[pct-l] Shelter Conundrum

[byarcand at mtu.edu (Benjamin Y. Arcand)]

Dave,

I think you make some valid points but your missing the point of declaring
an area a wilderness area in the first place.  It's a place where nature
is left to its own devices and isn't necessarily there for our 
recreation or convenience.  We build trails through it, but it takes
concentrated effort with hand tools to maintain it, and nature takes it
back at a whim with blow-downs and landslides.  Wilderness is the one
place we've let nature take the lead, EVERY place else humans do what they
want to accomodate themselves.  Personally, I'll take an overgrown rocky
three-summers-since-a-groomer-touched-it trail without a privy or shelter
in sight over a well maintained foot-highway to know that some places on
this planet are still untamed, and if I have the stength and skill to
explore it, it's there waiting.

just my two cents,

Ben


On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 CMountainDave@aol.com wrote:

> Back in the 1930s, about one hundred shelters were built by the CCC in the 
> Olympics.
>  Over the years they were allowed to deteriorate due to budget restraints
>   When most of the Olympic Mountains were declared wilderness in the 1980s, 
> the Park superintendent not only continued to neglect them, but started a 
> program to eliminate them, citing the no structure clause in the Wilderness Act 
> (hard-liners say bridges, outhouses, and backcountry ranger stations are 
> structures and therefore illegal --some even include trails themselves)
>   The current Superintendent is now trying to save the remaining shelters 
> using the argument that they are historic structures and that an exception to the 
> Wilderness Act should have be made when wilderness status was made. If the 
> shelters are illegal, why not backcountry ranger stations also built by the CCC?
>   Another point is that recreation is to be facilitated in wilderness areas. 
> The Olympics contain rain forests. It rains a lot there. So wouldn't rain 
> shelters be considered to be facilitating recreation, giving people an opportunity 
> to stay dry in a very wet area instead of having to just lay around in a tent 
> moping about the weather, or possibly inviting hypothermia?
>    All this is currently being hashed out in court. Who knows? If the shelter 
> advocates win out, the NPS may have to replace all those shelters they 
> destroyed and/or neglected
>  Once again, reason should prevail. Backcountry lodges with electric power is 
> going too far. But an historic 3 sided lean-to meant for shelter from the 
> rain in a rain forest?
>  David C
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