Alabama Hills Management Plan

Good to see...we don’t even bother trying to spend a night there anymore. The explosive use that place has seen in the past 15 years is unsustainable.
 
Yep - been needed for a long time. Think the first time I stayed there and did some climbing was about 1983 or 84. Don't spend time there anymore. Still a beautiful area, just camp in more out of the way places.
 
Glad I camped there before the change to campgrounds. Taking the other side for a moment. Most of us like to get away and boondock, some people like to do the same and bring their dirt bikes ATV etc. There are fewer places to camp and ride a dirt bike. And it is people who are the problem. Just too many of us. I have camped in the Utica Union and Spicer Rev area since 1965. It once was an accomplishment to reach these places. In the 70's they put in the Duck Ck. holding reservoir. And they raised Spicers. This made a wide smooth dirt road to Spicers. Guess what, people came, the answer was let's pave the road and put in campgrounds. Now you can drive your 40 ft motorhome to Spicers and ATV are not allowed. Slick Rock road now requires a license plate to drive it. I am sure the older members on WTW have area they camped and had all to themselves, but that is now just a memory. Guess it could be worse. I have ridden a dirt bike to Elephant Rock it is now part of the Iceberg Wilderness, only walking allowed. I hope the regulations leave some areas for people who enjoy dirt bikes and ATVs.

Let the flaming begin.

pogo.jpg
 
It's sad the AH have been overrun by the masses who have poor ethics.
We've taken to other boondock locations nearby, if passing through.
 
I suspect all of us with some long term history with the west's open spaces are suffering some level of grief over the loss of favorite places that have now been 'discovered' by the mob. I know I am.

However, in time the human hordes will recede and nature's creatures and beauties will reestablish in some new normal. Right now I can see a hummingbird just 10 feet away out the window, along with a half dozen goldfinches, a couple of junkos, some sparrows and such. A swarm of bush tits came through yesterday. All these flying feathered creatures are the dinosaurs that survived the K-T extinction event some 65 million years ago.

No great moral here. Moralistic stories are a human invention. Nature does not care about human fantasies and phantoms. But I think the earth will be fine in the long run. Meanwhile, if we are sad, frustrated and suffering, it is pretty much our own darn fault.
 
I believe it is a mistake to think of Alabama Hills and other places as "lost". As a place becomes overused and abused - as we've seen at Alabama Hills - management is necessary to keep the area from being the place depicted in Bill's Pogo cartoon above. Yeah, we may not be able to enjoy it as we did in the past, but at least it will still be a beautiful place worth visiting.

Over 40 years ago I could drive to any local wilderness trailhead - dirt, undeveloped - and find only a couple other vehicles. Now all trailheads are paved with designated parking spots, and most now have fees to use them. Get there very early if you want to go on a hike. This is a lot better than two or three or four acres of denuded ground with vehicles parked everywhere and thousands of people on the same trail.
 
No flames from here Bill. Agreed: just too many people. I strongly believe that education and enforcement help. Case in point: El Mirage Dry Lake sees multiple uses...land speed races 6x/yr, motorcycles, land sailing, r/c aircraft & model rocketry, full size aircraft, etc. In the 30 years we’ve been going, we watched the land speed race weekends turn into absolute chaos, mostly at night. It was not unusual to see multiple helicopter evacs as yahoos crashed their vehicles in the dark fueled by drinking/driving. Random gunfire, giant pallet fires with their leftover nails...you get the picture. Finally, BLM solved that problem by pipe fencing the area (thus containing the chaos) around the lakebed and, most importantly in my mind, charging a daily entrance fee; $15/day or $30/week. I find that very reasonable but others declared it exorbitant and an infringement on their rights. Result: very calm on race weekends, no more evacs or arrests. Seems those who feel they have the freedom to do whatever they want without the responsibility to honor our communal resources refuse to pay for that privilege. And to that I say amen. Short story made long, I hope that this plan for AH has the same effect because it has turned into a trash dump.

Of course, YMMV. Rant off.
 
I too am concerned about the increasing "consumption" of the outdoors.

One thing that has to happen sooner or later is to somehow regulate the internet.

The first thing I ask of visitors to my home area is "Please don't post your images to social media! "

I know regulation is hard to accomplish...an imperfect science....but we did it with newspapers, we did it with TV and we need to somehow do it with the WWW.

Humans are too profit oriented to self regulate....we need it to come from Big Brother.

David Graves
 
I re read my post above and feel I might have been a little foggy headed.

What I think we need to come to regulate is the UNBRIDLED internet tourist promotion of nearly every part of our planet.

Where I live, a great many folks make a living by incessantly posting little tidbits about how wonderful this part of the world is.

They get paid to promote our area by a regional tourist promotion entity fueled by the Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association.

Without the internet, these folks would need to work a real job.

End of rant

David Graves
 
Well, Dave, Ski, others, you all make good points and I wish you could prevail in your attempts to reduce human over-use of lovely areas. And I do wish people barred from one area will not just move on and overrun another area.

Sadly, several things have come together at the same time to challenge our hopes and frustrate our efforts:
- too many people
- better roads, more frequently maintained
- many more types of capable motorized ways of getting far into the back of beyond
- hand held, high quality multimedia recording devices, that take literally no skill to use well
- a culture in love with the fantasy of 'free, adventurous, beautiful, stylish, fun' play in the wild backcountry
- skepticism of science and expertise as well as regulations and authority
- a social need to go see and be seen, with video if possible, in the same beautiful places that one's favorite 'influencers' went to
- a complete disinterest in the soils and rocks being trod upon, the flora all around, the habits and needs of the fauna in any area

There ain't no easy way out of this corner we have painted ourselves into.

I am reminded of the old joke about Edward Abbey: Does Edward Abbey love the wilderness, or does Edward Abbey love Edward Abbey in the wilderness?
 
AWG,

Aw shucks, I had thought someone would talk me out of my depressing thoughts......... :( .

DG
 
DavidGraves said:
AWG,

Aw shucks, I had thought someone would talk me out of my depressing thoughts......... :( .

DG
Click to expand...
Maybe we need to require people get a couple of years of wild lands appreciation training before being allowed onto federal lands? There I go with that darn old regulation thing.
 
I hear ya re: regulations. Wish we didn’t need them but...drives me nuts when I’m told somebody has a “right” to do something simply because it’s not specifically prohibited. ‍♂️
 
I wouldn't mind seeing another alternative discussed. Leave it open but on a limited permit basis. I'm not thrilled with permits as I tend to make my plans on the fly but it would be a way to leave it open without the crowds. Enforcement would be an issue I'm sure.
 
Don't know about you guys, but i hope this whole "overlanding" fad goes away and soon. I am happy for those that have found a passion for the outside world. Most of us i would wager have been at this for a very long time. Coming from many different paths to get here.
The social media stuff, combined with way too many people on a fairly small planet is a bad mix. Throw in a bunch of look at me types and we are loving nature to death.
A lot of these folks will move on to the next thing, ( i hope), many will stay. We will all have to move over and share. Hopefully they will learn not to trash the place and do something with their used toilet paper.
 
As Roderick Nash pointed out in his book Wilderness and the American Mind many years ago, we are loving it to death.

Happened to the Appalachian Trail. When I did a trip on part of the trail back around 1970, there was lots of solitude as you ran into very few people on the trail. When I was there about a decade ago, the trail was crowded. same in other places I have backpacked.

Happened to rafting the Grand Canyon. Before 1966, 2,097 people rafted the Canyon. In 1967, 2,099 people did but that was nothing compared to the 16,432 in 1972. Today, trips are regulated, but that also means commercial trips dominate and getting a permit for a private trip is a long, long wait. Appreciation of the outdoors has increased, but with that comes too many people. (I don’t raft.)

Unfortunately, for a lot of people, the wilderness is just part of their bucket list, something to consume and check off. Have an old friend who is a climber. He started in the 60s and is a bit of a local legend with a long list of FAs. Part of his legend is the number of times he has quit climbing in disgust with other climbers who have no respect for rock and treat everything as something to be conquered and checked off their bucket list.

population of the US has almost doubled in my lifetime and is still growing. Just too many people for the solitude we used to have.

of course, I am part of the problem. As more people push into areas that I appreciated in the past, I push into new areas, starting the cycle again.
 
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