Okay, I 'm going on a minor ramp here-why! The last three places I've been WTWing have been discovered!!!- formally lesser known wild places that I have visited over the years, are now on lists-- lists of places-cheap places to go and enjoy nature, the coast, the desert, etc, few people-all the reasons we go to the boonies for! Okay I started thinking on this on my latest WTW run to one of those places and this forum fits sort of nicely into my thought process-so here goes!
We have a few of those perfect dark sky park type areas around here (NE Calif/NW Nevada/SC Oregon)-and I sure do hope that they are never discovered by more folks. And that in connection with a response to the post above about opening up certain areas to more use and more people, and the "continued loving " of our fewer and fewer precious and beautiful places to death. I think one of the hardest parts of being a fed for all those years was nominating some special place, thing or object to some type of special status because once you did, the world will know about it and the thing that made it so special could be destroyed by "to much loving" or wanton vandalism. We did it and we placed our hopes that the law that came with that new status and the hope new people will protect and love them too, even as today we relate the latest act of vandalism or threat to them from the certain non-protective interests that seem to dominate the land management process today.
Over the years , I have come to the conclusion-especially now that I am retired and can WTW to my hearts desire,-that as much as we hate to see the milling masses flock to our special areas, that with out these people, their money, habits, noise and interest, we probably would lose a much higher percent of these places to over development and use by the few. Over the years, on this site and around many a campfire, most of us that had some type of discussion on the plight of these wild lands and arrival of more and more people out here and what to do about it. As a fed we tried to train them, but that takes time, and tried many -mostly failed efforts to protect them-but we tried and we talked, tried to get the users to work with us!! We wrote plans with their help-to protect these places because once written down and approved, they are difficult to remove without congress doing it.
So, now I am retired and like most of us, keep moving further into the boonies, and hope they will not find that precious place we love, but we know they will one day. But they are not the real problem. We all know who is (probably us). All we can really do is write those letters and send e-mails, attend those seemingly fewer and fewer public meetings knowing that in today's world , we will be ignored. And we hope that administrations such as we have today will be few and far in between. About those new folks arriving out here-it is hard, but I talk to them,and by and by they are not so bad (we all started some where I guess after all), you know try and let them know about how you feel and what you can and can't do and why---and listen to them too-after all if things work out right, it will be their world one day! Not much of a solution or grand thought, but a start-end of rant, and I feel better now and have a new border collie to go playing with now
!
Smoke
