Poll on Wilderness Views

I came across an old thread on VFTT that had polled community members about what types of uses they thought were appropriate (and inappropriate) within Wilderness. I decided to re-create the poll, and ended up using google forms to do so, as the polling mechanics of the vBulletin message boards are somewhat limited.

This is just for some informative fun- I'm not doing anything official with the results, which I will make available to the community at some point (responses will of course be anonymous). I'm sure that there are a ton of issues with the design of the poll (and I'm sure that all you kind folks will be more than happy to let me hear about it). Again, this is just for fun.

The poll takes about 5-10 minutes to complete. Here it is: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1aix-yPkc9_zTF7BRq8CQvF7oidnxV2mDZlBcUX6KgVI/viewform

Just took the survey. Thanks for having put a lot of thought and work into the project.

Thanks for posting. That had a pretty thorough set of questions.

Nice job. I had to think pretty hard about those questions. I think I could convince myself to answer some of those questions more than one way. Thanks for designing this.

Jason Berard said:

Nice job. I had to think pretty hard about those questions. I think I could convince myself to answer some of those questions more than one way. Thanks for designing this.

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Yes, I agree 100% that the questions didn't leave much room for specifics. To design a poll that did would be a lot of work... and go beyond the scope of "fun," I think.

I took the survey. My biggest issue with it, is regarding the questions on LNT. Not to sound controversial, but they should have included another option, ie. I don't always follow to LNT. Don't get me wrong, I do try to be somewhat sound in the backcountry, but some of my action's sway from LNT and I'm ok with that.

sierra said:

I took the survey. My biggest issue with it, is regarding the questions on LNT. Not to sound controversial, but they should have included another option, ie. I don't always follow to LNT. Don't get me wrong, I do try to be somewhat sound in the backcountry, but some of my action's sway from LNT and I'm ok with that.

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Well, the question was on familiarity, not implementation. Familiarity and implementation are two separate things.

Personally, I would suspect that most backpackers and hikers both underestimate their impacts in the backcountry, and overestimate their ability to minimize those impacts. But looking at something that specific would be a topic for another poll...

DSettahr said:

... Personally, I would suspect that most backpackers and hikers both underestimate their impacts in the backcountry, and overestimate their ability to minimize those impacts. But looking at something that specific would be a topic for another poll...

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I suspect that that this statement is truer as the size of a group grows. However, I think a conscientious backpacker/hiker has little, if any, direct impact, especially as time goes on, in places like the Northeast ... nature is more resilient than we might realize in areas of rapid vegetation growth and decomposition but in areas like deserts and alpine zones, a minor impact can be long lasting and have a chain reaction.

I surmise that the collective impacts of those "conscientious" backpackers/hikers is greater in terms of energy and infrastructure indirectly effecting wilderness than the direct effect of walking through it and setting up the occasional camp.

So does that mean we should just go there and stay there to reduce the overall impact? Our species has been there and done that, no going back, and I doubt there are any amongst us who will stay away completely ... so ... let's enjoy it with care!

This thread needs a bump.