Re: Backcountry Meetings

bheiser,
Here in the SFBay Area (where we are still trembling from last night's 5.6 shaker and dozens of aftershocks, including a 3.7 while I was out hiking this afternoon about 2 miles from the epicenter), we have a lot of conflict between hikers, bikers, and the horsey set. Then again, it seems like everyone in this area is radicalized in one direction or another for their favorite activity/cause/lifestyle/landscaping/size of house in the neighborhood/anything you can name. Mountain bikers complain and show up at all sorts of hearings because they do not have enough mountain biking areas, paths are being closed to them (sometimes completely, sometimes certain days of the week or times of day), being restricted to established trails, or speed limits being imposed and enforced on multiuse trails (5 mph when passing other users, 15 mph at other times in most of the parks). Remember, mountain biking was "invented" here, on Mt. Tamalpais (in the Marin Headlands, just north of the Golden Gate), by our very own Gary Fisher (Barb and I were actually in college with him, as it turns out).

The horsey set is irritated that they have to share trails with other users. Many of them own and ride highstrung horses that will shy at just about anything (literally including blowing leaves, according to a friend who has several horses). Most riders and owners around here ride their horses no more than once a week, and then for only a couple hours to exercise them (they pay the stables to walk their horses daily and do the grooming). Having grown up in Arizona, where most kids went through a genuine cowboy stage, not just the play-acting, but really working on farms and ranches, plus (sigh!) leading the dudes and tenderfeet on "rides" ("dude" had a very different meaning before the 1960s and 70s). Our cowponies and Indian ponies were pretty tolerant of anything and rarely, if ever shied, except for the occasional rattlesnake (and then might decide to stomp on the snake instead). Although most pack horses in the Sierra don't shy, Jim S and I had the experience of having a pack team and accompanying riders' horses shy from our packs lying on a streambank. Most local rider horses, though, just aren't out on the trails enough to get used to hikers and bikers (or much else).

We have a very large contingent of hikers who want to restrict not only the bikers ("Uncouth Ruffians!") and horses (can't print their comments about horses and their waste products on this family-rated site), but also most hikers who do not belong to their particular hiking subset.

We are supposedly the most liberal area of the country, if not the world. But somehow, we seem to have the least tolerant set of citizens, when it comes to anyone different in any way (my city just recently expanded its restrictions and prohibitions on homeless people).

As Rodney King said, "Why can't we all just get along?"