I’d say about half aligns with
“wilderness.”
Brent could redefine it as a forum for any sort of extended canoeing and camping. That might fit. I just read a report of a three day canoe camping trip on a canal/river in the Netherlands, and by no stretch of the imagination was it wilderness. But they encountered many of the same issues.
I got a chuckle out of a recent post that asked for wilderness day trips. If you can get in and out in a day, then I suppose it might be some eastern “wilderness area” but it no longer sounds to me like wilderness tripping.
I plead guilty
I guess I’m an offender since I have been soliciting camping recommendations near Washington DC, which is most definitely a bearucratic wilderness, but maybe not a paddling one. I had the good fortune to do a trip in BCWA a while back and I hope to again someday. But for the time being, the wildest place I’ll be paddling probably will have “State Park” somewhere in the title.
It did actually cross my mind that maybe I was posting in the wrong spot and that the paddling spots I had in mind weren’t epic enough to really count as “wilderness tripping”. But what other forum should I have posted in? I didn’t want to argue with anyone, so B&B was out. My question certainly wasn’t fishing or asking for partners. The Advice forum is all “what’s the best kayak/canoe for me?” and “how do I fix my XYZ?” (althought the “kayak wholesale” thread on there is pretty entertaining) The Paddler’s Place is all “rudder vs. skeg” debates, musings about trip reports, and links to news stories about dudes who drown and weren’t wearing a PFD. So this forum still seemed like the best spot. I reasoned that localish trips are still within the scope of “and Beyond”.
Sometimes it is a best-fit choice
I’ve posted questions about non-wilderness area camping before because this forum is the closest match to the kind of advice I sought.
Calling it “paddle-camping” would avoid problems about defining wilderness, I agree. However, it doesn’t seem to be an actual problem for most people who come to Pnet.
wilderness
at least according to Wikipedia, is defined by the extent of human impact and development, not how long it takes to get there:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness
by that standard (and also allowing that places are sometimes returned to being free of development), there are a surprising amount of places within a few hours of DC that would shock some people upon seeing how wild they are.
You might actually get a better response
on Advice, Discussion, or People & Places. This forum has gotten slow, and I think one reason is the discrepancy between the guideline (quite good and well-stated) and what people read in the “Wilderness” threads. We’ve lost most of the “wilderness” canoe campers who are still on myccr and even Song of the Paddle.
I LIKE this board just the way it is…
– Last Updated: Jun-19-12 11:25 AM EST –
..oh! and any excuse to tell g2d to go stuff himself is a plus!...thanks fer stoppin' by to enable me.
Now go stuff yer self biscuit eater.
Here’s a thought for you, g2d:
Let BRENT decide when HIS boards need policing, scolding and instructive posts to bring people back on topic. It is HIS creation, HIS livelihood, and HIS baby. I’m sure if he really wants YOUR help, he knows how to get in touch with to ask for it.
Has he asked you for help? Then shut up already.
YoS
You’re stuck on your own definition.
Which likely means nothing to anyone else. Where I paddle with friends on WW in West Virginia, once you put on, you are not taking off without a 7-10 mile hike with no trails, up to 800’ climbs, and no help along the way, all while leaving your gear behind. And there is zero chance of first aid other than what you or someone in your group can provide. That’s a reasonable definition of “wilderness” in my opinion, though unlikely yours because we “get in and out in a day”. So what? Brent didn’t define it further than he did, so what gives you the right to make decisions and give directions for him?
If the site’s not useful for you, g2d, the door is easily found. Be sure not to let it bump you on the way out.
YoS
Momma
Grow up you sound like a child…If you look at the post and board he is right
You’re being silly again.
It’s nice to see the boad policeman
is still doing his job
maybe he never saw Deliverance
Way to change the subject .
What does BWCA and beyond mean to you? Twelve miles on Chattooga 3 with many known exit points? One of the largest formal wilderness areas in the east, the Cohuttas, is not much as wilderness goes. The rivers that run through it have been run, occasionally. I have run one of them, and I have walked every mile of both rivers. I never assumed I was in wilderness. None of the whitewater paddlers I’ve known since 1974 would consider them wilderness.
But it isn’t that which makes me scratch my head. It’s people that come to this forum talking about trips on rivers that have settlements all up and down, or an overnight on a lake that has prepared campsites. (BWCA is getting a bit like that.)
If you want a wilderness forum where most posters aren’t talking about wilderness, you know how to get it. But it won’t change the fact that most paddlers DO NOT call that wilderness, and that the forum guideline does not read that way.
What frustrates some of you is that I’m right, but I won’t go away when you yell at me.
What are you doing over here? I can’t
remember when I last saw you on the wilderness forum. Same for Yak of Pewter. I guess you’re just another policeman, like me. Takes one to know one.
But you wouldn’t know a real issue if it crawled in your boat and bit you.
No, the only thing frustrating about you
is the anal retentive way you go about attempting to police something as if it’s yours, when it clearly is not, and the real owner seems to take no interest in doing the same.
YoS
So I ask the cops
If I travel down the Teslin and the Yukon Rivers is that wilderness? The trip will take fourteen days. Sometimes there will be no people and sometimes there will be as the Yukon is a working river. There are no roads along most of it.
I just find the discussion here silly. Wilderness is a white mans word. To Natives the word is home.Wilderness does not certainly mean where no man has gone before.
I love it!
g2d thinks being reminded he posted on the wrong board is lame! And he is so right! ROTFLMAO!
Here’s a thought for you.
Pretending that being away from a paved road for a few hours or a few miles is perhaps good for your flagging mental health. But it’s still pretending. BWCA or beyond. Brent wrote that.
On no other paddling forum I’ve ever visited are people so touchy about being told they might have posted in a better place in order to serve their own needs. It seems to have to do with the middle school developmental level and mentality of a few pnetters.
Go ahead and complain to Brent if you want to. Explain why you came over to this forum to bitch at me when you never show up here otherwise. Policing?
Explain what you’re doing over here.
Policing?
My original post makes an incontrovertible point. Many of the posts on this forum have nothing to do with wilderness paddling. This is a slow-moving forum, and one possible reason is that its purpose has been ignored. How would we lure more real wilderness paddlers back to this board?
You’ve made your argument— If you can’t see a house and can’t hear traffic, it must be wilderness. To which I have answered, “BWCA and beyond.” That’s what people mean by wilderness.
Yakky, I’ve been here longer than you, I’ve helped more people than you by a factor of ten, and I’m not planning on changing my views for you, or leaving.
I “policed” no individual in my original post, and if you don’t like my definition of wilderness, you’ve gotten to offer yours, at no cost to you. What does it say about you that you can’t choose to leave it at the level of an honest disagreement?
kayakmedic, wilderness is hard to
define so that the definition includes or excludes marginal cases, but most people I know would recognise that a good number of posts on this forum don’t have anything to do with “wilderness.” And we see rather few posts on this forum by serious wilderness paddlers.
Remind me, did you have something to say about “BWCA and beyond?”