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DO WE TRULY LOVE WILDERNESS? NOT IF YOU MEASURE IT BY THE WAY WE SPEND OUR DAYS.
Time Out I
BY NEIL SCHULMAN
want you to finish reading this magazine and leave im- mediately for a wilderness trip. My happiness depends on
it, not to mention yours. I just told a friend about my plans for a two-week kayak
trip this spring. He said, “Wow, that’s old school!” I never thought of myself as old school, but now maybe I’ll bring some itchy wool pants and pemmican on the trip. Te reality is that we spend less and less time in the wilds
each year. My two-week trip is old school. Te Outdoor Rec- reation Participation Study lays out the evidence in clinical fashion. In the past 15 years, the average length of a wilder- ness outing has gone from six days to three hours. Te average North American camps away from their car just once a year. Backpacking is an endangered species, freefalling by 22 per cent in seven years. Look at gear—it’s for fast and light. Field guides are for short day trips. Our “wilderness experience” is now something we cram into half a day between working in the yard in the morning and a movie that night. Some parks are now less about the wilds than the wi-fi.
Seventeen parks in Canada have installed wi-fi networks. So have the California and Texas state parks systems. Or- egon is considering it. See a bird you don’t know on your morning paddle? Just whip out your BlackBerry and Google it. Shouldn’t we be surfing waves instead of the web? What happened to all those nights under the stars and cooking pancakes with our pals? Reasons for spending less time in the wilderness abound,
but I know one. We’re busier. And, lest I sound like an out- of-touch curmudgeon, I’ll admit I’m busier too. I’m writing
this article on a sunny weekend when I should be outside. We’re working more, and we have kids’ soccer games, lawns to mow, and friends to visit. Kayakers still care deeply about wilderness. We have of-
ten-recited tales of past trips, and formative memories of playing around off the grid as kids. While we juggle weekend to-do lists, we’re still dreaming of the long trips we may take someday. But there are signs of trouble. Just look at the local parks and forests near you.
Wilderness experience is now something we cram in between working in the yard in the morning and a movie that night
To agencies that manage the wilds, kayakers are just a
“user group” on equal footing with jet-skiers, snowboarders and mushroom collectors. If we spend three hours paddling, they manage the wilderness for short half-day trips and ne- glect the backcountry, no matter how much we value it in our hearts. Mount Hood, my local back 40, is a perfect example.
Tere’s heavy use of a few day-hike destinations, while trails into the backcountry are being left uncared for. Campsites are left to decay or are closed entirely. Te Forest Service pays less
22 ADVENTURE KAYAK | SPRING 2008
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