2022-01-19, 08:06 PM
Wow, a lot going on here.
First, gotta say, I'm with Daymoth on the alltrails thing; just a day or two ago I checked and was rather shocked to find those two specific places listed. I may have been asked to maintain secrecy for Room, from an NPS employee at least indirectly. Kaleidoscope is a special place to me and I got it from word of mouth. There were no tracks into either of those places when I hiked them, years (7+) ago. So what's the alltrails deal? Well once it is there, here come the hordes - that is what a lot of people use for their beta, and it is so easy, right? You just follow the GPS track in real time. No navigating. No looking at the topo map and trying to figure out which of the possible canyons a mile across the flats is the one you want. No skill. No reading the terrain or the evidence of people passage.
Does that mean any place is "secret" in this day and age? Nope. Can't be. Or rather, if you want it to be secret, tell no one. Now those two hikes are easy, but I was also looking at alltrails routes in East Zion slickrock country, which has no trails, and where you could get seriously lost, but they are out there now. That is more chilling to me than a couple of the DV spots.
I guess I sort of figure that there's a set of destinations that you figure are going to become "front country" trails - you sacrifice them for the people who come through and want a "taste". Golden Canyon to Zabriskie Pt. Mosaic. Fall (wow that trail has become super heavily used in the last decade). Heck I can remember where there were sheep trails but no real use trails up to Corkscrew. One issue in the desert is that there is no recovery - once a trail is tramped into the ground, it will be there 100 years later - often more, I know people who follow old Native American trails out there.
But is that selfish?
I first went to DV in 1990. There was no "web". The only publication was a small book by Gephardt with horribly not-to-scale maps. But it got me started. I followed those, and then had the joy to start making my own routes (which you'll never get if you just follow alltrails). Suddenly, wham, Digonnet came out. I was angry at first, as he revealed many of the places I had "discovered" (for myself, no pretense of having been the first to go there). But I tempered that with the fact that he opened a lot of doors for me in suggesting places I had not been to.
So the body of "common knowledge" is steadily increasing. As is visitation. There is pressure on the resources but precious little we can do about it. But I will never put a place I love on alltrails.
First, gotta say, I'm with Daymoth on the alltrails thing; just a day or two ago I checked and was rather shocked to find those two specific places listed. I may have been asked to maintain secrecy for Room, from an NPS employee at least indirectly. Kaleidoscope is a special place to me and I got it from word of mouth. There were no tracks into either of those places when I hiked them, years (7+) ago. So what's the alltrails deal? Well once it is there, here come the hordes - that is what a lot of people use for their beta, and it is so easy, right? You just follow the GPS track in real time. No navigating. No looking at the topo map and trying to figure out which of the possible canyons a mile across the flats is the one you want. No skill. No reading the terrain or the evidence of people passage.
Does that mean any place is "secret" in this day and age? Nope. Can't be. Or rather, if you want it to be secret, tell no one. Now those two hikes are easy, but I was also looking at alltrails routes in East Zion slickrock country, which has no trails, and where you could get seriously lost, but they are out there now. That is more chilling to me than a couple of the DV spots.
I guess I sort of figure that there's a set of destinations that you figure are going to become "front country" trails - you sacrifice them for the people who come through and want a "taste". Golden Canyon to Zabriskie Pt. Mosaic. Fall (wow that trail has become super heavily used in the last decade). Heck I can remember where there were sheep trails but no real use trails up to Corkscrew. One issue in the desert is that there is no recovery - once a trail is tramped into the ground, it will be there 100 years later - often more, I know people who follow old Native American trails out there.
But is that selfish?
I first went to DV in 1990. There was no "web". The only publication was a small book by Gephardt with horribly not-to-scale maps. But it got me started. I followed those, and then had the joy to start making my own routes (which you'll never get if you just follow alltrails). Suddenly, wham, Digonnet came out. I was angry at first, as he revealed many of the places I had "discovered" (for myself, no pretense of having been the first to go there). But I tempered that with the fact that he opened a lot of doors for me in suggesting places I had not been to.
So the body of "common knowledge" is steadily increasing. As is visitation. There is pressure on the resources but precious little we can do about it. But I will never put a place I love on alltrails.