The beauty of wild places could be their undoing
as
they attract us to them-leaving them touched by human
hands and eventually less than wild. We are consuming wilderness at
an alarming rate, using it and changing it as we do so. Though we somethimes
act otherwise, the mountains don't exist for our amusement. They owe
us nothing and they requre nothing from us. Hudson Stuck wrote that
he and other members of the first party to climb Mount McKinley felt
they had been granted "a privileged communion with the high places
of the earth." As mountaineers traveling in the wilderness, our
minimum charge for this privilege is to leave the hills as we found
them, with no sign of our passing. We must study the places we visit
and become sensitive to their vulnerability, then camp and climb in
ways that minimize our impact. The privileges we enjoy in the mountains
bring responsibilities. Therefore, the facts of mountaineering life
today include permit systems that limit access to the backcountry, road
and trail closures, environmental restoration projects, legislative
alerts, and the clash of competing interest groups. While we tread softly
in the mountains, it's also time to speak loudly back in town for support
of wilderness preservation and sensitive use of our wild lands. As mountaineers,
we need to be activists as well as climbers if we want our children
to be able to enjoy what we take for granted.
Mountaineering: The Freedom of the Hills
by The Mountaineers