Author Topic: Trail marking  (Read 5131 times)

Greenbare Woods

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #15 on: September 25, 2018, 04:13:21 PM »
The State Park ranger patrols this trail about once a week, in a truck.  Only visitors walk the trail.  He took down my sign.Its

In all the times I've been there I've never seen anyone else on the trail.  Let them walk naked.

 


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jbeegoode

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #16 on: September 26, 2018, 12:38:19 AM »
Definition of wild I suppose needs to be clarified, but I must tell you about how I felt that I felt that I was in a wild place this weekend.

On the way up the whindy dirt road, a cougar as big as a good sized human being stood and decided to move from our headlights.

The sign says "designated wilderness." The trail became more rustic, the only good water source was a spring pumping into an old bathtub. In the morning as we sat imbibing the place, watching a white hawk using strategy to hunt, there was a rustling in the bushes to our left. A black bear, startled by us, ran up the hill 50 feet away, turned to look and then ran up hill. That evening, 3am, we were awoken by bright lanterns and a greeting from the border patrol. The frequent deer stood and watched us, confused. The place had burned twice over the last 50 years and everything was coming back alive diverse and natural with stands of surviving old growth. We saw few people, the weather was unpredictable. Two border patrol officers came running by, but couldn't talk, "We've got a couple of guys," they ran off to catch illegals sneaking through the wilderness under a smuggler's moon. There were remnants and reminders of the wild west mining and clear cutting. The trail was generally over grown...felt wild. The 9400 ft. peak was a 360 half in Arizona and half in Mexico. A city below us, the other 340 degrees and about 100 miles out showed mountain ranges and wide open spaces. Oh, and when weather permited, we had no problem with being naked.

Any other definitions of wild out there? Had a good time, jus' had ta tell someone.
Jbee  ;D

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BlueTrain

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #17 on: September 26, 2018, 08:56:20 PM »
I still like untamed best.

BlueTrain

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #18 on: September 30, 2018, 03:22:42 PM »
I happened to pull an old book down from the shelf the other day entitled 'The Wilderness Life,' by Calvin Rutstrum. It was written probably at the height of the camping-backpacking-back to nature era in 1975. He wrote several books that have wilderness in the title. My favorite, though, is Paradise below zero. He can be a little preachy at times and is decidedly North Country oriented, though one of his titles is 'Greenhorns in the Southwest.' He has a lot to say and I don't agree with everything but it's thought-provoking.

His general thesis is that we, personally, need wilderness, or as he sometimes says, wildness. Thoreau was sort of the same. But after a while you begin to wonder about them. Thoreau was a good writer and everything he wrote is easy to read. Rutstrum is a little harder. In reality, Thoreau was a suburbanite. Rutstrum was a write who had a place in the city and a place in the North Woods. Most people do very well and are as happy as can be where they are in spite of what Rutstrum says.

I don't mean for this to be a book review, though. But it made me wonder if there were people who lived close to nature, or more accurately, close to the earth and if so, which there undoubtedly are, how they might see things.

There are indeed those who spend their lives thusly, like farmers, loggers, ranchers and a few others. What do you suppose they think of wilderness? The farmer spends his time keeping nature at bay, in a manner of speaking. If anything, he's as close to the earth as anyone can be, unless you throw in miners. I suppose the only thing that is common among them all is that they don't want to live in the city or the suburbs. A small town is all the city they can stand. Maybe we all want to be what I call backwoodsmen.

jbeegoode

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #19 on: September 30, 2018, 07:10:14 PM »


Blue train wrote: "There are indeed those who spend their lives thusly, like farmers, loggers, ranchers and a few others. What do you suppose they think of wilderness?"


Perspectives, attitudes, experiences and the nature of the immediate nature vary considerably. The degree that one must keep nature at bay to survive, to be comfortable, varies.

Walking through a wilderness, not over hunted, over-grazed, over hiked, so as to be, again, to a degree pristine, is an exceptional experience. Spending time there brings natural rhythms, human nature is noticed in a more original environment.

What I used to have and still mostly do, is a warm/cool home with a water line, electric line and phone line running to it, in a pretty pristine place. I am allowed the best of both worlds. I can just sit in it and observe it and be less governed by the nature around me. It is beautiful. It is a far cry from living in a hut out here, with indeterminate water source, etc.

When out camping or backpacking, I am visiting. I bring food, I don't forage. I can move water around in bottles and filter it. I don't live there. I am also able to get closer, to experience, to be thrilled, to use all of my senses. Nudity augments that. There is spirituality and learning the sense of being in tune, a part of a greater whole, and there is wonderment.

When I'm in a wild area, it is apparent that there is a quality much different from the trailhead, the family campground, the trampled exploited lands, etc. I better understand wild when nude. I understand better still. There is huge education and are lessons to be had there lost by modern human existence.

Maybe I'm saying, "Wild" ya know it when you are there."

Maybe like "Porn, I know it when I see it."
Jbee
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BlueTrain

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #20 on: September 30, 2018, 07:21:59 PM »
Nice reply; good comments. We are part of nature, of course, but we're mostly tamed. Without humans around, a place will go wild in no time.

jbeegoode

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #21 on: September 30, 2018, 07:57:55 PM »
All of the raspberry briar scratches on my legs will testify to that. The tall grass at the camp site, the huge cave hole that we didn't see until after setting up camp, the change after man made fires devastate. In the desert, the disappearance of my stealth trail in sort order. Up, she gets scars, and damaged, but she comes back at some pace, on her own terms.
Jbee
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BlueTrain

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #22 on: September 30, 2018, 09:34:08 PM »
When I was still a teenager, already "running around naked" in the woods, as I have done every since in varying degrees of frequency, my shins were always scratched from the briers and stickers where I went. Yet I never worried about or was troubled by ticks (no deer) or poison ivy (which also must have been absent). I would see a snake very occasionally, as I still do, but aside from a slip and fall in the woods when I was in college, I was never hurt. Such times that I had to go see the doctor were from falls at home, both inside and outside or when I got in fights. So, just like Robert Service maintained, it's safer out there.

Among many other things, I've interested in monasticism. The first monastics, mostly hermits, were in the Egyptian desert. They went there after Christianity became legal, which is also when it became required (sound familiar?). Well, anyway, when the monastic idea spread to the West, new houses were often said to be established "in the desert." Yet there are no deserts in Europe. Just like wilderness, desert is as much a state of mind as anything else. By the way, the very first monastery is still in business, in a manner of speaking, in Egypt. And like everything else, they have a website. They probably do not really approve of nudity in spite of the admonition to "always be naked for the Lord." Although they may not mean that literally, a few historical saints and other figures have indeed been always naked, including Mary of Egypt.

That's way too much preaching but something to think about.

nuduke

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #23 on: October 04, 2018, 05:02:54 PM »

I notice in Bob's photos that the gate is no. 347A.
Does that mean there are another 346 gates at least around that reserve.  If so AWESOME!  It must be a huge area (or that the parks service is obsessed with erecting gates, of course!)
John

Greenbare Woods

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #24 on: October 04, 2018, 09:32:31 PM »
I notice in Bob's photos that the gate is no. 347A.
Does that mean there are another 346 gates at least around that reserve.  If so AWESOME!  It must be a huge area (or that the parks service is obsessed with erecting gates, of course!)
John


Hmmmm?   Gate #346 is a lot of gates.  The WA park service (http://parks.state.wa.us/) manages something like 150 parks, of which 2 or 3 are these railroad trails.  Likely they have 3 or 4 gates in every park. 



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eyesup

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #25 on: October 05, 2018, 03:24:26 AM »
We’ve been to National Parks in the camping areas and seen this sort of thing. We had campsite #276 and we saw numbers up into the 300’s.

Come to find out, they were marked as a series. Campsites 100-127, 200-238 . . . etc. There weren’t over 300 campsites. Maybe a total of 100 or so. It is probably just an easy way to track which gate it is for referencing when scheduling repairs or routine maintenance.

Yeah, it’s more boring than over 300 gates in a massive park system.

Duane

Peter S

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #26 on: October 05, 2018, 12:23:06 PM »
Sounds similar to the American system of numberin houses, with the block first and then he number of the house in he block. When my brother in law first moved to the US I tried to picture how long was the street he lived in that his address was 3027. But of course he was only on the third block, and the street wasn’t very long at all.

In the UK it is common for houses to be given names - Dunroamin, River View, etc. This is fine until one tries to find a house, in the dark, along a village lane a couple of miles long when there are only house names, no numbers. And half the names are hidden by overgrown hedges.
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jbeegoode

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #27 on: October 05, 2018, 06:56:55 PM »
Is it listed as a Forest Service road? There are numbered FR roads and then they fan out with "A", "B", etc. The roads are statewide so there are plenty, especially in a state with many old logging roads.
Jbee
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Greenbare Woods

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #28 on: October 06, 2018, 03:11:52 PM »
When my brother in law first moved to the US I tried to picture how long was the street he lived in that his address was 3027. But of course he was only on the third block, and the street wasn’t very long at all.

In most of the US, number 3027 would be the 30th block, not the 3rd block.   Its a grid pattern intended mostly for government employees like police, firemen, postmen, etc., to find the address quickly.   Street number 0 is at the center of town.  Here in Spokane street 0 is called "Division Street."  In Albuquerque it was called "Central Ave."   Each city and/or county has its own system so the grid changes when you enter a neighboring county. 

Since we're a long way out of town our number is 35210 which would mean its near 352nd street if there were streets.  Over in Seattle, on the other side of our state, they do have all those streets.  North of Seattle North 205th Street is the same as South 244th Street south from Everett.  They also have a code known to locals about the direction.  It the road runs east and west they call it a "street" and put the "North" or "NE" ahead of the number.  If the road runs north and south they call it an "avenue" and put the "South" or "SW" behind the number.   If you see an address like "24103 48th Ave. W" you know it runs north and south, its 48 blocks west of the dividing line, and its 241 blocks south of the center of the city of Everett.

In King County, which is Seattle, they removed streets names about 50 years ago and gave them all grid pattern numbers.  Named streets have a more human feel than numbers, but police and firemen could not quickly remember the names of thousands of named street.  They haven't done that in Spokane County.  If you aren't local you have no idea even witch way to go.  I've lived outside of Spokane for more than 12 years now, and I only know the names of major streets. 

The new Google Maps or equal systems can find named places really fast.  I suppose that tech will eliminate the need for numbered streets.

I have heard frustration from Japan where their house numbers are assigned in chronological order of construction.   House 3219 may be next to house 193.  And house 194 may be 3 miles down the street in the other direction if it was built about the same year.  I would get really lost.
Human bodies are natural, comfortable, and green.
To see more of Bob you can view his personal photo page
http://www.photos.bradkemp.com/greenbare.html

Peter S

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Re: Trail marking
« Reply #29 on: October 06, 2018, 05:30:54 PM »
Sounds complicated but I can see the method in it, thanks Bob, and I guess when you live with it it becomes second nature. I should think it also needs a predominantly grid layout to work effectively, and over here we have very few grid towns, as they grew organically over long periods rather than being planned without space constraints.
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