Re: Fletcher Vs Kephart

Calamity - you show ME where it says that Batso "drank himself to death in a trailer" - if it's on-line I'd like the URL - just for my own edification - not that it matters - he was what, 77 years old when he passed which in my eyes is a pretty danged good life and having your friends and family around you when you pass (mentioned in his obit) seems like it'd be a great way to go. Romantic? Perhaps not - but then again - what form of death is romantic?

As writers, neither Fletcher nor Harding could be considered either prolific nor influential. Both Fletcher and Harding wrote with a fantastic sense of humor but neither could be considered members of the literati. Both wrote in a somewhat journalistic and instructional style rather than attempting to create great literature.

I'm not a fan of Kephart, his writing is interesting but his methods are from a different time. He was quite influential in creating the Smokey Mountain National Park - so that's a positive, but to camp today as he did early in the last century would be, at a minimum, unethical and for good reason, our understanding of personal environmental impact has grown well beyond that of Kephart's time.

I don't know if Batso ever climbed in the Gunks or Joshua Tree or Eldorado Canyon for that matter - as his thing was big walls, I don't know why he'd have bothered.

So - Fletcher verus Kephart - well Kephart is interesting from an historical point of view - the methods he describes having used are fine examples of how not to camp in the modern world. Fletcher, coming from a more modern time, better reflects the real world ethics and concerns of wilderness travel in the late 20th to early 21st centuries.

Batso? Batso wrote about suffering and hard work with such a great sense of adventure and humor it made you want to climb - it made you look at quarries and cliff faces and "see" routes. Batso also let you know, as a young reader, that if convention was holding you back or standing in the way of your dreams - to say to heck with convention and follow those dreams and see where they could take you. His audience may have been limited - but for many of us who read DB when we were young - he was quite influential.

Plus - any of 'em were more fun to read than Camus.