I can't get access to the wilderness due to tight quotas, yet when I have gotten the last available permit, hiked into some backcountry spot, I never see a soul! There is something wrong with that picture.
Actually, Steve, that is EXACTLY what you should see in a wilderness experience. You posted about this before, and I responded, and the whole concept apparently sailed over your head.
Wilderness is NOT the same as "backcountry". It has specific characteristics:
"A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain."
Within wilderness areas, the Wilderness Act strives to restrain human influences so that ecosystems (the Wilderness Act, however, makes no specific mention of ecosystems) can change over time in their own way, free, as much as possible, from human manipulation. In these areas, as the Wilderness Act puts it, "the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man"—untrammeled meaning the forces of nature operate unrestrained and unaltered.
The specific wording of the Act says:
DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS
(c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land
retaining its primeval character and influence,
without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to
preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the
imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has
outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.
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I remain dumbfounded at how people can just IGNORE THE LAW. I don't see how it could be clearer:
"retaining its primeval character and influence"
"without permanent improvements or human habitation"
"imprint of man's work substantially unnoticeable"
"outstanding opportunities for solitude"
How do permanent toilets fit into that?
How do 160 people a day fit into that?
Steve, you describe a wilderness experience, as it was meant to be experienced, AND YOU COMPLAIN.
What's up with that?????
