should testing be required before....... .

“people are allowed to backpack/canoe trip in the backcountry ?

The reason I ask is,as I`m sure we`ve all seen,the number of folks who don`t have a clue,and endanger themselves or others.

We`ve all seen strewn garbage,campsites littered with food left lying around,food hung over tents or hanging next to it and about 3 feet from the ground.We`ve seen the folks with 200 lb packs,over loaded canoes.I once saw a kid dragging around a piece of linoleum flooring as his matteress.

Frontennac park in eastern Ontario requires a 2 hour teaching session and then a test before your allowed into the backcountry...it got me thinking,should it be mandatory period ??

Wanna hear your yahs and nays...”

“PODs.........Potential Organ Donors

Although, the trash they leave behind is a problem.”

“Big Bend NP requires everyone to complete a short session on desert survival before you can get your permit.”

“Enforcement would be a boondoggle and eventually become a cash cow for some bureaucrat.”

“Yes and no! Perhaps require that at least one member of a group take the course or have had the course previously.

Perhaps they could add some cameras at each site that allow for remote pickup of the contents by satellite or by their float plane that tries to fly overhead each day. They could almost catch the trashers in the act. Follow up with a large fines and banishment from the park for life.

They already have the rules and distribution systems for getting the word out. They need to improve their enforcement techniques. Technology has provided tools that can and should be used. A two hour class, to tell people what they already know, would be a waste of time for everyone concerned. It could even add an extra day to the trips for many groups.

Note: I'm talking about the BWCA.
last edited: 8/15/07 9:39:33 AM”

“Should tests be required before someone crosses the street?”

“Having SOME sort of orientation on desert travel at the Grand Canyon would save lives.”

“Should tests be required before someone crosses the street?”
bearmagnet
12:39:36 PM
8/15/07

They already are. It's called "Hold mommy's/daddy's hand" until mommy and/or daddy are confident the child knows how to cross safely. Not a two hour program by any stretch. The best you could do in two hours is skim the surface. A little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.”

“But people get killed all the time crossing the street.

Testing costs money. Guess they would issue licenses and have registration renewals?

insert rolling eye emoticon”

“If they make a test mandatory it should have only one requirement. It would tell people to cover themselves in honey and then hike to the middle of bear country. Those that refuse, pass. Those that are dumb enough to follow through, nature will take care of them and they will never have a negative impact again.”

“They gave you that test before you came to earth, we all passed that test. No test required to enjoy life. Can you pass the test after life??”

““But people get killed all the time crossing the street.

passing a test simply shows knowledge of the information being tested. It in no way assures the knowledge will be retained, understood, implemented or acted upon. Same with the back country. How many of us "know" that you hang a bear bag between two trees at least four feet from any limb and at least eight feet off the ground. (Feel free to amend the numbers any way you want.) But in the late hours of darkness we don't do it right.”

“As long as I can outrun that bear with the ranger hat and a paw full of matches, I'll be okay.”

“Should tests be required before someone crosses the street?


bearmagnet,if teaching someone to hang their food a 100 feet away from the tent,and not over your tent prevented a potential incident wouldn`t it be worth it ?

It`s people like us who end up getting hurt because of someone else`s lack of knowledge and ignorance..

A lot of people really don`t know basic knowledge when it comes to camping in the back country.”

“Can you pass the test after life??”

Yah Pitbull since 98.........”

“Like most of us, I learn by screwing up. Sometimes those lessons involve trips to the doctor. It's called life. A license to walk in the woods? Has the victim mentality really griped this country that badly?
last edited: 8/15/07 10:30:48 AM”

“It`s people like us who end up getting hurt because of someone else`s lack of knowledge and ignorance..

A lot of people really don`t know basic knowledge when it comes to camping in the back country.”
paddles
1:24:05 PM
8/15/07


Has the victim mentality really griped this country that badly?
dayhiker
1:30:11 PM
8/15/07

It's one thing I think to want people to protect themselves with some knowledge and training. It's another to claim their lack of knowledge is the reason for my exposure to danger. Yeah the trash left does attract bears to campsites. But so do aromas and sounds. So now are we suggesting that because someone trashed a campsite we are at greater risk cooking our dinner than we would be otherwise? I find that a stretch.”

“Where's that signature line Dub had when he posted on the other side:

"I am not saying we should kill all the stupid people. I am just saying we should remove all the safety warnings and let the problem take care of itself."

Screw the need to pass a test to go camp out. Good god people. Big Brother is winning. we are all doomed.”

“"It's called life." Thank you, dh.

People go out, #&%!$ up, die.

#&%!$ happens.”

“Last months NG Adventure had an article on this Scottish guy who lives in Afghanistan. I just got around to reading it but the guy grew up reading the classics and was always fascinated with the heros of myth. One of his quotes, that I'm about to butcher was that we no longer have heros, only the heroic victim.”

“Ahh, here's the article: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/photography/afghanistan/rory-stewart.html

This dude walked across Afghanistan, part of Iran, Pakistan and India.



Stewart has written quite a bit about heroes, and he maintains that past societies not only tolerated the vanity, violence, and godlike yearning of these men, but they viewed those qualities as necessary for heroism itself. For 2,500 years the notion of the superhuman hero shaped art, literature, and rhetoric and provided a model of how to live. But by the mid-20th century the social context had changed. Western society, with its industrialization, democracy, and new attitudes toward masculinity, stopped forgiving the ambition of would-be heroes. Today, Stewart argues, we are left with primarily one kind of hero, the "victim hero," an individual judged not on his accomplishments but on what happens to him, like the 9/11 firemen or like Pat Tillman, the football star turned Army Ranger who was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. Stewart, in a 2005 article he wrote for Prospect magazine, remains decidedly ambivalent about this evolution:

Nostalgia for dead tyrants and the longing for heroes are unhealthy and they can result in the deification of a Saddam as easily as a Havel or Mandela. But we shouldn't fool ourselves into thinking we have lost nothing. The drive to be godlike and do the impossible is gone and we will see this loss in music, in novels, in painting, in architecture and the way we shape our lives. September 11th has produced only miniature heroes because our culture has freed itself from many of the old, dangerous, elitist fantasies of heroism …. But in so doing we have not only tamed and diminished heroes. We have risked taming and diminishing ourselves.
last edited: 8/15/07 10:54:05 AM”

“It sounds like reading this book next to John Eldridge's Wild At Heart would be an interesting exercise.”

“I really enjoyed Wild At Heart. I am going to read Stewarts Book. I just finished Gates of Fire, speaking of heroes.”

“no test, do or die. let the idiots weed themselves out.”

“I guess there are two sides to every issue....kinda like, is EVERYONE guaranteed EVERYTHING or EVERY Experience...and if so who do we take from to make sure the lowest common denominator is covered.

I am one of those who thinks the government had little if any responsibility in me making decisions for myself that does NOT impact another person.

However the other side is true. If you screw up doing something incredibly stupid, "You are on your own."

Kinda the Right to Speak does not carry with it the Right to BE Heard.

I see too many times in today's society where people demand "THEIR RIGHTS" but then refuse to take the requisite "Responsibility".

I agree with the VICTIM line....today Victimology is one of the biggest addictions there is.”

“The initiate in the backwoods is usually easier to rescue than the "expert" backwoodsman since the experts tend to screw up in the worst places to screw up in.”

“Iffin a person doesn't know right from wrong in the woods then he has to experience wrong before he can learn right.

My first backpacking trip with the Scouts at age 11 I had a external frame pack with no hip belt, army cookkit,army jump boots and a huge cotton sleeping bag but on the next trip that all changed although I did just quit wearing bibbed overalls on the trail about 10 years ago.”

“I will add, that if I were in teh situation of say, the Walls of Jericho fall that was a thread yesterday, I'd dang sure want everything possible the government offers to help my son out of that situation. Were he to die, would I blame anyone? I hope not. The silly stuff would be like him suing the goverment because of hte blocked gates....Not saying that is happening but we've all heard similar frivilous lawsuits.

Speaking of frivilous lawsuits, did yall hear where Vick is getting sued by some dude in prison because Vick stole his fighting dogs? The guy is suing for $63 Billion with a B and said Vick used the money from teh dogs to buy missile from Iran.”

“This months NGA has a good article on survival. The author wrote two other articles in NGA about it and turned them into a book. It's about the psychology of survival. Why do some die and others survive. The book is now being used in business, marriage counseling, and other situations where you can decide to change your outcome. I guess it's on the to-do list too.”

“day...handWRITTEN lawsuit.....

I keep saying, Loser pays and if the loser is say...A PRISONER (who should not have ANY RIGHTS) if he retains an attorney then the ATTORNEY can pay.

We were discussing this last week in training. If you make it where Attorneys HAVE to carry Malpractice or Errors and Omissions insurance...the day the price of that insurance exceeds an ObGyn in Mississippi....is the day you will see frivolous lawsuits disappear.”

“It's a black day each year when I pay my E&O premium.”

“There are still heros! Some of them appeared when the bridge fell into the Mississippi River in Minnesota. They helped others get free of their cars, while remaining in dangerous areas.

These heros show up all around the world almost every day. Most people don't see them, because they no longer come charging in on white horses!
last edited: 8/15/07 11:56:04 AM”

“Good point NS. There were lots of heroes that day.”

“We should have the 'Dept. of Backcountry Security', Browney needs a job.”

“I think the point of the story you mentioned dayhiker was that heroes of the past were bigger than life and had huge impacts on society. I am not downgrading what the people on those bridges did, but calling them heroes flies in the face of the idea that that should be the TYPICAL/EXPECTED behavior of people in a crises. Their impact was just on the few people on that bridge and not on society as a whole.”

“

"Their impact was just on the few people on that bridge and not on society as a whole.”
hyway

Great, we're getting some definitions of heros and non-heros.”

“dude, I am comparing the term between how we use it today and how the writer dayhiker referenced claimed it was used in the past. It isn't my personal opinion.
last edited: 8/15/07 12:19:28 PM”

“In days past we saw heroes as BIGGER THAN LIFE...becuase their actions set a goal we strove to surpass...today it seems the biggest objective of the media is to show us the feet of clay of the heroes.

I am sorry but I wonder what would have happened if that little son of a Texas Sharecropper would have gotten the same treatement today...as he did in the 1940's”

“hyway - If I am having difficulty getting out of my car and the water, and someone helps me escape, he/she is a hero to me, especially if it is done in a dangerous environment.”

“I think he gets that. I think he's comparing a difference in magnitude of hero. Storming the beaches of Normandy versus getting someone out of a car. That's not to diminish getting someone out of a car or school bus.”

“even the storming the beaches of Normandy is closer in magnitude to saving someone in a bridge collapse than it is to the magnitude of hero Stewart (the writer you referenced) was talking about. I haven't read it, but from your description I think he meant people like Mother Teresa (Missionary), George Washington Carver (Scientist), David Livingstone (Explorer), Martin Luther King (Civil Rights Activist), etc.”

“That's who he meant. TE Lawrence is referred to a good bit in the article because of the writers own desert walk.”

“And TE should be remembered for the HEROIC stuff he did...but if you look at the deeper story the media would destroy him.

Sorry but we make heroes out of scummy sports stars, and people who NEVER should be emulated.

I agree about the people giving up their lives or risking it for a stranger....and how many can tell me the name of a man who passed a life ring up 5 times and ended up dying in the Potomac River?”

“"storming the beaches of Normandy" was following orders. But many heros showed up along the way. And they are all heros to us now, as we give them our eternal thanks.”

“Good point. We don't know that guys name, but I dang sure remember the story and I was probably only 10-12 when it happened.

About all most folks know of Lawrence, me included, is they made a movie about him and Peter O'Toole or Alec Guiness one played the part. There are tons of those type of figures out there that I'd like to read about.”

“The fact is we all have bad sides but the media seems intent on exposing that and using the bad side to blank out the Excellence.

The reason I think is that it allows those people who are permenant victims can say "I am no different from "A". Heck he just got "LUCKY".


We had a lady giving us a talk about "donating money for a homeless assistance program". She made the comment,"We are all just one step away from them, but for the grace of God."

BullSh$t! No she introduced us to three "permenantly homeless" all three had no desire to do anything. Heck one guy admitted he preferred being drunk to working.

As for heroes...today anyone who overcomes a potential VICTIM slot to achieve excellence is a hero to me.”

“"Heck one guy admitted he preferred being drunk to working."

That's probably a lot of us, but only a few act on it.”

“An addict admitted he would rather do his drug of choice than work? Shocking.”

“I think the point was not about the admission but of the notion that we are all just like him as the phrase "by the grace of god there go I" implies.”

“I would read into that there are situations we can all find ourselves in where we *might* react in kind. Say I was the only survivor of a car wreck. My wife and 3 kids died. How would I react? Would I go on to continue being a pretty good citizen or would I go into the blackness of depression, become an alcoholic, and potentially wind up on teh street? I haven't a clue what I'd do and hope to God I never find out.”