Mob scenes on the trails last weekend

I’m pretty sure that the Old Bridle Path Agonies were named by the hut croo.

Regarding Bill Bryson’s friend Katz, Bryson has said that Katz was a friend from high school whose name was not Katz, but Bryson gave him that pseudonym before realizing that Katz is a Jewish name. They were in Europe together during an earlier adventure.

Susan and I saw Bill Bryson at the Groton, Massachusetts, Public Library back in 2000, and he told us that Katz had cleaned up his act and gotten married, so I don’t think he’s imaginary.

Madison’s summit and Madison Spring Hut were pretty crowded last Friday, too, but I saw only four people during the four miles from Pinkham Notch Visitor Center to the suspension bridge (plus a fifth who was fishing below the bridge), then I had the trail to myself up Madison Gulf headwall and Parapet Trail to Osgood Junction.

Then there were only five people — and one of those was a camper at Osgood Tentsite — the whole way back once I left the summit, down Osgood, Osgood Cut-Off, and Madison Gulf trails, and Old Jackson Road, unless you count a couple of silhouettes up on the ridge behind me.

Which reminds me ...

Let me start a new thread.

I think a lot of folks are noticing that the popular trails are really getting heavy use but the lesser known trails or the ones that are typically getting overnight backpacking use are not getting a lot of use. The Great Gulf parking lot used to be full most weekends years ago and these days a heavy use weekend might have 10 cars.

peakbagger said:

I think a lot of folks are noticing that the popular trails are really getting heavy use but the lesser known trails or the ones that are typically getting overnight backpacking use are not getting a lot of use. The Great Gulf parking lot used to be full most weekends years ago and these days a heavy use weekend might have 10 cars.

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Just my point...within a half or full days drive. Also the day Hiker has become the anomaly vs The BackPacker. The trails in the WMNF were not originally designed to accommodate that. One only needs to go back a few decades to realize.

yeah. I'm not seeing this. I guess it's all in where and when you hike.

skiguy said:

Just my point...within a half or full days drive. Also the day Hiker has become the anamoly vs The BackPacker. The trails in the WMNF were not originally designed to accommodate that. One only needs to go back a few decades to realize.

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Really? The VAST VAST majority of people I see on the trail are dayhikers. I think the activation energy/money to commit to backpacking are still substantial impediments for most, but that's just my impression. Again just my impression, but the Bonds, Owl's Head and others used to be overnights for most, while I think they're considered longish day hikes these days, and many can't understand why one would want to do either as an overnight. I dunno, I could be wrong.

If "The Backpacker" was the previous norm, then a vast increase in day hikers would be an anomaly. But, yes, it doesn't seem to make sense on first reading.

It would make sense if anamoly was the antonym of anomaly.

Sorry, couldn't resist ...

marnof said:

If "The Backpacker" was the previous norm, than a vast increase in day hikers would be an anomaly. But, yes, it doesn't seem to make sense on first reading.

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Thanks for clarifying my post and sorry for the misspelling.

Musings on the crowd issues. Doing Franconia Ridge on the weekend? you must love people, I'll pass. The Agonies where named by the hut people packing up heavy loads, ( I'M PRETTY SURE). Trash on the trails has increased dramatically since the early 80's as far as I can see. The reason, the new generation could care less about anything or anyone beyond themselves. Dog's on the trail, way way more, it used to be cool to see one, now they are everywhere, although I do enjoy dog's so it's fine with me. Politeness on the trail, to be honest, it's not nearly what it used to be, see reason above. A lot of the popularity of hiking is driven by social media, peak bagging is now the " Thing" to do. Back in my day, people hiked for the love of it, now a lot of hikers just want something to post on Facebook. Many will fade away after the 4'ks are done for them, but sadly be replaced by a new crop, who care not for the stewardship of the mountains just that little red patch to brag about on Facebook. Luckely, there is still a lot of true Mtn folk out there. Many I've met this year, oh well like life itself, you take the good with the bad.

So, on Saturday I'm hiking the Great Gulf Tr. and I've reached the suspension bridge near the Madison Gulf Tr junction. A group of four young backpackers are crossing, and two of them stop on the bridge and start jumping up and down, at opposite ends, to see how much vertical amplitude they can excite. Cell phone cameras are deployed to capture the stunt. I'm standing there, in shock, waiting to cross, and all I can think about is how much effort it must have taken to build that bridge and the impact to the hiking community if that bridge was damaged; so many bridges are lost to natural causes and many are not restored. Am I just an old fart or was that unacceptable behavior? For all I know one or more in the group are members of vfft, and that it is well known that the bridge can take a little bouncing. Put another way, is this an example of the disrepect of the "current generation" of hikers or, again, am I just overreacting?

There have always been morons, they just have better equipment to document their stupidity.

Think about it this way. If the bridge was weak then they will save you and me from breaking it.

I always give the Pemi bridge at LW a good bounce any time I cross it. Just because I enjoy watching my wave travel across.

Tim

As an aside, the utilities in Maine would occasionally install three wire bridges to allow personnel to cross rivers on more remote power lines. They consisted of one cable to walk on and two cables to hold onto. There was one near a relatives camp. They had no intermediate bracing and for a kid it was quite daunting to cross the first time. It was not usual for them to be bouncing up and down a couple of feet by just walking on them. Unfortunately folks would figure out how to get them whipping about by bouncing up and down and eventually the would snap or someone would get hurt. I don't think there are anymore of them these days.

Curious, if the trails are being mobbed, how much to paggers and gridiots have to do with it? By climbing the same peak multiple times, isn't that putting "unnecessary" traffic on the trails?


(Just asking)

dug said:

Curious, if the trails are being mobbed, how much to paggers and gridiots have to do with it? By climbing the same peak multiple times, isn't that putting "unnecessary" traffic on the trails?


(Just asking)

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IMO we are all part of the Mob in one way or another.

One of the reasons AMC set up the 4000 footer club was to spread the use around to more summits by getting folks to visit summits they normally wouldn't visit. Not sure when they started the list but even then the solution to overcrowding was to try to redirect the crowds elsewhere.

Puck said:

TheCroo at Greenleaf thought Sat was the busiest day of the year. Also there were alot of sunset and moonrise watchers on Franconia Ridge.

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Oh yeah, the 'Supermoon' might have attracted a lot of people - I hadn't thought of that. Although I would think that would bring in a later arriving crowd. Good point.

peakbagger said:

One of the reasons AMC set up the 4000 footer club was to spread the use around to more summits by getting folks to visit summits they normally wouldn't visit. Not sure when they started the list but even then the solution to overcrowding was to try to redirect the crowds elsewhere.

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1957

Tim

Up in the Green Mountains on a nice day on the weekend, the GMC will usually have some kid at each summit talking to people about proper trail behavior. I think someone frequently heads up from Greenleaf to do the same on one Franconia peak or another.

That might be the way to go. We (being the AMC) might organize more naturalists to spend time on the busy summits, including Chocorua, which is probably one of the busiest, and let these folks have a quick conversation with folks about carry in/carry out, not feeding the birds, and so on. They could even hand out little cards with website links to Leave No Trace, Hike Safe, and even the AMC, where people like myself can talk about stewardship and show it in action.

I don't that most of the folks we see feeding the birds and acting stupid are intentionally acting in ways they shouldn't; but rather they simply don't know any better.

Brian

Brian