[pct-l] Technology on the Trail

[rubberchuckie at yahoo.com (Chuckie V)]

I often wonder how H.D. Thoreau or John Muir or Clinton Clarke would have felt if they were alive today about hikers and their need to bring technology into the wilderness with them. I'm not writing of fancy clothing or Sil-Nylon shelters but of this craving--this apparent necessity--to carry a digital altimeter watch or a GPS unit; a hand-held computer or a cellular phone; a radio or a musical device or even a musical instrument. How do we define what a wilderness experience is about? Is it different for everyone? Is the PCT a wilderness experience at all? Are we trying to tame the wilderness by bringing as many pieces of civilization out there with us that we can? If we're that bored being out there in the first place, should we even be out there?
 
All of this (and much more) goes through my head while hiking. 
 
I also wonder if I'm alone when I feel that I might have been born too late...that I'd have been better off living a couple of centuries ago, when technology wasn't the driving force to a society's existence. I hike to leave measured time behind; to depart a world of instant access, where phones, e-mail, cars and airplanes provide instantaneous contact with anyone anywhere. It's a step "backwards"; a step away from the planned and plotted, overly-organized, domesticated world into the realm of the unknown and unexpected. 
 
But things are changing. More and more of my outdoor excursions have been spoiled by technology: cell phone users barking repeatedly into their phones, "Can you hear me now?" on the tops of mountains or in otherwise silent meadows. I get disappointed when I see someone staring into their GPS unit rather than out at the boundless beauty spread directly in front of, or below them; I'm not sure, but it seems to me that they're try to quantify what they've just accomplished...to put it all in numerical form. 
 
I don't know what exactly I'm trying to say, but it seems to me that all this technology has changed the way we interact with nature and has even affected the way we think of the wilderness. While a pair of Gore-Tex boots and technologically-advanced clothing enable a hiker to go deeper into the outback, these things don't alter the essence of the trip's meaning. A cell phone, on the other hand, transcends the wilderness and puts you right back into civilization within a few quick button pushes. Does it matter? 
 
Call me crazy but it has always bothered me when someone makes a telephone call in my surrounding vicinity outdoors. If I can't escape it in the wilderness, where can I? I used to think I was just being overly-sensitive and that I was the only one affected but we've all heard of hikers making such calls to Search and Rescue teams simply because they were tired! Perhaps saddest of all is that you and I are footing the bill while these poor SAR squads risk their own necks to search for these tired trekkers! Are these people who should venture that far out to begin with?
 
And what of radios or today's latest technology, MP3 players? I've always thought that the trickling of water was the one of the most soothing sounds our planet has to offer. What about a hawk's screech echoing off a canyon's wall or simply the sound of your own footsteps breaking through a thin layer of freshly fallen snow?  Nature's very silence is perhaps the best symphony going. And if nature cannot entertain you, and you cannot entertain yourself out there, do you belong? Am I just being old-fashioned? If it's mini-discs and MP3 players now; what will it be in the future? "Virtual" wilderness videos? Enclosed, temperature-controlled, music-pumped mono-rails built to comfortably travel through all scenic trails?  
 
To quote Thoreau: "I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to confront only the essential facts of life...I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life...simplify, simplify, simplify." 
 
While Thoreau was believed to have suffered some serious "issues" of his own when he spent too much time away from society, his words have always found a home in my heart. Maybe I'm misinterpreting them, but am I alone in finding true meaning inside them? Do we really need to bring all our toys out there for a wilderness experience, or is that the experience we're even after anymore?
 
 
-Chuckie