Where's the Wilderness?

Kelly just sent me an article from that site I was reppin yesterday, Out Your Backdoor. It talks about ultra-light vs traditional backpacking. They brought to mind a question that Kelly and Dan Clifton and I were talking about. More like Kelly and I were trying to convince Cold Cut of our point. The question is: When you're out backpacking in the wilderness, how self sufficient are you? Can you really get that wilderness experience? My answer to that question is reluctantly no. Ever since I really got into going out and hiking (i think every break from school I've had for the last 3 or 4 years I've gone on some sort of wilderness trip) I've had this idea that I was going into the wilderness and being self sufficient. Well thats not the case at all because I still have to bring all my food, stuff to cook with, and then gadgets to filter water.

It's too crowded to go out there like Daniel Boone slay 91 bears and build a fire and shelter for the night. Our public land is taxed as it is. There are so many people that use the land many states have restrictions on how you can use it, whether you can have a camp fire, where you can hike, etc. When you go out there you usually see other people. My first trip there were some locals down the river from us hooting and hollering all night long. I can't say I've been many places where I haven't seen a single person. So the thing is you just have to call a spade a spade.

My perspective about the wilderness has changed and also my perspective about travel has changed. Really what I'm interested in is traveling, and the more self sufficient I can make it the better e.g. more places I can camp, more forms of human power I can use, more people I can meet. There's not a place in the lower 48 that man has not touched, so there's no point in going in with a DB attitude.

Also I've found that I travel places everyday (work, school, etc) and have found that the best way to get there is the way that involves the most adventure (it would be sweet to paddle to work). I tried to explain to my mom how we plan trips (to colorado, to louisville, to the smokies) and I told her that we really look for the most variation in transportation, and the most adventurous way to do it. It turns out that those are usually a good way to save a lot of money (Last summer four of us went to Colorado for about 350 bucks each). So really you can travel the new American landscape with a DB, pioneering attitiude, you just can't do it like he did it.

For a while now I've wanted to take a trip down to Red River Gorge by bike and then hike around for a couple of days. One of the best trips I've been on has been canoeing down the Ohio River to Louisville. We got to see a lot of variation between country and city. I think that's what its all about for me the contrast of the country and the city, seeing people vs no people. O and industry, whenever I can see industry thats pretty tight like power plants and barges.

Being self sufficient is all about doing it yourself and also, for me, spending as little money as you can while doing it. Self sufficiency really gives me that wilderness feeling. With that I can be in the wilderness in the most urban area like when Kelly and I traveled from Staten Island to Brooklyn via bike and the Staten Island Ferry. Or when Witz and I traveled from Baltimore to New York to Boston via bike, bus, bike, bus, and bike (in that order).

This pretty much goes back to that dude's point in the article where he talks about ultra-light vs traditional. It just comes down to the experience you get out of it, and you can get a good experience from either. There's still frontier, it just doesn't look like it did in the 1770's.