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Bob Sihler - Dec 13, 2008 10:31 pm - Voted 10/10
Well-writtenYou should write and add more to the site. Much of what you said mirrors my exact thoughts. I suspected from our earlier conversations that you "get it" about wilderness, but know I know you do. I will be in NW WY again in early July next year-- visiting the Absarokas, Gros Ventres, Winds, and the Wyoming Range. If by any chance you will be out there again, too, I'd love to explore some of that wilderness with you.
I also attached this article to my Yellowstone and Bob Marshall pages. Thanks for posting this.
magicdufflepud - Dec 14, 2008 1:09 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Well-writtenBob,
Thanks for your kind words. After spending time in both NW Wyoming and Switzerland, I've truly come to appreciate what the United States' wildlands have to offer. The Swiss do things right when it comes to integrating cities and mountains, but there's something indescribable in America's millions of untouched acres.
If things go as planned, I'll be heading out in the Peace Corps at the end of next summer, but I fully intend to get back up into Wyoming before that happens. I'll let you know if it looks like we'll run into each other.
-Andy
Arthur Digbee - Dec 14, 2008 4:34 pm - Voted 10/10
Thanks!I enjoyed these thoughts about wildness and wilderness, especially since you're thinking in terms of the Alps and the Rockies--two regions near to my heart.
You might find this SP discussion interesting. The point farthest from a road in the US is in the Thorofare region of Yellowstone, about 40km; in continental Europe, about 10km. Thinking in terms of circles around those points, there's 16 times more wild space around the Thorofare.
But you're right, Yellowstone's tourists never see it.
magicdufflepud - Dec 14, 2008 5:34 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Thanks!Cool pointer. Makes you wonder about what those stats are for places like Western Mongolia, too.
Ski Mountaineer - Dec 17, 2008 1:29 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Thanks!10kms? Does that include the Arctic Urals, parts of the Eastern Caucasus or the Carpathians? Europe has wilder regions than most people think. Also - thinking Switzerland when thinking Europe is like thinking California or Colorado when thinking US: oversimplified, over-idealized.
Arthur Digbee - Dec 17, 2008 5:46 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: Thanks!Constraints are south of the Arctic Circle, not in former USSR. Everybody protects lots of tundra, it hardly counts.
The lower 48 United States has several wildernesses that exceed 1 million acres (404,685 ha): Boundary Waters (Minnesota), Bob Marshall complex (Montana), Frank Church-River of No Return (Idaho), Death Valley (California), Marjory Stoneman Douglas (Florida), and the east Yellowstone complex. Others (like Olympic) are close.
Europe has some big preserved areas: Danube Delta National Park (600 000 ha) and Bialowieza Primeval Forest (187 100 ha). Danube Delta has lots of development scattered about inside it.
The US wildernesses are *roadless* and undeveloped. Danube Delta and Bialowieza are not.
Europe and North America are in different leagues in terms of wildness. (You live in Austria and BC, you know the difference.)
Ski Mountaineer - Jan 7, 2009 1:49 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Thanks!Arthur,
thanks. Interesting numbers and information!
Europe and North America are in different leagues in terms of wildness - yes; after seeing the reality of Canadian and US wilderness policies, however, I am convinced that this is mostly due to the shear size of the countries than anything else.
Arthur Digbee - Jan 7, 2009 5:05 pm - Voted 10/10
Europe vs. WildYes, North America is blessed with "more space" (= "lower population density"). But we also have better policies.
Our wildernesses have no roads. European "wildernesses" have gondolas, huts, power lines, and sustainable forestry. (Some US wildernesses have livestock grazing.)
Compare this sign with this sign.
I get worked up about this stuff, as you can probably tell. :)
Dmitry Pruss - Dec 14, 2008 4:53 pm - Voted 10/10
Nice picturesand nice write-up. As much as we crave the Vast Wilderness, I learned to appreciate almost equally strongly those little snippets of wild, the patchwork of the Original Nature in the places which are closer to civilization. "Touched by development" doesn't mean unworthy of enjoyment and protection!
Yes, and lastly, one little formatting advice. Add carriage return after SP's inline pictures ;) Just one new line and it's gonna look a lot nicer!
magicdufflepud - Dec 14, 2008 5:28 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Nice picturesThanks -- how do do put in carriage returns? And you're definitely right, the mere presence of a nearby town doesn't make spending some time in nature any less fun. I do most of my hiking on AT in Virginia, and without all the little towns along the way, it'd be a lot less enjoyable. Still, in the back of my mind, it's nice to know that places like the Gila and Bob Marshall Wildernesses exist.
Dmitry Pruss - Dec 14, 2008 5:49 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: Nice picturesPut the cursor after the closing square bracket "]" and press enter.
My first fav American hikes were there too, Old Rag, White Oak, and higher up to the ridge of Shenandoahs :) But now I take time to enjoy even a half-acre patch of unspoiled foothill prairie tucked in the neighborhood. Alpine tundra is wild and often stays wild no matter the human designs. Plain grasslands aren't like that... Some wild communities just may not be "wilderness wild" anymore, but...
Arthur Digbee - Dec 15, 2008 9:42 am - Voted 10/10
Re: Nice picturesI think prairie wilderness has to be the next big project of the environmental movement. As you note, tundra generally stays wild if ignored.
Prairie doesn't stay wild but we need it, too. I know of some prairie wilderness in Theodore Roosevelt NP, but that's it (and it isn't much).
These folks, who want to "rewild" North America, forgot about the prairie entirely--the heart of the continent.
yatsek - Dec 15, 2008 10:44 am - Voted 10/10
Live or Survive"There, instead of living, we survive"
Well, depends on the meaning of the words. I'd actually tend to say: while in the city I'm just surviving; I wake up and live each time I get away back into the (not necessarily GREAT – seems like I'm with MOCKBA here) outdoors.
magicdufflepud - Dec 15, 2008 11:18 am - Hasn't voted
Re: Live or SurviveGood point, and one that makes a lot of sense. Originally, I'd been thinking about the excitement of survival: concerning yourself with just food, water, and avoiding danger, but you've looked at it in a way I hadn't considered. Maybe living day to day in the city constitutes mere survival while the woods are where we really "live." An interesting thought!
Nanuls - Dec 15, 2008 12:28 pm - Voted 10/10
Man and NatureHi Andy
Thanks for writing this article, it’s certainly and interesting and thought provoking piece, although, coming from a country which has very little in terms of true wilderness (or any at all if you apply the definitions quoted in your article), I find myself both agreeing and disagreeing with your view in more or less equal measure. Although I can appreciate true wilderness for what it is; for its scenic, environmental and physical value; and wish to see it protected as far as possible from development of any kind, I don’t’ think total wilderness necessary for “one to reconnect with themselves and the beauty of Creation”.
You discuss the natural and manmade landscape as if they are separate entities, and perhaps in North America they are, but from a European perspective, there is no such duality. Here man’s imprint on landscape is just as natural as that of its flora or fauna; we have after all, been here just as long. The cultivated valley floors and villages of Switzerland are not part of a “designed wilderness”, but are part of mans interaction with his environment, a process which has been ongoing since the Palaeolithic.
The same can be said for my own country Wales, where humans have lived, although probably discontinuously, for at least 40,000 years. We have some vast (at least in British terms) areas of ‘wilderness’ (and I use the term in its loosest sense possible) which see very few visitors, and where you could potentially hike for days without seeing a single other person. The landscape is bare and open, and has no obvious signs of human activity, yet it is an entirely human creation; in fact it’s the product of what is probably the country’s first environmental disaster. After the downwastage of the Late Devensian Ice Sheet the area became covered in a rich thermophilous forest, which was later cleared by Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to aid hunting and later, with the introduction of agricultural practices, to grow crops and raise herds. This led to the soil being leached of its nutrients, and so, when the uplands were abandoned in favour of more hospitable valley locations, the forests that once grew there were unable to re-establish themselves. This is still the case today, however, despite this not being a true wilderness it is possible to escape the entrapments of ’civilisation’, and be forced to rely on ones fitness, ability to navigate, and if needs be, survive.
I guess what I’m saying here is that although I agree that wildernesses are a hugely important and finite resource, especially in Western Europe where we have so few, they are not the only landscapes that offer the kind of experience you describe; and that some manmade landscapes are just as important, and deserve a similar level of appreciation, admiration and protection.
Anyway, keep up the good work I hope to read more from in the future.
Cheers
Dan
magicdufflepud - Dec 15, 2008 1:23 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Man and NatureDan,
Your post is nothing if not thought provoking as well. I think you've hit upon a point I'd considered implicit in my article but that could have been better illustrated. That is, wilderness is a matter of degree, and thus, the potential for escape increases commensurately with the wildness. The place you describe in Wales probably approaches the perfect escapism of wilderness, but I'd argue that humans' role in shaping that landscape (regardless of their intentions) still reminds visitors of everything we've wrought as a society. So long as we're worried about the possibility for escape, then we can hold up virgin land as the ideal. No doubt that concern comes across as academic and nit-picky, but when we start talking about ideologies it necessarily magnifies minor rumples. Practically speaking, though, I take your point.
Moreover, while I understand that a pure wilderness/civilization dichotomy ignores the possibility of a continuum, I think it's also a more profitable reading for Americans. We didn't evolve together with the land in the same way Europeans did. Instead we saw it as an enormous untapped resource, and that view, I think, informs our current relationship with it. Americans' possessive mentality explains in part why we grapple with sprawl and wildland preservation more than Europeans.
For us, free land has always provided the answer. That also puts it in greater danger. Whereas the Swiss landscape has grown and developed to maturity over several millenia, the America West in particular is still in a state of flux. Swiss valleys feature tiny, dense towns, but a similar landscape in the states would feature one gas station surround by 50 5-acre plots. It'll be interesting to see how that growth plays out in the next couple decades.
-Andy
Arthur Digbee - Dec 15, 2008 7:56 pm - Voted 10/10
Re: Man and NatureDan, I'd distinguish between "wilderness" and "natural" here. There are some evolved human landscapes in Europe that are now "natural," like English hedgerows -- so old that they're a distinctive ecosystem. Natural, but not wild.
I think we need both.
Europe increasingly frustrates me because it has only nature, not wilderness. I'm getting more and more extremist on this point as I age. For whatever reason.
BobSmith - Dec 15, 2008 5:17 pm - Voted 10/10
Nice...I wish the US government would declare eminent domain and snag many millions of acres as wilderness and National Parks. Just take it. Kick the rich off and turn it all into wilderness and park lands.
magicdufflepud - Dec 15, 2008 7:55 pm - Hasn't voted
Re: Nice...Thanks. A lot of folks in the environmental community are right there with you. After a steady childhood diet of Captain Planet and Ranger Rick, I'm only just beginning to realize how complex the issue of wilderness preservation really is.
mattnoland - Dec 15, 2008 7:37 pm - Hasn't voted
nice articleYou should take up sailing. The ocean is the biggest wilderness of all.