummel@aol.com wrote:

I'll probably start a war over this one, but here it goes.

The amount of communication that is available today on the PCT and related 
trail conditions is so overwhelming relative to what was available in past 
years that all of you hiking this year or in future years have it damn
easy, 
IMHO.  

There is no need on the trail for pocket emails, separate trail conditions 
list, barometer, altimeter, GPS, cell phone, satelite phone, short wave 
radios, computers, magnamometers, gravitometers, or other well intentioned 
and inappropriately applied technical communication strategies in an
apparent 
"wilderness" environment.  Not even a watch nor perhaps even a thermometer
is 
necessary.  I can keep relative time of day from the sun and the day of
the 
week is easily kept track in a journal if I need to get to a particular
spot 
at a specific time for whatever reason.  If it is raining, snowing or
foggy, 
then the amount of time that my estimate may be off adds to the flavor of
the 
experience.  

Oh, sure, I find these gadgets just as fun as the next guy and even own a
few 
of them myself for entertainment, business and personal communication 
purposes.  However, I find this phenomenal quest for collecting and access
to 
more and more information is bewildering and completely antithetic to the 
"wilderness experience".

The hugh amount of information and advice avialable to you current and
future 
hikers is entirely sufficient to get you there, IF, you have what it takes
in 
the other necessary categories.

I put it to you; what is the fun of going out into the wilderness if you
know 
what time it is to the second, what the weather will be for the next
minute 
to week, what the trail conditions are over the next 100 miles updated
every 
hour, and you never, ever come even close to getting lost?

IMHO,

Strider