[pct-l] Re: 9-11 thoughts

[Brett Tucker" <blisterfree@earthlink.net (Brett Tucker)]

>>How fortunate we are that in our mountains we can afford to worry about
low and noisy aircraft, pesky wilderness rangers enforcing bear can rules,
or suicidal black flies.<<


Right, but let's not rest on our laurels, either. Low flying aircraft and
hypervigilant rangers (e.g.) are an imposition upon the wilderness same as
anything.

But hey, says the Bush administration. This is "wartime." No time for a
romantic view of wilderness. Why, we're lucky for what we have here in
America. Could be a lot worse. Now please allow us to degrade your
wildlands, just a little?

- blisterfree

"We can have wilderness without freedom; we can have wilderness without
human life at all, but we cannot have freedom without wilderness, we cannot
have freedom without leagues of open space beyond the cities, where boys and
girls, men and women, can live at least part of their lives under no control
but their own desires and abilities, free from any and all direct
administration by their fellow men."  - Ed Abbey




Date: Sun, 15 Sep 2002 15:27:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: David hiking PCNST in bits <pcnst@oakapple.net>
To: pct-l@mailman.backcountry.net
Subject: [pct-l] 9-11 thoughts

I spent the anniversary with Eric Jensen between White Pass and Pear Lake
south of Glacier Peak.    We met a number of through hikers who at that
point had to be considered successful; pictures and a final revised rogues
gallery for 2002 will be posted in a few days.

We were buzzed a couple of times during the trip by very low flying fighter
aircraft.    I was somewhat worried that something bad had happened but I
guess it was just business as usual for the top guns, breaking the
wilderness
altitude rules as usual to stay in practice.

How fortunate we are that in our mountains we can afford to worry about
low and noisy aircraft, pesky wilderness rangers enforcing bear can rules,
or suicidal black flies.  There are similar
very beautiful alpine areas all around the world such as those in
the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, etc., where one has
REAL worries like low noisy aircraft that shoot real bullets, pesky
invisible
land mines everywhere, and suicidal/homicidal gangs of highly armed young
males
full of hot testosterone and hot lead, battling over turf and ideology with
little regard to who's in their way.