Jensen Bissell's Lament

[Another Kevin]

So, the Miscreants Group and AT thru-hikers are completely different groups of individuals who happen to be using the same footpath. To label them all AT hikers/AT thru-hikers like Bissell has done is an outrageous mistake and a terrible injustice to AT thru-hikers.

What Bissell has done is to confuse his message. As I said earlier, he is reporting two problems and conflating them.

The first is the 'miscreants.' About them enough said - but I tend to include everyone here who moans about 'BSP has too many rules' in that category. Their land, their rules.

The second is that the hikers who arrive via that A-T have become too numerous for the limited resources of the park to handle; overflowing the capacity of The Birches and straining KSC. Since even most thru-hikers can't ascend Katahdin from Abol Bridge and leave BSP in a single day's travel, this means that they have to be accommodated either overnight or by putting them in touch with transportation - and both issues take up park resources. Bissell has stated explicitly that this is a problem irrespective of hiker behaviour.

If he is to be believed, the key issue is that A-T hikers are simply too numerous, and only controlling our numbers can succeed. If that were presented clearly, it would invite clever solutions. One proposal I saw involved the possibility of shuttle service to enable hikers to finish in a couple of day hikes without an overnight stay. Another, which is in progress, involves having hikers call ahead for a reservation from Monson, and speed up or slow down their passage through the HMW to try to level out the issue of too many arriving in a single day. And of course, there's the promotion of alternative patterns in which the hiker arrives at BSP in a less busy season.

But then he spoils the message by using chiefly examples from the 'miscreants' to show the problems caused by too many hikers. (Of course, too many hikers will bring along too many 'miscreants', if we assume that we can find That Guy in every sufficiently large group.) In doing so, he alienates many of the people who could help solve his problems.

His problems are real. If all we do is to close ranks and act defensively because he has chosen to publicise them in such an outrageous fashion, we all lose. Because then the problems won't get solved, and eventually we will lose access, not only to BSP, but also to many other overstressed regions of the trail. The land managers will simply decide that there isn't enough A-T to go around, and the only discussion possible will be how best to ration it. In the current political climate, the only acceptable solution will be to ration it by the imposition of fees so high that only a few of us can afford them, or by a permit system so restrictive that most will give up without ever coming to the head of the line. (This is already the regime, for instance, for rafting permits in the Grand Canyon. Many people go year after year without ever once winning one, until they either lose interest or are no longer able to pursue it.)

If we don't swallow our pride about the public tantrum and actually work on figuring out how to mitigate our impact, we are going to find that the obvious solution of controlling our numbers directly, either by fees or by lot, will be imposed on us. If that's what you want, then keep on ranting about Bissell. Otherwise, work on solving the problem. Think of it like trashing out a firepit or something. Most of us didn't make the mess, but if we don't clean it up, nobody else will.

[rickb]

Did you read his letter? They have very exact stats on the number of person entering. And the letter outlines things that are done specifically for AT hikers, including the hiring of an employee specifically to deal with AT hikers, radio messages that need to be sent for one class of hikers - AT, informational letters mailed out annually just for AT hikers -- everyone else uses the web. If 20% is not an exact number it is close and it is very obvious that what ever that number is it is north of 3%.

With all due respect, you don't have a good grasp on everything that Baxter State Park does.

In addition to the 12 person AT Birches Shelter, the park maintains more than A score of cabins for their guests. They even provide chopped wood for the stoves-- for a small fee of course. Not sure if they still do , but the used to fill the Colman lanterns up too.

The park also maintains quite a few canoes in good repair for the people who get thier reservations in early enough to to secure lodging at one of the cherry sites -- each with well cared for PFDs and paddles. Thru hikers can borrow one at Daicy Pond, if they are so inclined but few are.

Did you know the park also maintains outhouses for 60,000 visitors? Not a small task.

They also keep scores of campsites and lean too away from the Hunt Trail in good repair for those 60,000 visitors as well. And the bunk houses? Them too. And the backcountry presence at Chimney Pond? That takes no small effort either.

The park maintains hundreds of miles of trails. Can you understand the effort they expend on that? They staff a pretty good "car campground", too. With 60,000 visitors, I'll be they have even helped jump start a car or two.

The park manages a responsible forestry harvest, maintain roads well beyond KSCG. They help and or conduct scientific studies. They perform S&R too, and manage a reservation office in town-- with 10s of thousands of reservations that is a big job! You can't to that in a ledger book.

They staff the gates and (I am guessing here) might even do stuff I have not listed here-- perhaps some of the stuff they do after the snows begin to fall. Not really up on that. TJ probably knows.

And they help thier visitors, which include thru hikers.

What they don't do is expend 20% of their effort on the 1800 who walk into the park.

[squeezebox]

So maybe we can stop pointing fingers at the thru hikers or day hikers, or Bissel. There are problems that need to be fixed. Drop the crap about who's fault it is, and work on some solutions. I challenge Datto to come up with something that might help fix the problems, rather than his rant about it's not the thru hikers doing it. Fairly or not the problem is pretty much being laid at thru hikers feet. So let's find some solutions.
Like the analogy of all the trash at a shelter, at some point it does not matter who caused the problem, but the real issue is who is going to clean it up.

[rickb]

Datto realizes that an anti-thru hiker / anti-AT narrative is being created for a reason.

[Datto]

If enforcement could be done fairly (that's probably debatable) without much confrontation and sheriff chest puffing, much higher fees are probably the least ugly solution out of all the list of really ugly solutions. Triple or quadruple the fees. Enough to cover the manpower for likely increased enforcement needs and to cover the extra expense of Baxter getting a viable public relations person in-house. AT hikers would grumble and complain quite a bit but there probably isn't a legit means to seperate out the miscreants traveling on foot into Baxter from the AT hikers traveling on foot into Baxter.

Higher fees is probably what Bissell is looking for anyhow. So just give it to him.


Datto

[BirdBrain]

Higher fees is probably what Bissell is looking for anyhow. So just give it to him.


Datto

There is no basis for your emotion driven accusation that Bissell wants or needs extra money from thru's. It shows ignorance of how BSP is funded and any understanding of economics. Others have tried to educate you on the funding. You refuse to hear. Therefore, let's examine the accusation that Bissell is trying to extract money. 3% of visitors walk in. 97% drive in. If you raise the fees on those that drive in by $3 each, you would have to raise fees on those that walk in by $97 dollars each to gain the same funds. If a man is primarially interested in money, he will go after the 97%. They represent an easier and more profitable target. Money is not the issue. You are so obsessed with rules and hatred that you cannot see the real issues. Therefore, you create imaginary issues and imaginary solutions. BSP is not looking to get rich off thru's. Thru's are not an asset. BSP is looking to minimize the burden created by thru's. Bury your head and spout more hate. You are not contributing to any effort to resolve anything.

[TJ aka Teej]

TJ,
Do you actually believe the truth to that tag line?

I've heard it called an understatement.

[MuddyWaters]

What they don't do is expend 20% of their effort on the 1800 who walk into the park.

BSP has a lot of volunteer groups performing work, and temporary seasonal help. Their workforce and budget are detailed in the annual reports. I think one needs to know what worker pool was referred to in order to frame the claim. They only have a few full time rangers. Its entirely possible that this type of worker was the focus of the comment.

Not all "resources" are applicable to dealing with visitors, or hikers.

[Datto]

I now know how Bissell feels. I just caught two of those no-good, champagne-drinkin', dope-lookin', weed-eatin' trail runners myself. Trailnames are Sleepy and Feisty. They were freely peeing on my mountain -- the both of 'em if you can believe it -- comin' up the back path of my mountain to sniff my girls. Ginger is quite the sensitive type and I don't need any no-good trail runners showin' up to bother Ginger -- champagne or no champagne.

Now I gave these trail runners a good meal and a talkin' to. On the cruise to greener pastures I let 'em know there are gonna be changes around these parts. I asked 'em if they wanted higher fees or harsher enforcement. Fiesty snarled and said, "Prettier rangers" (to which I did not take offense to).

When I turned the both of 'em loose, Feisty turned back to me and said something like, "Possta la vista." I don't speak Latin anymore but it sounded like he was givin' me the finger in trail runner speak. Hard to deal with these trail runner types these days. They just don't seem to wanna listen.

So forget what I said about higher fees bein' the only solution from that list of ugly choices. Apparently, these troublesome trail runner types want prettier rangers in order to start behavin'. I stand corrected.


sleepy.fiesty.jpg


Datto

[JeremyB]

I'm an engineer, so I'm usually the one say "Do the math." If 1000 hikers finish the AT every year, and they finish over a window of 60 days, that's about 16 per day. If each AT hiker spends an hour on the summit, and there is about a 4 hour daily window on the summit, considering up and down times, that's 4 thru-hikers per hour. If he thinks 200 hikers at one time is a problem, and is caused by thrus, that would mean 800 per day, or 48,000 thru hikers per year. I suspect this jack hole is exaggerating for dramatic effect.

Also an engineer! A while back I spent way too much time and logged every hiker for the 2014 season from trailjournals.com. I’ve got end dates for 86 of ‘em. If you multiply by 11 to get to close to 1000, you’ve got a decent data-based idea of what the spread is.
Your estimate is pretty good! If anything, a bit high as the window is more like 80 days.
2014AT%u0025252520Thru%252520Hiker%252520-%252520Ending%252520Dates.jpg
16 a day is 112 a week, which is only surpassed once.
The day-by-day data is much worse as people seem to clump together (groups, weather, etc). 4 people (scales to 44) summited on 7/31 and only 1 person did in the next 7 days. 5 people (scales to 55) summited on 9/30, with 1s and 2s the previous and next week. So, reasonable to say you’d get 50-60 people summiting on one day, although not all of them will be there at the same time – and this is assuming 1000 people finish a NB thru-hike. ATC shows 653 registered. Don’t know if that is high or low.

What Bissell has done is to confuse his message. As I said earlier, he is reporting two problems and conflating them.

Nailed it!
The overcrowding issue seems to be the core problem. In that case, what is the max flow-rate that BSP would like to see for thru-hikers? 12? 20? 50?