Regarding David Palmer's note (Digest #1569), it has a familiar ring.
The two major environmental/outdoor's organizations here on the east
coast, The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) and the Appalachian Trail
Conservancy (ATC) have continuing discussions regarding Boy Scout units
who use their facilities and maintained trails from Maine to Georgia.
The ATC regularly receives letters about Scout units as described in
previous emails. In most cases, the units do not understand the
"culture" on the AT and/or its major side trails with regards to
"thru-hikers". Typical offenses include lack of respect at trail
campsites/lean-tos, over sized groups, to name a few.
The AMC does a good job at community outreach through its many chapters
such as Outdoor First Aid, Winter Camp Training, trail projects, etc..
Many of the problems are handled at the local chapter level. If a story
makes it to the Club magazine, "The AMC Bulletin", it must be major.
Also, the biannual "Appalachian Journal", the country's old
mountaineering journal lists local articles and the infamous "Accident
Report" is a good resource for similar infractions.
As with most scenarios, all it takes in one "bad apple" to ruin it for
all those groups who respect and follow local State/Federal rules on
these lands, e.g. crew size maximums. The part of the problem is the
BSA is a nationally recognized organization. So, we can be targeted more
severely than local outfitters who display the same disgregard. I
witnessed this fifteen years during the last summer of Maine National
High Adventure (1990) with non-Scouting crews using the same wilderness
areas near Baxter State Park.
Just my two cents worth.
Michael E. Clark
mclark@gis.net
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Received on Tue Nov 15 13:31:24 2005
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