Mt Whitney Zone Forums General Discussion What is a wilderness experience?

Actually, for some, how many people they meet on the trail is a factor in determining their "wilderness experience".

I personally think meeting 50 people on a trail in desginated wilderness would not despoil that experience for me either. But without taking sides or disagreeing with you, your comment begs the question: beyond how many people met on the trail would the wilderness "feel" begin to be diluted? Obviously, if you meet 1,000 people on the trail, then that might not feel like wilderness to some (it probably wouldn't to me). Thus, at some point, too many people on the trail (though this may be only one factor among several) would probably dilute the wilderness experience for most people. I don't think you can quantify that number, in part, because for each person it would be different anyway. The permit system, imperfect though it may be, is the best attempt to draw the line (somewhere) to limit overcrowding and long term overuse. Depending on what trail/peak is under discussion, some can more invisibly absorb higher use rates than others. This is dependent on the type of people using the trail/peak. As an obvious example, Whitney tends to attract a higher percentage of inexperienced users who are less familiar with Leave No Trace and other similar outdoor etiquette, whereas other less popular areas are used mostly be people who respect and know how to care for and maintain the land for their own good and the good of future users.

I've been lurking and reading this topic with interest. My .02 is that, despite the formal definition in the Wilderness Act (which I personally think is a very fine definition and should be adhered to, and which sets an excellent standard in its wording), wilderness -- as with many other experiences -- is a matter of perception and is largely dependent on what each person is used to. For someone, like Laura, who lives in Bishop on the edge of the wilderness (lucky girl!), wilderness likely means getting way back into the bowels of the untrammeled mountains or the infrequently climbed peaks. For others who have the misfortune of being imprisoned stuck living in a big city when their heart is anywhere but there, wilderness could easily be Yosemite Valley, or the hike to Half Dome or the Whitney MT. More important, though, I think each person's perception of wilderness will change and grow with each additional "wilderness" experience they have (by their perception of that term), so that a person whose first wilderness experience (for them) is the Whitney MT, may then be motivated to seek increasingly "wild" wilderness experiences over the ensuing years, so that ultimately, they will perhaps want to go out and experience "true" wilderness, such as RoguePhotonic's 95-day adventure last summer. At that point in their development, they may very well no longer consider the Whitney MT as wilderness, and will only consider the "bowels" of the inner Sierra as wilderness. On this message board, I'm sure we are well represented by people who are at both ends of that developmental timeline, and all points in between.

This is not unlike the concept of "vacation". Vacation to most people means doing something different (and presumably more enjoyable) than whatever it is they normally do. It's the contrast from the norm. Same for wilderness. It's whatever is more "wild" than the norm, which will be very different for each person, depending on their "norm" experience.

None of this is to dminish the standard set by the Wilderness Act. It needs to be in place to keep the developers and any others who would, in the blink of an unthinking eye, run roughshod over all the unspoiled places we have in the interest of "progress", thinking that somehow man can always improve on what is already just fine to begin with.

Ultimately, the reality is that not everyone can experience wonderful places like Yosemite, Mt. Whitney, and many many others -- not because that they shouldn't, but only because there are finite limits to things. It's physically and logistically impossible for, say, the entire population of the United States (to go to the extreme) to visit Yosemite (or any other single place of interest) all at the same time, or even staggered out over the course of an entire year. There will always be these kinds of limits. As I see it, the Wilderness Act and other similar regs, so long as they are reasonable, serve to safeguard the treasures that belong to all of us from adverse overuse, so that all of us to whom they belong can unselfishly enjoy them, each in their turn, within the physical limits stated above.

CaT