There was a time, not so many years ago, when you could camp all by yourself on public lands. But it has gotten a lot harder to do this, thanks to several trends: more people, #vanlife, solar panels, better internet in rural areas, and -- my least favorite -- the blabbermouths on social media and internet blogs.
So you must get more shrewd and ruthless in order to avoid the noisy, tourist masses. I seem to be succeeding at this, at the moment.
It helps to put yourself into the mindset of the big-city weekend warrior and mass tourist, and then deliberately develop proclivities quite the opposite of them. For instance, mass tourists from the East or the Northwest want land to be green. (What philistines!) They are easy for me to avoid. I like parched, brown/grey BLM land, rather than green forests.
Mass tourists ooh and ahh over red rocks. Red is a nice color, but really!, is it necessary for outdoors fun?
Mass tourists ooh and ahh over large and freakish verticalities. But a mountain biker has to pedal up verticalities, so he can easily develop a taste for gentler terrain. The tourist hears the word, gentler, and thinks 'mediocre', or 'less spectacular than what my office cubicle-mate saw on his vacation.' To me, the word 'gentle' suggests a feminine personification of Nature, with kindliness and fertility.
Mass tourists want to wear shorts in January when they are playing golf. Easy to avoid.
But a new trick is working right now. The land I am on has 200 natural gas derricks (bobbing birdlike pumps). Now put yourself into the mindset of a big-city tourist, who thinks like an environmentalist, self-identifies as 'liberal/progressive', wants a town to be an expensive boutique, with Pride Marches, art galleries, $5 bird-friendly Fair Trade coffee, vegan restaurants (in the middle of Western cattle country!), ranger-led eco-sermons, and all the rest of the stereotype.
Even if the resource extraction doesn't anger them, they probably see the land as undesirable to visit. Using the land for anything other than pretty scenery (and McMansions for big-city retirees) gives the land a declasse image. Therefore they go elsewhere, and fight the crowds, high prices, restrictions, and fees.
But I look around me and see tawny -- but lush -- grasslands. They are a few cattle grazing, including an impressive El Toro! The noblest cliffs in the American Southwest are my neighbors. There are good places to ride my mountain bike (but not world-famous singletrack trail systems!), my doggie is free to run off leash and chase deer, and no tourists are here.
So you must get more shrewd and ruthless in order to avoid the noisy, tourist masses. I seem to be succeeding at this, at the moment.
It helps to put yourself into the mindset of the big-city weekend warrior and mass tourist, and then deliberately develop proclivities quite the opposite of them. For instance, mass tourists from the East or the Northwest want land to be green. (What philistines!) They are easy for me to avoid. I like parched, brown/grey BLM land, rather than green forests.
Mass tourists ooh and ahh over red rocks. Red is a nice color, but really!, is it necessary for outdoors fun?
Mass tourists ooh and ahh over large and freakish verticalities. But a mountain biker has to pedal up verticalities, so he can easily develop a taste for gentler terrain. The tourist hears the word, gentler, and thinks 'mediocre', or 'less spectacular than what my office cubicle-mate saw on his vacation.' To me, the word 'gentle' suggests a feminine personification of Nature, with kindliness and fertility.
Mass tourists want to wear shorts in January when they are playing golf. Easy to avoid.
But a new trick is working right now. The land I am on has 200 natural gas derricks (bobbing birdlike pumps). Now put yourself into the mindset of a big-city tourist, who thinks like an environmentalist, self-identifies as 'liberal/progressive', wants a town to be an expensive boutique, with Pride Marches, art galleries, $5 bird-friendly Fair Trade coffee, vegan restaurants (in the middle of Western cattle country!), ranger-led eco-sermons, and all the rest of the stereotype.
 | |
| How obtrusive! How gauche and declasse! |
Even if the resource extraction doesn't anger them, they probably see the land as undesirable to visit. Using the land for anything other than pretty scenery (and McMansions for big-city retirees) gives the land a declasse image. Therefore they go elsewhere, and fight the crowds, high prices, restrictions, and fees.
But I look around me and see tawny -- but lush -- grasslands. They are a few cattle grazing, including an impressive El Toro! The noblest cliffs in the American Southwest are my neighbors. There are good places to ride my mountain bike (but not world-famous singletrack trail systems!), my doggie is free to run off leash and chase deer, and no tourists are here.
Comments