Editor’s Note: “Over a Beer” is a regular column written by Greg Heil. While Greg is the Editor in Chief for Singletracks.com, any opinions expressed in this column are his alone and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Singletracks.com.
Recently I was mountain biking along a bike-legal trail that bordered a Wilderness area. As I found out from talking to trail runners and backpackers along my route (it was the 4th of July weekend, and relatively busy), the portion of the Tumble Creek trail that I was riding along the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness boundary serves to complete a 15-mile loop through the Wilderness.
As I was pedaling along, I encountered a trail runner who didn’t exactly know where she was going. I offered to share my map with her, but she said that her partner knew where they were headed, but that he “doesn’t go very fast,” and couldn’t keep up with her. I found it strange, because I’m not much of a trail runner, and I could have kept her pace, but I just went on with my ride.
About 5 minutes later I came upon who I assumed to be her significant other, and I realized exactly why he couldn’t keep up. Just a few paces from the trailhead where they had started, this runner was moving slowly, because he was narrating this “Wilderness” run into a GoPro held in front of him on a selfie stick.
Yes, my friends, this foot traveler—who appeared to be about 60 years of age, so shelve the millenial jibes—was attempting to run and describe his run to, presumably, the viewers on the interwebs, while holding an electronic box on a pole.
As he prepared to enter a Wilderness area.
As I was editing this article, I decided to run a quick search on Youtube to see if I could find the video. It took me literally one search term and less than 10 seconds to find. Since this guy–named Steve Bremner–is obviously looking for publicity by posting this video public on Youtube, I decided to give it to him.
Here’s the video. You can see me, yielding the trail like a conscientious mountain biker, at 0:30-0:36, and then you can see Steve talking with his S.O. (Bekka) about our conversation at 0:39-0:57. The rest of the video goes on to show their run through the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness. Note the off-leash dog (Chewy), which is against the rules of the Buffalo Peaks Wilderness.
As you read the arguments levied against reversing the blanket ban on mountain bikes in Wilderness areas, one that seems to come up again and again is that bicycles somehow, someway, don’t fit in with “Wilderness values.”
I’d like to know exactly what these Wilderness values are. Do they include self reliance? Do they include pushing yourself to your physical limits? Appreciating the beauty of the world around you? Disconnecting from the hectic pace of life in our modern world? Traveling lightly and not making an impact on this planet we call home?
Or is the only actual “value”: “wheels aren’t allowed”?
This isn’t the only example of what could be considered by some to be flagrant disrespect for the values that make wilderness, Wilderness. I’ve seen hikers hiking along with music blaring from speakers built into their backpacks. And I’ve seen equestrians do the same. I’ve seen horsepacking shelters that look more akin to a 2-star hotel than a tent. I’ve seen horse trains rip apart singletrack trails, turning them into muddy trenches three feet deep.
Yet somehow mountain bikers, with their evil conglomeration of quiet, low-impact metal and plastic, are the enemy in this situation.
Somewhere along the way, I think what exactly Wilderness should stand for has been perverted. It’s been altered. It’s been changed from the original intent. And I don’t necessarily claim to have an inside line on what the original intent was, but as we move forward from this place of mis-interpretation and mal-practice, I think we have an opportunity to re-interpret the laws and the guidelines that govern Wilderness areas in a common sense way.
Do I think that that trail runner shouldn’t have been able to dictate his run into his GoPro? No, of course he’s free to do so, and I don’t want to stand in the way of his freedom, no matter how dumb I think selfie sticks are. The moral of the story is that he’s enjoying the Wilderness in a harmless, low-impact way, that’s not affecting the people or the land around him.
And the same can be said for conscientious mountain bikers.
But the idiots walking around with speakers blaring? Don’t jack up my soundscape yo!
Well, this post may not relate to the mtb issue so directly, but hopefully it add just one piece for better understanding Wilderness Areas and imo the abuses of the designation. One of the ORIGINAL intents and definition of Wilderness Areas was to designate large enough tracts of land that a person could take a two-week horse pack trip through without signs and impacts of civilization and development. This size element was considered central to the essence of Wilderness. I think we can all understand why. In short true wilderness by nature must be extensive. However, in time the Wilderness designation was misused as a tool to most strongly protect areas of almost any size for other reasons. For example, the Kachina Peaks Wilderness Area north of Flagstaff, AZ is just a little short of 19,000 acres or a little less than 30 square miles. It is an area that can be traversed through any axis on foot in a couple of days or less. The area is one of Arizona’s greatest natural treasures. Is it an exceptionally beautiful wild land area? Yes. Is it worthy of special designation for protection for its natural, ecological and cultural value? Yes. Should it be managed by the concepts of preservation, not just conservation? Yes. Is it wrongly designated as a Wilderness Area? IMO, yes simple because it is so small. In fact the majority of WAs today are FAR to small to meet any reasonable concept of true wilderness. MANY can be traversed in a day; some in just an hour or two. One is only 40 acres. The Federal Government should be using other designations for these smaller areas or should come up with a new designation for preservation and protection.
This is a great insight! Thanks!
Also just a point of clarification on a related topic. Sometimes I see a misuse of the term “conservation” on Singletracks. There are two primary terms and philosophies of land management employed in the US on public lands. They are conservation and preservation. Oftentimes, conservation is misused for preservation. Conservation is the sustainable use and management of both renewable and non-renewable natural resources, such as: timber, herbaceous plants, wildlife, water, and deposits. Preservation manages the wild land areas and their resources to maintain them in their natural condition minimizing the impact by humans. Preservation mostly only allows for uses that are non-consumptive, such as viewing or camping, but not say logging or grazing. Wilderness Areas and National Parks are two of the most outstanding applications of preservation. US National Forests are mostly managed employing conservation and sustainable use concepts, such as proper logging and proper levels of grazing.
To broaden this discussion a bit, in the US, land management heavily employs these two concepts within the overlay of ecosystem management and intensive and extensive management practices. Intensive refers to management activities that limited in scope and employing concentrated efforts (such as a plantation or building a trail). Extensive practices are employed over large stretches of land with less concentrated efforts broadly applied, such as large scale broadcast burning late in the fall to reduce fuel loads on western forest lands (something we need to be doing much much more of) to restore our western forests to their healthier more resilient natural states.
Cool you made the video and actually found it, both on the trail courtesy and the discussion.
One time my son and I got to the top of a 14er (Sneffels) and there were so many selfie sticks waving around it could have been a SNL skit that only a few would appreciate.
That comment above about the size of areas was new to me, for sure seems some wilderness areas could use different protection.