Homily For The Trail-less

[Nameless Range]

For those who live in the west, and maybe those who don't, do you find places on public land that you believe no one visits? Places that if you had the ability to sit down and watch, it would take years before you saw someone else? This is scalable question of course. One could plop down in a thicket and never see a soul, but I am imagining something larger. There are mountain sides in my neck of the woods that I believe often go a year without someone scaling them, even throughout a hunting season. Yesterday, I took the day off and hiked up a trail-less canyon in a well-known mountain range. It's the second time I had explored this place, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the bottom 2 miles of the canyon are deadfall and a nameless creek. Once you are a quarter a mile up the gulch there is bear chit and nothing else. No elk, no deer, no ungulates could traverse it. I doubt 3 or 4 people a year push through the two miles of deadfall to be rewarded by the nothingness of scree at the head of canyon, and I feel I am being liberal in that estimation.

I wrote this yesterday for the ole Facebook, but I know some folks here could sympathize:




There is an internal dialogue that can be likened to an elephant arguing with its rider that nearly all those who hike in the proximity of the continental divide country of Montana know and have had.

After agonizing through miles of beetle-kill and deadfall, the time has come to head back to the truck and a decision must be made between the known and the unknown. The known is the way he came in, and is suffering, and possibly leg cramps, and shins reduced to hamburger. The unknown is dropping off some ridge sooner, and maybe avoiding the mess, but maybe running into a bigger mess that maybe is so damn bad that the hiker has encountered something similar to an organic version of cliffing-out, and will have to backtrack and go through the known suffering anyway. As is often said, “Choose Wisely”. What those who say that don’t know, is that sometimes choosing wisely is no longer an option in the belly of a trail-less gulch. You’ve already committed to stupid.

And so because it’s better to know the unknown than to relearn the known, the hiker spends the better part of a 90 degree day speaking expletives to dead timber, which has nothing to do with whether or not he is glad he did it, which has nothing to do with the fact that he will never do it again, which has nothing to do with his elation in the fact that seldom-visited and pathless canyons still exist in the universe.

May the few surviving trail-less gulches and their Nameless Creeks remain as such forever

 

[rwc101]

I often wonder how long it's been since the last person came through an out of the way spot I've found. Went camping in the Red Desert over memorial day weekend and didn't see anyone not in our group. No trails, just sagebrush and spring flowers. And pronghorn and wild horses.

 

[AvidIndoorsman]

"May the few surviving trail-less gulches and their Nameless Creeks remain as such forever"

So say we all

 

[Dougfirtree]

I think there are actually alot of places like that in the Adirondacks. Once you leave the trails and the summits, you leave behind 98% of the human use. Get more than a mile from the roads and you shake the hunters too. Solitude is easy to find in the thick forests and for that, I'm thankful.

 

[Irrelevant]

For those who live in the west, and maybe those who don't, do you find places on public land that you believe no one visits? Places that if you had the ability to sit down and watch, it would take years before you saw someone else? This is scalable question of course. One could plop down in a thicket and never see a soul, but I am imagining something larger. There are mountain sides in my neck of the woods that I believe often go a year without someone scaling them, even throughout a hunting season. Yesterday, I took the day off and hiked up a trail-less canyon in a well-known mountain range. It's the second time I had explored this place, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the bottom 2 miles of the canyon are deadfall and a nameless creek. Once you are a quarter a mile up the gulch there is bear chit and nothing else. No elk, no deer, no ungulates could traverse it. I doubt 3 or 4 people a year push through the two miles of deadfall to be rewarded by the nothingness of scree at the head of canyon, and I feel I am being liberal in that estimation.

I wrote this yesterday for the ole Facebook, but I know some folks here could sympathize:




There is an internal dialogue that can be likened to an elephant arguing with its rider that nearly all those who hike in the proximity of the continental divide country of Montana know and have had.

After agonizing through miles of beetle-kill and deadfall, the time has come to head back to the truck and a decision must be made between the known and the unknown. The known is the way he came in, and is suffering, and possibly leg cramps, and shins reduced to hamburger. The unknown is dropping off some ridge sooner, and maybe avoiding the mess, but maybe running into a bigger mess that maybe is so damn bad that the hiker has encountered something similar to an organic version of cliffing-out, and will have to backtrack and go through the known suffering anyway. As is often said, “Choose Wisely”. What those who say that don’t know, is that sometimes choosing wisely is no longer an option in the belly of a trail-less gulch. You’ve already committed to stupid.

And so because it’s better to know the unknown than to relearn the known, the hiker spends the better part of a 90 degree day speaking expletives to dead timber, which has nothing to do with whether or not he is glad he did it, which has nothing to do with the fact that he will never do it again, which has nothing to do with his elation in the fact that seldom-visited and pathless canyons still exist in the universe.

May the few surviving trail-less gulches and their Nameless Creeks remain as such forever

View attachment 187839

I once did. But they've all slowly succumbed to progress and Oregonians...

Now, I simply strive or places were few people go, but I'm not so naïve as to think I've found any place recently that I can have to myself for an entire year.

 

[Gerald Martin]

For those who live in the west, and maybe those who don't, do you find places on public land that you believe no one visits? Places that if you had the ability to sit down and watch, it would take years before you saw someone else? This is scalable question of course. One could plop down in a thicket and never see a soul, but I am imagining something larger. There are mountain sides in my neck of the woods that I believe often go a year without someone scaling them, even throughout a hunting season. Yesterday, I took the day off and hiked up a trail-less canyon in a well-known mountain range. It's the second time I had explored this place, and I do not exaggerate when I say that the bottom 2 miles of the canyon are deadfall and a nameless creek. Once you are a quarter a mile up the gulch there is bear chit and nothing else. No elk, no deer, no ungulates could traverse it. I doubt 3 or 4 people a year push through the two miles of deadfall to be rewarded by the nothingness of scree at the head of canyon, and I feel I am being liberal in that estimation.

I wrote this yesterday for the ole Facebook, but I know some folks here could sympathize:




There is an internal dialogue that can be likened to an elephant arguing with its rider that nearly all those who hike in the proximity of the continental divide country of Montana know and have had.

After agonizing through miles of beetle-kill and deadfall, the time has come to head back to the truck and a decision must be made between the known and the unknown. The known is the way he came in, and is suffering, and possibly leg cramps, and shins reduced to hamburger. The unknown is dropping off some ridge sooner, and maybe avoiding the mess, but maybe running into a bigger mess that maybe is so damn bad that the hiker has encountered something similar to an organic version of cliffing-out, and will have to backtrack and go through the known suffering anyway. As is often said, “Choose Wisely”. What those who say that don’t know, is that sometimes choosing wisely is no longer an option in the belly of a trail-less gulch. You’ve already committed to stupid.

And so because it’s better to know the unknown than to relearn the known, the hiker spends the better part of a 90 degree day speaking expletives to dead timber, which has nothing to do with whether or not he is glad he did it, which has nothing to do with the fact that he will never do it again, which has nothing to do with his elation in the fact that seldom-visited and pathless canyons still exist in the universe.

May the few surviving trail-less gulches and their Nameless Creeks remain as such forever

View attachment 187839

Masochistic suffering sounds more enjoyable than it actually is.
Your experience would have been even better with about two inches of wet snow falling from the overhead branches.

 

[Nameless Range]

I once did. But they've all slowly succumbed to progress and Oregonians...

Now, I simply strive or places were few people go, but I'm not so naïve as to think I've found any place recently that I can have to myself for an entire year.

This is kind of what I wonder. I think it would be natural for folks to think their use is special, and for them (me) to underestimate the use of others.

I have lived in places where I had to drive through public lands to get to work, and in those places I was well calibrated to the use. Basically, none of us are that special, and others are drawn to the trail-less and nameless for the same reason I am.

That said, Over 30 years of existence in this neck of the woods has me fairly well calibrated too, and though use is ever-increasing, I think places like those I described above are out there.

Some features, not exclusive and certainly disjointed, that lend themselves to these places:

-Steep initial relief
-Thousands of acres of beetle-kill
-Having to cross multiple streams to access
-Adjacent to the interstate, as in the only feasible access would be parking on the side of the interstate
-Lacking big game
-Being nameless
-Being trail-less
and more...

 

[Irrelevant]

This is kind of what I wonder. I think it would be natural for folks to think their use is special, and for them (me) to underestimate the use of others.

I have lived in places where I had to drive through public lands to get to work, and in those places I was well calibrated to the use. Basically, none of us are that special, and others are drawn to the trail-less and nameless for the same reason I am.

That said, Over 30 years of existence in this neck of the woods has me fairly well calibrated too, and though use is ever-increasing, I think places like those I described above are out there.

Some features, not exclusive and certainly disjointed, that lend themselves to these places:

-Steep initial relief
-Thousands of acres of beetle-kill
-Having to cross multiple streams to access
-Adjacent to the interstate, as in the only feasible access would be parking on the side of the interstate
-Lacking big game
-Being nameless
-Being trail-less
and more...

I found a place a couple of years ago that I thought was remote enough that I might be the only person to have been there is several years. Last year I was there, enjoying the smoke and a deerless landscape, and had two guys come through the basin. I sat in disbelief, then once they'd gone, packed my camp and left. I'll never go back. The only reason to have gone in the first place was the solitude.

Like you were saying originally, I can still easily find a little hellhole that no one visits, but that's a cop-out. A patch of steep slope and brush so thick no one ventures in. But to find a landscape, mountain, or drainage, even hillside that is completely devoid of people for an entire year? I don't think that exists anywhere in WA. At least in none of the locations I've ever been.

 

[Southern Elk]

We once hunted a wilderness area and backpacked in about 5 miles. We hiked to a spot about 5 miles deeper and I commented to a hunting buddy that I bet people never come here. I then looked down and saw a f#$%ing Snickers wrapper on the ground.

 

[JEL]

Masochistic suffering sounds more enjoyable than it actually is.
Your experience would have been even better with about two inches of wet snow falling from the overhead branches.

Yep. How many times do you say “I’ll never do that again” then……

 

[hank4elk]

I still find spots not far from a road that I'm pretty sure the Apache or their ancestors were the last there.
My proof is almost intact pottery,new arrowheads,tools.
I leave these spots untouched,unmentioned and usually after the chill rides my neck.

Those hell holes,3k drop ridges you go up,and double overhead surf reefs 1/2 mile offshore are in my past.

 

[theat]

I am fairly confident that there are a few mountains and maybe even a few smaller drainages in NW Montana that I have explored that rarely have anyone leaving boot prints, but maybe that is wishful thinking. If someone does go to those spots, I doubt they ever go back!

I was messing around in some trail-less areas in my local wilderness area a couple weeks ago. I'm sure people visit these areas every year since there are named peaks and several lakes, but anyone that does certainly works for it. After seeing the trails get busier and busier every year, it makes me glad that there are still some relatively large areas around here without roads or trails.

 

[OntarioHunter]

In Alaska it is commonplace to view vast areas where it's doubtful any human has visited in decades, maybe centuries, especially on a clear day from a bush plane. In Montana I found two places where I was reasonably certain no other hunter had camped. Then I found the remnants of a stove at the one site and a cache of half buried empty Highlander beer cans at the other, the kind that required a triangle punch opener. Never say never.

 

[Wallydeuce]

I believe there are places like that here in Nevada. Rugged mountain ranges separated by vast expanses of desert. As long as my legs and lungs allow, I'll keep searching.

 

[Oak]

I've gotten into some stupid spots not far from roads while doing raptor nest surveys.
50m transects, record your tracks, and provide to the BLM.

Do 50m transects through the timber on this hillside.

 

[one ate E grain]

I think there are a fair number of places people don't go. I like to see how well I can judge past use. Three horses on a very faint unmarked pack trail can for sure show up for half a year. Hikers a lot less. People tend to walk in the same places, as does game. Even places like the photo Oak posted above, there's a road right below, but I doubt anyone just casually goes for a stroll up that hill.

I know that if 20 people pass by at once they leave a beaten path that's plainly visible for weeks. They tear up the ground. Five or ten people a year? on the faint trace of a path they'd kill grasses and weeds. People paths tend to go someplace too, they don't wander and browse.

Of course not everywhere is dry and western. Some places in this world it seems as if plants grow in your tracks as soon as you step out of them.
All these hills are criss crossed with people tracks from hunters, mushroom gatherers, wood cutters, people tending fields, no roads as far as one can see.

 

[diamond hitch]

One of the most remote places I can remember was a sampling project in a glacial valley near Glacier Bay north of Juneau. After 10 hours of swinging from alder to vine maple, I broke out onto a snow field and radioed for a pickup. When he showed up with the chopper, he hovered on the edge and motioned for me to get in. As we lifted off I realized the snow field was only a few ft thick over a 600 ft waterfall.

I sincerely doubt any human or animal has ever been there and I had no desire to return. It fit well into the catagory of- you can't get there from here.

 

[kwyeewyk]

I found a place a couple of years ago that I thought was remote enough that I might be the only person to have been there is several years. Last year I was there, enjoying the smoke and a deerless landscape, and had two guys come through the basin. I sat in disbelief, then once they'd gone, packed my camp and left. I'll never go back. The only reason to have gone in the first place was the solitude.

Like you were saying originally, I can still easily find a little hellhole that no one visits, but that's a cop-out. A patch of steep slope and brush so thick no one ventures in. But to find a landscape, mountain, or drainage, even hillside that is completely devoid of people for an entire year? I don't think that exists anywhere in WA. At least in none of the locations I've ever been.

I worked a summer in the Pasayten about 20 years ago and we sought out the most remote ground we could find, we'd be struggling to follow the old blaze marks on some abandoned sheep herder trail feeling like nobody'd been there in decades, and inevitably we'd find a cig butt, or gum wrapper or other tell-tale sign. No large areas left in WA, like I would expect in some other parts of the country, but I still like to think that I might know a couple of valleys in WA where if I endured the miles of windfall to get in there I might stay for a year and not see anyone. Probably dreaming!

 

[antlerradar]

I've gotten into some stupid spots not far from roads while doing raptor nest surveys.
50m transects, record your tracks, and provide to the BLM.

Do 50m transects through the timber on this hillside.

View attachment 187903

Looks like a good place to find antlers.

 

[antlerradar]

When I get into a place that no one frequents, It is just about a guarantee I will find a party balloon hanging in a tree.