Adventure sports and the West

There's an article in this month's "onearth" magazine (published by the
National Resources Defense Council) called "Loving the West To Death"
which talks about how adventure sports are affecting former Western
wilderness areas like Moab and Boulder. The Moab MUniFest gets a
mention.

It's an interesting article, but I don't like how it implicitly equates
mountain biking/yiking with ATV traffic and four-wheeling.

http://www.onearth.org/article/loving-the-west-to-death


--
tholub
------------------------------------------------------------------------
tholub's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/804
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/74834


Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com

I didn't read the whole thing, but it was interesting. Two quotes I
pulled out:

1. "Well, I don't think they hurt the land that much," he said. "Mostly
what they hurt is the spirit of the wilderness. I'll be out taking a
hike and they'll come roaring down. Never one of them, of course. They
run in packs in those colorful clothes. Anytime you bring fashion into
wilderness I think you're in trouble."

This was mentioned a few times in the first half of the article; the
clothes worn by mountain bikers. If you have to criticize what they
wear, it damages your credibility. The impact of mountain biking (or
unicycling) has to be minimal compared to that of motorized vehicles and
mining. This doesn't mean it's possible to over use an area, and it also
doesn't mean we unicyclists could be better-educated about cryptobiotic
soil in Moab, for example.

But I have to smile at the idea that most of the unicyclists aren't
quite as colorful and lycra-clad as the mountain bikers...

2. We agreed that Slickrock and the nearby trails make sense in the way
a city makes sense, clustering population in one area while leaving
outlying areas more sparsely populated. "There's plenty of room for
everyone," he said.

Yeah. You build a trail and people will ride it. If it's a good trail,
they'll ride it instead of all over every other inch of wilderness.
People have to go somewhere...


--
johnfoss

John Foss
Email: "jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com
-----------------------------------------------

"False facts are frequently formed from figures fabricated from fear
fired fiction." -- Harper
------------------------------------------------------------------------
johnfoss's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/832
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/74834


Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com

johnfoss;1149214 wrote:
I didn't read the whole thing, but it was interesting. Two quotes I
pulled out:

1. "Well, I don't think they hurt the land that much," he said. "Mostly
what they hurt is the spirit of the wilderness. I'll be out taking a
hike and they'll come roaring down. Never one of them, of course. They
run in packs in those colorful clothes. Anytime you bring fashion into
wilderness I think you're in trouble."

This was mentioned a few times in the first half of the article; the
clothes worn by mountain bikers. If you have to criticize what they
wear, it damages your credibility. The impact of mountain biking (or
unicycling) has to be minimal compared to that of motorized vehicles and
mining.



Not to mention ranching, and a lot of the objection to mountain biking
comes from ranchers. We're all worried about stepping one foot off the
trail into the cryptobiotic soil, in some areas around Moab where they
graze cattle. Uh, pretty sure there's not much bikes can do to damage
the environment any more than the cows do.

But the comments about clothing indicate what the issue is--it's not
about the environment, it's about a clash of cultures. You could
equally assert that guys wearing spurs and leather chaps and 10-gallon
hats look ridiculous, and in certain contexts, they do. (For example,
if someone dressed like that on a mountain bike ride, they'd get more
than one strange look). A lot of the trail conflicts are around
feelings of ownership, and a lot of that comes from identity--ranchers
identify people in cowboy hats as part of their culture, and people in
brightly colored lycra as "other." Those "others" are taking over
"their" trails, and they're annoyed. (Not all ranchers are annoyed, but
enough of them to cause trail conflicts are).


--
tholub
------------------------------------------------------------------------
tholub's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/804
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/74834


Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com

tholub;1149269 wrote:
You could equally assert that guys wearing spurs and leather chaps and
10-gallon hats look ridiculous, and in certain contexts, they do. (For
example, if someone dressed like that on a mountain bike ride, they'd
get more than one strange look)


That is a -fantastic- idea!


--
Tak

"Unicycling goes against common sense." --maestro8
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tak's Profile: http://www.unicyclist.com/profile/17247
View this thread: http://www.unicyclist.com/thread/74834


Posted Via Usenet.com Premium Usenet Newsgroup Services
----------------------------------------------------------
http://www.usenet.com