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View Full Version : Do we need wi-fi in the National Parks?



Darin Boville
3-Nov-2014, 19:41
http://mashable.com/2014/11/03/national-parks-wifi/

--Darin

Jac@stafford.net
3-Nov-2014, 19:55
No.

Kirk Gittings
3-Nov-2014, 20:04
Yeah who needs it? I can already upload my selfies from the NPs with my iPhone....:)

Sal Santamaura
3-Nov-2014, 21:25
Do we need wi-fi in the National Parks?We don't "need" wi-fi anywhere, much less in National Parks. Rather than "increase connectivity" in NPS units, I'd like to see an FCC exception that permits the Park Service to jam visitors' devices. If that caused visitation to drop off precipitously over time, all the better. Let Parks 'devolve' into wilderness areas, reducing budgets in lockstep with declining visitor levels. This would do our natural treasures a great favor.

Given that my fantasy will not be fulfilled, the simple answer is "what Jack said," i.e. "no."

StoneNYC
3-Nov-2014, 21:57
I can't deny that in 2010 when I was hiking the Grand Canyon, when I landed in ... Indian Gardens campground? Actually forget which is which, the one that is the halfway point down before you get to Phantom Ranch. Anyway the point is, I was very excited when I was able to catch some signal and "check in" using an app called foursquare. I was able to take a picture and upload it and let everyone know where I was at the time being that I was by myself, and an epic Kodachrome adventure where many people were following my check-in's.

On the other hand, the peacefulness of being away from all technology and "getting away" from everything and just being free to socialize and not have to worry about your pocket telling you how to behave every five minutes, it's very freeing and it's one of the last places in the world where you can go and be completely free of that communication.

It's very liberating and I would hate to see them completely lose this freedom by adding Wi-Fi everywhere.

Call me a Luddite but I really think there's value in disconnecting.

C. D. Keth
3-Nov-2014, 22:13
It actually offends me that anybody is even asking that question. To consider a project to hog up money and to needlessly destroy any part of one of our parks is so contrary to the mission of the parks service that it offends me as one of the funding citizens.

Tin Can
3-Nov-2014, 22:23
Well here's a quote on NPS GC site,

'President Theodore Roosevelt said of Grand Canyon, "Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it, and man can only mar it. What you can do is to keep it for your children, your children's children, and for all who come after you, as one of the great sights which every American should see."'



No WIFI. Also ban generators and all vehicles.

Stop the choppers and airplanes from strafing the area.

Use a monorail to move people in from Flagstaff to GC then sell them water and crackers.

Pick them up 3 days later. With all their garbage.

Jac@stafford.net
3-Nov-2014, 23:10
124545

We don need no steekeen wi-fi!



Best so far: Randy: "Use a monorail to move people in from Flagstaff to GC then sell them water and crackers."

Sal Santamaura
3-Nov-2014, 23:46
I can't deny that in 2010 when I was hiking the Grand Canyon...I was very excited when I was able to catch some signal and "check in" using an app called foursquare...I experienced a similar level of excitement in the late 1980s when, while driving a rental car from Anchorage to Denali, the radio slowly but surely lost all signals, both AM and FM. Combined with the way NPS ran that park, it was the perfect National Park experience. Rather than adding wi-fi nonsense, other parks ought be transitioned to a Denali model.

Shen45
3-Nov-2014, 23:54
Why not go all out and put towers on top of Half Dome etc and while at it put hundreds of the ever attractive wind farms strategically placed to kill off every natural vista. Anyone that needs WiFi in national parks needs something other than Wifi. Now where did I put that Luddite emoticon?

Tin Can
4-Nov-2014, 00:05
I have been to GC 6 times, North, South, top, bottom, up river, down river, Lake Mead, Lake Powell mostly in the 70's and I always find the human trace repulsive. Too many people, too many cameras, too many vehicles and paved roads. :(

Yes, I drove to each section, but I love to find the absolute longest, worst road, roundabout weird back door to travel in a normal car. Basicly I attempt jeep trail in 2 wheel drive.

Gives me an illusion of adventure with the chance of failure and death. The climb to Page on the old rear road was truly a thrill in a 1970 Grand Prix.

The West needs fewer people and less civilization. But those days are over for me. I gots memories, real good memories.

I want to go to GC one more time. On train from Chicago to Williams and then the local to the 'Village'.

Monorail next life...

StoneNYC
4-Nov-2014, 05:09
I experienced a similar level of excitement in the late 1980s when, while driving a rental car from Anchorage to Denali, the radio slowly but surely lost all signals, both AM and FM. Combined with the way NPS ran that park, it was the perfect National Park experience. Rather than adding wi-fi nonsense, other parks ought be transitioned to a Denali model.

My point was about illustrating both sides of the coin, feel that I don't want anymore infrastructure because it's going to ruin the natural landscape and beauty of the place, well also commenting that I did see the value in a way in being able to establish a connection with the above the canyon towers, which had EDGE technology that enabled me to connect with the Internet long enough to upload an image and post a status saying that I was still alive and that made my mother feel really good.

When I got to the bottom and Phantom Ranch I was also able to call my mother on the telephone using the old landline that was established probably 50 years ago and runs the entire length from Phantom Ranch to the top via a very long metal tube and also some actual telephone pole wires, that is pretty distracting but because it's no antiquated and the lines are topped with those old glass electrical protectors, it no longer is offensive. Perhaps someday those old-fashioned cell towers will look acquaints to us? Anyway now I'm on a tangent, my point was simply that there are pluses and minuses everything but ultimately I truly believe we should not disturb any more of the parks and we already have, it already upsets me that we have a road going around that beautiful beautiful eruption in Yellowstone so you know longer get that picturesque colorful image without a road in the scene, because apparently people can't walk there on their own...

Jim Jones
4-Nov-2014, 07:48
Tools are tools. They make some activities more efficient and enjoyable, They can also interfere with enjoying other activities. Wi-fi, like motor vehicles, cameras, and visitor facilities, is just another tool. We could make the National Parks pure natural resources by letting the roads crumble away and banning wheeled vehicles, reliable water sources, electronics, toilets, and all the other unnatural clutter. This would save the parks for the elite few who could best utilize them. On the other hand, we could open the parks to unlimited ATVs and tent cities. Better yet, we should find the balance between unsullied nature and unlimited access that makes our park system such a treasure. Properly used, wi-fi is just another tool that can enhance a visit to the parks, or blind the user to the park's glory. That is up to the individual.

Sal Santamaura
4-Nov-2014, 07:52
...The West needs fewer people and less civilization...A good observation but too narrow. Substitute "world" for "West."

MDR
4-Nov-2014, 08:04
I thought the whole reason for going into National Park is to enjoy nature and to be away from normal life and technology. People are already more in the net than in the real world if you give them internet access in the parks they won't look at Nature but at an image of nature on a screen and that right next to the real deal. All I can say this is nothing but the I-Society planing to strike they want to make selfies right next to natures great monuments and post it on FB right away. Do they care about nature nope, they only care about having their picture on FB.

Jim National Parks were made to preservere nature so maybe it would be right to let Nature take over anyone and not only an elite can have access but they can't use modern transportation God or evolution gave us legs to walk or at least a wheelchair everything else is luxury.

Sal Santamaura
4-Nov-2014, 08:06
My point was about illustrating both sides of the coin...I understood what you intended and used your post as basis for turning it upside down. My life's experiences lead to the conclusion that there shouldn't even be a coin and, if there must be, both sides ought be the same. :)


...the old landline that was established probably 50 years ago and runs the entire length from Phantom Ranch to the top via a very long metal tube and also some actual telephone pole wires, that is pretty distracting but because it's no antiquated and the lines are topped with those old glass electrical protectors, it no longer is offensive...It's no less offensive now than the day it was put in. Should be ripped out.


...Perhaps someday those old-fashioned cell towers will look acquaints to us?...Until the sun burns out in five billion years or humanity extinguishes itself, whichever comes first, cell towers will be visual eyesores and have no chance of being "quaint."


...there are pluses and minuses everything...With respect to the subject of this thread, the only "plusses" are in favor of telecom landscape desecrators. What you interpret as positives, i.e. sending photos to and speaking with family members from what should in my opinion be a wild area, are actually huge negatives. Unfortunately, only a vanishingly small percentage of homo sapiens ever reach the point of understanding that, so brace yourself for ever-increasing infrastructure and human intrusion into NPS units.

tgtaylor
4-Nov-2014, 08:21
They are not talking about putting WiFi throughout the park but only in the “developed” areas such as Yosemite Valley where, except for the library, the concessionaire DNC already has a monopoly on it. Ninety-nine percent of the people who visit Yosemite go no further than the valley which, like most of you who have posted here, is the limit of the “wilderness experience.” There is no reason to extend connectivity further.

Thomas

Jmarmck
4-Nov-2014, 09:13
No WiFi. That is one of the reasons I go to these places. I have been known to leave my phone at home. I do not have GPS in my 12 year old truck (nor in my Nikon).
If I cannot read a map I have no business being out there. As a cartographer I like this idea. Bring back the 1:24,000 7.5 minutes Topographic series maps......on paper. I know you can still get them but they need to be updated.

Drew Wiley
4-Nov-2014, 09:51
Sounds like just another huge pork barrel scam, which will be technologically obsolete soon enough anyway. I have good reason for saying that. A high school buddy of mine inherited the rural phone company and then got tens of millions of bucks of Fed money to run fiber optics thru the hills. One line went past my
little ranch and dead-ended at the resident cowboy's mobile home next door. He didn't even own a computer. Another branch went way up into the hills and dead
ended at an abandoned logging town. Zero users. The third branch went to a fishing camp which is accessible only in summer and has no electricity anyway, except for a generator. Each of these spots potentially has more internet speed than our state capital, yet no more than three users on the whole system - maybe two now that the little local hardware store has closed! This kind of nonsense transpired all over the West. Do we really want to see big trenching machines tearing up the sides of NP roads, with mandatory widening, tree removal, and other significant disruption? And it is an ugly process. Real ugly. The
geeks have already ruined some of the best orchard land in the nation by paving over it to create Silicon Valley in the first place. ... And like I want to go to
Yellowstone to witness "wild" wolves all wearing radio collars???????? Enough is enough.

Tin Can
4-Nov-2014, 10:29
My vision of a sustainable future is huge dome cities, keeping everybody inside, unless they want to walk anywhere else. Underground gravity trains between 'igloos' and only farms, woods and raw nature everywhere else.

I vote we dome Chicago first and tear up all suburbia for regrowth.

Drew Wiley
4-Nov-2014, 10:53
The fact is, that exactly three Parks in the West are the cash cows that finance much of the entire system, namely, Yosemite Valley, Jellystone, and the south rim
of the Grand. Therefore they encourage a LOT of tourism to these three destinations, and want all the amenities of what these places represent in peak season.
Yos Valley is in fact a city of up to 30,000 people on a typical summer weekend. Which is why I avoid it. Why wouldn't I, when there are entire chunks of backcounty even within that same Park jurisdiction where one might hike for a week with only 50/50 odds of even seeing another person? I spent two week last
months in the Wind Rivers, where I had a stunning campsite right beside the river on a meadow at big as Tuolumne Mdws, with no one in the entire thing other
than us. Why the hell would I want to drive into Yellowstone stuck behind 500 cars? I did stock briefly at Jackson on the way home, then headed the OPPOSITE
direction. No traffic, fabulous scenery. When I deliberately go to Jellystone, it's on the edge of off-season, just like Zion, or Yos, or GC.... which also seems to
be when things are the most beautiful anyway. But there is this tension in the highly popular parks to compromise between an outdoor experience and something
more akin to a full-featured theme park. As kids we appropriately nicknamed Yosemite as "Curry National Park" for the concessionaire that seemed to dictate
policy there. The Ken Burns NP documentary series on the NP's is really informative for the history behind all this tension. Fortunately, there are still lots of
Parks where solitude is abundant, even close to the road. One of the most heavily visited NP areas in the nation is right across the bridge - Pt Reyes and the
Golden Gate area ... and even there I can find solitude any day of the year. 95% of the people always go to only 5% of the places, no matter which area is in
consideration. But I was annoyed last Saturday on one of the local trails when some jogger trotted past my Norma & Ries not only wearing one of those idiotic
wristbands that allegedly tells you how many calories you are burning, but audibly broadcast it. Never encountered it before. If he's too stupid to know whether
he is getting exercise of not that's his problem. But I don't need to hear from his silly techie toy.

Jac@stafford.net
4-Nov-2014, 11:07
My vision of a sustainable future is huge dome cities, keeping everybody inside, unless they want to walk anywhere else. Underground gravity trains between 'igloos' and only farms, woods and raw nature everywhere else.

Arcosanti? https://arcosanti.org/sites/default/files/images/CIM-62-J300.jpg

Vaughn
4-Nov-2014, 11:20
Well, following someone else's wording somewhere back in the past, these major National Sacraficial Areas are there to attract the masses, generate income and bigger budgets so that the rest of the wilderness is left alone. And perhaps a chance to do a little propaganda stuff for the environment in general. And talk about propaganda, I mean park interpretation opportunties! Educational content available tailored to specific locations on the nature trails and vehicle tours. Just put in fiber optics under the roadway...no extra visible infrastructure -- and it slows down traffic so people can enjoy the park scenery even more!

But actually, I think this whole thing is just so that Park and concessioneer employees can download porn, I mean games, I mean data faster.

(some satire died for this post)

Tin Can
4-Nov-2014, 11:21
I like the North woods about this time. Nobody there and since it is heavily wooded, it is easy to get lost in very little time. I get pissed if I see an airplane.

Summer madness is over, snowmobile Hell has not started, not gun hunting season, however bow is on now, no problem. Leaves have dropped. Nobody home.

I have often felt more isolated camping in empty parks in the North than the middle of the Mojave, where you can see them coming for 10 miles. I suppose mountains can be great, but I never could climb for long. Solo Free climb 300 feet in my youth was it. Still proud of that. Nobody had done it on that face in 1970. I wasn't a climber. I saw the route and went, my buddy froze way below me and I had to go back down which wasn't fun and then talk him up. I was real worried about him. Another friend was found dead on the bottom...

A lot of my male friends died before 21, I never thought I would live to 21. I am on borrowed time.

Vaughn
4-Nov-2014, 11:41
Working on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, it was easy enough to find ways to get away from tourists. And having spending a lot of time in Yosemite Valley ('off' season), it is easy to get away from people there, too...even without the Pass or Glacier Point being open.

I have a National Park (and its adjacent State Redwood Parks) almost in my backyard, so I am a bit spoiled. Easy enough to find solitude within minutes from one's car (a 50 mile drive north from home). Took a couple senior portraits of my boys (5x7, TMax400) this past Sunday up there. There are no park entry stations, no day-use fees except the Gold Bluff Beach/Fern Canyon area (State), and no wi-fi for sure.

Tin Can
4-Nov-2014, 12:14
Arcosanti? https://arcosanti.org/sites/default/files/images/CIM-62-J300.jpg

Been there. A failed materialization. I couldn't believe how poorly it was designed and constructed.

We don't have dome tech yet, nor gravity train tech.

Maybe in 500 years, but we need it sooner.

Preston
4-Nov-2014, 12:23
People are already more in the net than in the real world if you give them internet access in the parks they won't look at Nature but at an image of nature on a screen and that right next to the real deal.

I think it was Steve Roper, a long-time Yosemite climber, who said, "People would sit at the amphitheater at Yosemite Lodge and watch movies of Yosemite Falls, rather than walk the 1/2 mile to experience directly the spray from the second highest waterfall on Earth."

So, society hasn't changed much since the 60's; only the means by which they choose to connect to the world. Personally, I prefer spray in my face on a Spring morning.

--P

Drew Wiley
4-Nov-2014, 12:36
Literally one yard outside the fence to the main official entrance to Zion NP in Springdale there's an IMax theater where you can "see the park". I wouldn't mind
that kind of thing if it were forty miles out of town.... Anyway, drive past it five minutes, ignore all the signs to the favorite sights, and there's a lovely highly photogenic little side canyon with exactly zero people in it. Popular trails, along with tour guides and trail guides have a useful purpose: they inform you where not to go. Otherwise, let nature take its course. My favorite time ever in Yos Valley was one Jan when it snowed so hard cars could get neither in or out for three days.

Drew Wiley
4-Nov-2014, 12:43
Vaughn - you'd get a kick out of this. When "TARP" money was getting spread around, the city decided to resurface several main streets leading toward City Hall etc. Having accomplished that, they decided to use the next installment to modernize things with fiber optics to the same hub. So the brand new streets get all chewed up all over again, but in a linear gopher-hole pattern, which naturally settled into a regular pattern of giant chuckholes all up and down the new boulevards. Given the choice between what badgers and ground squirrels do to topography and what humans engineers do, I have come to the opinion that rodents and furry carnivores are a lot smarter than we are.

Jmarmck
4-Nov-2014, 12:44
Well they can "dome" this #%^@hole. If only to keep the bad in.

Just let me escape first.

Deval
4-Nov-2014, 13:38
There is no doubt that the younger generations included connectivity via the internet as part of their identity and existence. Ie, if their aren't connected, they are missing some item crucial to their lives...like taking a dog away from his pack...
It is indeed sad...I don't think we need to contribute to internet addiction. If they come with connectivity(sat phone), great...let them have it

StoneNYC
4-Nov-2014, 16:07
I understood what you intended and used your post as basis for turning it upside down. My life's experiences lead to the conclusion that there shouldn't even be a coin and, if there must be, both sides ought be the same. :)

It's no less offensive now than the day it was put in. Should be ripped out.

Until the sun burns out in five billion years or humanity extinguishes itself, whichever comes first, cell towers will be visual eyesores and have no chance of being "quaint."

With respect to the subject of this thread, the only "plusses" are in favor of telecom landscape desecrators. What you interpret as positives, i.e. sending photos to and speaking with family members from what should in my opinion be a wild area, are actually huge negatives. Unfortunately, only a vanishingly small percentage of homo sapiens ever reach the point of understanding that, so brace yourself for ever-increasing infrastructure and human intrusion into NPS units.

Hey Sal, trust me I get what you're saying, I do understand the larger picture of not having so much infrastructure in our lives and allowing some nature to be left alone.

About the comment that cell towers will never be "quaint"I wanted to point to this image

124586

As I understand it this is the site of the first fortified structure known to have been built. Although some might of said it was the destruction of the area surrounding it, when looking into the past it can be something beautiful in itself and you cannot for see how future generations will perceive cell towers as they crumble...

Drew Wiley
4-Nov-2014, 16:40
My favorite snicker last week was watching the flick taken by one of those nosy little drones when a red-tailed hawk attacked and downed it. The last of the sequence was a view of the ground spinning around just before the crash. One more reason to love hawks.

jb7
4-Nov-2014, 16:51
What a unanimous chorus.

Of course, if you really wanted to deal with this problem in an efficient manner, you might be better off banning petrol and electricity. You'd all be good with that, right?

The landscape, the wilderness, for the most part it's a fiction. Behind every nature documentary there's usually two helicopters. Why not deal with the reality of the situation, rather than try to say it was better way back when? Might not photography be a useful tool in the presentation of that which is in front of you rather than that which was behind you?

C. D. Keth
4-Nov-2014, 19:45
What a unanimous chorus.

Of course, if you really wanted to deal with this problem in an efficient manner, you might be better off banning petrol and electricity. You'd all be good with that, right?

I'd be all for that if the whole parks system could still be well enough funded.

Sal Santamaura
5-Nov-2014, 15:37
...if you really wanted to deal with this problem in an efficient manner, you might be better off banning petrol and electricity. You'd all be good with that, right?...I can't speak for "all," but I'd be good with that inside National Parks.


...Why not deal with the reality of the situation, rather than try to say it was better way back when?...Because the reality of the situation is that it was better way back when. As long a "back when" is long enough ago. :)

Drew Wiley
5-Nov-2014, 16:28
The problem with Yosemite on a year like this, is that given the drought - meaning a very short season for viewing the waterfalls, then very disruptive fires - that adds up to less tourists dollars overall in the same year as a lot of unexpected significant expenses. So they're probably flipping around ideas. Congress might be less than friendly about sending any more funding toward the Parks. Won't go into that for obvious reasons. But disaster are piling up, and more giant fires per se are inevitable. And I suspect the NP has to bear at least some of the expense if this occurs within their designated boundaries. At the very least, their own personnel and roads get tied up. Yosemite actively advertises here in the Bay Area to get more people in there in the winter, when accommodations are generally underbooked. Oh well... I do have another Yos trip in my sights, but it's nowhere near a road or even an established trail. Those kind of things need to get done first, before I get too old to do them.

Jac@stafford.net
5-Nov-2014, 16:35
For those weary of modern life might enjoy looking at the films of Richard Louis Proenneke.

Fred L
5-Nov-2014, 19:22
I was thinking of finally getting those dvds lol. saw some short clips and the dude is legend.

jp
5-Nov-2014, 21:18
There are three separate issues here being discussed.

It sounds like a pork project waste of money, but politics aside, I'd encourage it/favor it. Fiber is more reliable, longer lasting, less expensive, physically smaller and safer than any copper it replaces. To not replace a copper data/phone line with fiber at some point is luddite.

I like the idea of disconnecting, but forcing that on someone isn't as good as deliberately choosing to disconnect for a time.

Wifi is good for business at campsites/lodging.

Timothy Blomquist
5-Nov-2014, 22:11
In "Desert Solitaire", Edward Abbey referred to National Parks as "National Parking Lots". He was an advocate of removing all asphalt from the roads in these parks and melting the stuff and pouring it back down the oil well hole it came from. Too many Parks are close to urban areas anyway, so you'll get some kind of signal. More remote places like the Needles District of Canyonlands National Park, probably not. I spent the Bi-Centennial Summer of 1976 working with a Boy Scout troop at Arches National Monument (now a Park) outside of Moab, Utah. I picked up trash and put toilet paper in port-a-potties. At that time in history, the place was not yet over developed and there was still a certain raw feel to the place.

I am no fan of cell towers in or around National Parks, especially the back-country places. There is nothing more irritating than watching some bone head walking around, head down with their right thumb sliding back and forth across some hand held "smart phone", totally oblivious to their surroundings. If old "Cactus Ed" Abbey (we called him that in a class I had with him at the U of AZ) was alive today, he would probably think these smart phones are a good thing and would assist Darwin in reducing the overpopulation problem. Nothing better than not watching what you're doing, texting away or sharing selfies on the edge of the 600 foot cliff behind Delicate Arch. These devices cause the average human to lose situational awarness and potentially become part of the food chain or landscape.

Tin Can
6-Nov-2014, 00:21
I have read all Abbey, I put him up there with Hesse.

Timothy Blomquist
6-Nov-2014, 07:10
To be honest though, Wi-Fi is probably the least damaging to these Parks. The Genie is out of the bottle. Industrial tourism is the norm in these major Parks and now you have traffic jams, Starbucks and fast food joints. Actually such development can provide interesting photographic opportunities if you don't do pretty pictures of nature. Be thankful you still have wilderness areas that aren't developed.

Kirk Gittings
6-Nov-2014, 09:05
If old "Cactus Ed" Abbey (we called him that in a class I had with him at the U of AZ) was alive today, he would probably think these smart phones are a good thing and would assist Darwin in reducing the overpopulation problem. Nothing better than not watching what you're doing, texting away or sharing selfies on the edge of the 600 foot cliff behind Delicate Arch.

Having known Abbey a bit back in the 70's, I believe that is exactly what he would say. I remember him saying something like he wished bears would eat more hikers as a wilderness should be dangerous, unpredictable etc. where one should have to actually confront possible death.

Drew Wiley
6-Nov-2014, 09:37
So how many of you have seen fiber optics run into mtn areas? It's a messy business and requires a distinct amount of road widening. Do you really think they'd
rip up and replace the roadbed itself up to do this? It was already intensely controversial when they did a minor amount of widening and modernization to the road relative to flooding along the Merced River. Then you've got "salvage loggers" drooling over the possibility of clearing the trees, who always seem to mow a few rows wider than they are supposed to. Another hornet's nest. Financially the difference is that fiber optics themselves are pork-barreled under a different division of the budget, namely the Rural Electrification Act, which was originally intended to supply electricity to rural farm areas in the Great Depression, but has been kept on artificial life support ever since. Roads on the other hand would have to be repaired or replaced from the distinctly limited NP budget. So that in itself tells you how fiber optics would be run. It would be a big ugly mess, probably involving dynamite in places, and probably the Park mgt would get stoned
to death with the leftover rubble for doing that. But I wouldn't be in that crowd, cause I have my own ways of entering the Park, and they sure as hell don't
involve any roads anyway. My favorite NP in the Sierra is Kings Can, cause the road just barely enters it, into the campground down in Cedar Grove, and all
the rest is roadless; quite a bit of it without trails too. But that confronting death stuff, I dunno. Been there, done that enough. Go thru it every morning I commute the freeway. Backcountry is safer. At least a hungry grizzly has a motive to eat you - he won't accidentally kill you trying to text a message behind
the wheel or typing on a laptop while putting on lipstick and steering with his left foot.

Vaughn
6-Nov-2014, 12:09
I have read all Abbey, I put him up there with Hesse.

Thems fightin' words...

Actually, I think they are pretty close together on my book shelf.

Timothy Blomquist
6-Nov-2014, 12:24
Thems fightin' words...

Actually, I think they are pretty close together on my book shelf.
When I met Abbey, he had moved to Arizona and was guest "professor" at the U of A Tucson, and I took the semester class. My impression of Abbey was that he was sort of a literary version of George Carlin. If the two had met, they would have gotten along well.

Jim Cole
7-Nov-2014, 18:14
I experienced a similar level of excitement in the late 1980s when, while driving a rental car from Anchorage to Denali, the radio slowly but surely lost all signals, both AM and FM. Combined with the way NPS ran that park, it was the perfect National Park experience. Rather than adding wi-fi nonsense, other parks ought be transitioned to a Denali model.

Yeah, Denali is the ultimate NP experience. It really feels like you have stepped back in time to the Pleistocene era. A very magical place! No wi-fi needed!

Bob Sawin
8-Nov-2014, 10:45
I have a mental image of some wired up/dialed in hiker walking off a trail while "tweeting"...

dsphotog
8-Nov-2014, 11:06
They can build cell towers that look "just like" trees.
Drivers texting on twisty mountain roads could improve the gene pool when they go off a cliff.

jp
8-Nov-2014, 20:07
Like it or not, when someone is not killing themselves posting a photo/tweet/checkin, they are advertising the national park in a way slick advertising can't touch. It's very valuable promotion.

I personally think it's smarter not to post your whereabouts when traveling, or that you are traveling. It's like "Hey, I'm not home, go pilfer my cameras and tools".

Tin Can
8-Nov-2014, 20:53
I am always home

analoguey
8-Nov-2014, 21:54
Impressive. Anti-Social network tools as the new 'colas'/junk food. (probably recognised so in another 10-15yrs?)
I think it was Mashable or one such site which posted that Facebook is going to have a "I'm safe" button so people caught in natural calamities could let people at home know - Of course, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes completely bypass phone and data networks!

When I went to the mountains, one of the kickass things was being away from phone networks -at least for a little while. In fact, at one lake, I remember it being so quiet, I could hear my heartbeat - and I thought 'This is heaven!'.

My brother(he's 23) had the same opinion as well. Something on the lines of 15 days of freedom, he said.

If you're going to a national park, mountain -in whichever country- to check-in on Facebook, 4sq or whatever, stay home!

StoneNYC
8-Nov-2014, 22:08
That's Google... And they have it already, it only appears when huge disasters actually happen

Sal Santamaura
8-Nov-2014, 22:51
...Of course, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes completely bypass phone and data networks!...In all but the most extreme such events, traditional copper land line phone networks keep working. On their own (central office-supplied) power. With 99.999% reliability. :)