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Posted by calamity on February 10, 2008 at 5:09:55 am EST
In reply to building a campfire - sometimes it's just not right posted by bheiser1 on September 11, 2007 at 7:08:52 pm EDT

Statistics, as the primary tool of social sciences, offer a useful, and probably the only means of interpreting the impact of users on the back country.

Regarding both risk and environmental issues, they provide the "big picture," and are truly essential in both the insurance and financial industries, to say nothing of public safety agencies, and even outdoor retailers and advertisers.

To doubt their utility and meaning, would be, to say the least, intellectually very unsound.

Of course, if somebody trashes a campsite, or unwittingly tries somehow, to commit suicide in the wilderness, statistics won't absolve them from personal responsibility.

With regard to campfires, obviously scarring the land or burning it down is something that does happen, unfortunately, and is to be seriously discouraged.

But it may be that the average hiker causes greater damage to the environment simply by driving their car to a trailhead or to their job, or the supermarket. Personally, wilderness novice and poseur that I am, walk to work.

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