The Ethics of Outdorr Recreation in Times of COVID-19

[GeezerSteve]

Trailheads, recreational areas, campsites and other access points to Mt. Baker NF, Okanogon-Wenatchee NF, Gifford Pinchot NF and some (maybe all?) NFs in WA are CLOSED at least through April 8, very possibly longer.

ETA: Now reading that all NF and BLM land in OR and WA to be closed.

[MakersTeleMark]

Trailheads, recreational areas, campsites and other access points to Mt. Baker NF, Okanogon-Wenatchee NF, Gifford Pinchot NF and some (maybe all?) NFs in WA are CLOSED at least through April 8, very possibly longer.

ETA: Now reading that all NF and BLM land in OR and WA to be closed.

Sue me.

[rideit]

I think that (or something like that) is coming here, (town) likely tomorrow.

https://buckrail.com/town-of-jackson...Zdi2vv-nhMX2Hs

[MakersTeleMark]

I think that is coming here, likely tomorrow.

https://buckrail.com/town-of-jackson...Zdi2vv-nhMX2Hs

Jim Stanford said he preferred to see Wyoming close its borders like Idaho, Colorado, and Montana will have all done by tomorrow.

WTF are they talking about? Sounds like a circus up there.

[rideit]

Heh

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Town_on_Earth

EDIT: Jim Stanford is a booger eating moron.

Additional information. Idaho and Utah have indicated that they will not take any of our cases, so things are a little weird here with only a few beds/vents available. It is ‘desperate times’ on the horizon, it seems. Seems like some sort of hippocratic oath type thing should come into play, but I can’t really blame them.

[skifishbum]

I understand the high risk stuff and closures
I cant understand the blm, forest service or water closures
state law requires you to stay 25' from my watercraft
proper fishing etiquettes would have you not fishing water I can cast to
I can throw some line with that whippy stick
there should be no need for anyone to touch or be near my boat
I can launch the sup anywhere I can carry it
likewise the raft
drifty needs the trailer but not a formal concrete inferstructure boat ramp
ive sent er down cliffs and improvised launches before
im gonna try and safely ppe clad touch gas pumps to continue to work in whats being deemed an essential business by some so continuing to recreate on water for my mental health and well being isn't something that I see needing to be regulated to closure

[zion zig zag]

Additional information. Idaho and Utah have indicated that they will not take any of our cases, so things are a little weird here with only a few beds/vents available. It is ‘desperate times’ on the horizon, it seems. Seems like some sort of hippocratic oath type thing should come into play, but I can’t really blame them.

Can you point to anything that says ID and UT won't take any WY patients?

And we all understand that no state borders are closed right? Are there state police closing borders anywhere in this country?

edit: not being snarky, just legit would like to see a source.

[Kinnikinnick]

Uhh, i don’t think any state has closed its borders, so someone might want to make sure the city council knows that.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[old goat]

Is Detroit a city?

Yabetcha it is. (Damn UPer)

[Name Redacted]

Keep losing track of which thread i posted in.

Vail pass rec area now closed, for the same reason as Loveland. They are gradually funneling people into smaller, more obscure trailheads. VP and LL are good places to avoid any danger. Some of the others maybe not so much. Plus the smaller areas will be overwhelmed even faster than these spots were. Maybe people will eventually get the point and stay home.

Honestly though, at least here in CO, the skiing is just dust on crust anyway. Nothing to write home about. Maybe kinda decent in a few weeks when it corns up, but right now it isn't that great. I feel like you'd be better off riding bikes in Denver or golfing or whatever it is Frangers do during mud season.

[ill-advised strategy]

Isn't Michigan a shelter in place state? If it applies in the wilds of the UP turn the fucker in.

In theory yes.
The thing is structured like this though: your employer can’t compel you to work if their operations aren’t essential.
That’s not how people operate, that’s not how life works. If your boss is an idiot who says “there ain’t no cases up here yet”, and doesn’t believe the downstate governor has anything to do with his life and work, and he’s still going on like everything is normal, and you refuse to go into work, you think he’s not going to remember that next year?

I want to mention again, one of my coworkers was chasing me around trying to touch my face with his dirty hand last week..while I was just trying to drop off bus keys and paperwork at the fucking counter we all have to come and go from.....because I’m “chickenshit” and it’s funny to them. Same place they all waited to heckle me the morning trump got elected...because we all have to go there, so they can wait around to hassle people like jackals hanging around some water hole in the dry savanna.

The only responses to this, around Marquette Michigan, seem to be undertaken cynically (like the ski hill happily closing, keeping our money, and lapping pow laps with the snowmobiles) or grudgingly...as the most common attitude here, as always, is we’re different and special and all the problems of the rest of the state/country only apply to us insomuch as they affect things like funding or mandates people or organizations can’t blow off. The proud talk about us not having the virus (subtext: like the dirty or evil city people) is almost nonstop.

They’re still snowmobiling, driving like assholes, doing construction on a luxury hotel, walking and driving around in groups.
If you can keep everyone’s membership money and blow off work, you close your gym “for the virus”. If you need money coming in you keep doing your construction project or selling pasties “because it’s essential”.

We built a society where everyone has to watch out for themselves and there’s no safety net. We did this. To ourselves. We shot this one into our own goal. You can’t go overnight from generations of “if you go broke you’re completely ratfucked” to insisting people choose to go broke for some nebulous collective good, or passing up a chance to take your customers money and shut down.. people don’t work that way. It’s not going to work that way. We have a president who proudly shafted thousands of contractors...we did this. Own goal.

Enforcement? Ya sure, I’ll check with the boys down at the crime lab, they got four more detectives working on it, they got us working in shifts..

[old goat]

I am very sympathetic to those whose lives are being impacted :
I have a dear friend who works in health care who is recovering at home from covid, and other (dear) friends who are quarantined ( across the country / two thousand miles away ) ;

what I am not seeing in these posts about local law enforcement action is the awareness that under executive Stay-at-Home / shelter-in-Place (executive) Orders, normal procedures - normal 'civil rights' - are set-aside by ' state of Emergency' rules that give broad discretion to government and law enforcement for principles intended 'for the greater good'.

I am Not claiming that in any instance are these actions proper - I am only trying to bring to attention the fact that these are not normal circumstances and likely without exception, our governing documents ( State constitutions and State statutes ) allow the actions being taken.

it seems crazy... and in some cases(,) it may be crazy, and
I urge each of us to do what we can to impede the spread of this disease ( I believe the spread of this virus we are going to see in the next two weeks is going to be surprising and startling - and it is going to be under reported as is shown in other threads by the anecdotal reports of people who were sick for 3-5 days who recovered over three weeks, having never been tested ( I believe we will see more of this ) ...

Please... Please... do what you can to impede the spread of this disease-

governing laws allow great authority under 'state of Emergency' executive Orders
( I am Not claiming it is right, I am only attempting to bring it to attention )

Be well ;
Please : Be Safe. tj

Some rights can be suspended in an emergency (habeus corpus during insurrection for example) but not all of them under any circumstance. Regarding banning outsiders, besides the opinion of the Truckee town attorney I mentioned before, there's this https://coloradosun.com/2020/03/26/c...rton-colorado/.
A state of emergency does not allow a sheriff to do anything he pleases. Of course, if he does something illegal someone has to stop him so as a practical matter they may get away with it. (See Joe Arpaiao). In the present situation the attitude seems to be we'll do what we want now and let someone else figure out if it's legal later.
Even the SCOTUS can be overruled (by a later court--see Japanese internment).

[Bunion 2020]

I want to mention again, one of my coworkers was chasing me around trying to touch my face with his dirty hand last week..while I was just trying to drop off bus keys and paperwork at the fucking counter we all have to come and go from.....because I’m “chickenshit” and it’s funny to them. .

Get out of that place. Kudos for not dropping that Slapdick right there and then. I am not sure I would have remained that calm.

[snowaddict91]

Get out of that place. Kudos for not dropping that Slapdick right there and then. I am not sure I would have remained that calm.

For real. Props for showing self restraint.

[ill-advised strategy]

It was a guy I normally really like. I fixed his broken down van in the middle of the night a few weeks ago. He just doesn’t get it.
They’re just living in insular rural trailer park headspace. It’s just the flu. They’re #yoopertough. I’m a whiner. Lighten up. This ain’t China, it aint New York.

[Ottime]

No one should be driving from the city to the small town or the small town to the city to recreate right now. Glad to hear some on this board are awakening. To our world right now and dialing way back down. Travel as little as possible, take it easy. Get out to exercise and get fresh air and see the sky and some human faces from a distant.

Not sure why anyone would think this is a city disease. This virus is in nearly every county in our country. How it got there is irrelevant at this point. It is there. Could have been a tourist who came to your town to spend their money and support your economy or a local who went into the city to get goods at Walmart because things were needed that are not available in a small town. Does not fucking matter. It is out there. The beat thing we can do to show our love for our fellow humans is dial it back.

In a way we have this great opportunity to slow things down and take a good hard look at our own lives and how we live. How lucky are we that we get to complain about missing out on accessing skiing, biking, surfing, fishing or other leisure activity. We are not that nurse in NYC who died helping other people, or that family in Detroit that does not have running water, or the parent of some kid who insisted on spring breaking in Florida saying fuck the world we are gonna party.

Take stock of what you have. It is more than most. Appreciate that. Wait for a better time.

They are closing things done because people simply are not listening. Seems folks are still driving into San Miguel after they asked you to stop. So now they are ticketing. Or closing trailheads or lands. Too many yahoos out there. Not saying any one of you is the Yahoo. Perhaps you are doing things responsibly. Others are certainly not. There is no good reason to drive across a county line to ski. If you can ski near home, you don’t ski right now. If you can’t bike near home, you don’t bike right now. Emergency services don’t want to be dealing with accidents right now. Around here it stemmed from the fact that they had no PPE a week ago in the county, outside 10 masks at the hospital.

Is it all done smartly? No. This is the government trying to manage things. There will be poor decisions.

Wilder Ranch is parking its lot at 50%. It was full Friday afternoon after home school. I wanted to take my kid on a short hike and there are a few trails in Wilder that rarely see bike traffic because they are to undeveloped. Because the lot was full, people instead packed their cars along the highway shoulder which is a much more dangerous place to park. It’s literally the highway shoulder. Kind of bummed me out. But we drove another mile and hit another trailhead, which turned out great because no one was over on that loop. Not sure what the SP reasoning was to 50% capacity in the lot, but it did not cut down on users driving in. Next time we will just bike the two miles from home to access the hike.

[Wrecked]

Marquette Mountain is private property --
authorized by the owner, the manager can do what he wants on private property - and claiming that they are closing the business for the season will excuse anyone who is there


I offer empathy , and
I believe the situation needs peacefulness, Not an escalation of conflict.

Respectfully : tj

I’m going to respectfully say you’re wrong on this.

I work at a member owned private country club in Michigan. According to our governor you can’t just be out there doing whatever. Even if it’s opening or closing your facility. We have staff that is essential to the operation of the building itself but cannot do any unnecessary work like... power washing... painting.

Towing people on skis uphill with a snowmobile is the most unnecessary thing that could possibly be happening.

Down here in the Detroit area, cops have been showing up at locations telling people to stop working... in some instances.. they show up with liquor control and take away your liquor license... they aren’t fucking around down here...

[Ottime]

Get out of that place. Kudos for not dropping that Slapdick right there and then. I am not sure I would have remained that calm.

This. Or file a work place harassment complaint and never stop digging in. What your co workers are doing is illegal.

[skiJ]

No one should be driving from the city to the small town or the small town to the city to recreate right now. Glad to hear some on this board are awakening. To our world right now and dialing way back down. Travel as little as possible, take it easy. Get out to exercise and get fresh air and see the sky and some human faces from a distant.

Not sure why anyone would think this is a city disease. This virus is in nearly every county in our country. How it got there is irrelevant at this point. It is there. Could have been a tourist who came to your town to spend their money and support your economy or a local who went into the city to get goods at Walmart because things were needed that are not available in a small town. Does not fucking matter. It is out there. The beat thing we can do to show our love for our fellow humans is dial it back.

In a way we have this great opportunity to slow things down and take a good hard look at our own lives and how we live. How lucky are we that we get to complain about missing out on accessing skiing, biking, surfing, fishing or other leisure activity. We are not that nurse in NYC who died helping other people, or that family in Detroit that does not have running water, or the parent of some kid who insisted on spring breaking in Florida saying fuck the world we are gonna party.

Take stock of what you have. It is more than most. Appreciate that. Wait for a better time.

They are closing things done because people simply are not listening. Seems folks are still driving into San Miguel after they asked you to stop. So now they are ticketing. Or closing trailheads or lands. Too many yahoos out there. Not saying any one of you is the Yahoo. Perhaps you are doing things responsibly. Others are certainly not. There is no good reason to drive across a county line to ski. If you can ski near home, you don’t ski right now. If you can’t bike near home, you don’t bike right now. Emergency services don’t want to be dealing with accidents right now. Around here it stemmed from the fact that they had no PPE a week ago in the county, outside 10 masks at the hospital.

Is it all done smartly? No. This is the government trying to manage things. There will be poor decisions.

Wilder Ranch is parking its lot at 50%. It was full Friday afternoon after home school. I wanted to take my kid on a short hike and there are a few trails in Wilder that rarely see bike traffic because they are to undeveloped. Because the lot was full, people instead packed their cars along the highway shoulder which is a much more dangerous place to park. It’s literally the highway shoulder. Kind of bummed me out. But we drove another mile and hit another trailhead, which turned out great because no one was over on that loop. Not sure what the SP reasoning was to 50% capacity in the lot, but it did not cut down on users driving in. Next time we will just bike the two miles from home to access the hike.

Thank you -
Good post.

" Is it all done smartly? No. ... There will be poor decisions. "
Amen.


I'm not going to be part of The solution ;

I will do the best I can to not be part of The problem.


Be well ;
Please - be Safe. tj

[hopelesslyadolescent]

Hastily constructed a sit ski option for an uber safe downhilling option for workout laps up/down a local sled packed logging road. Hike and drag skis for the up, pop the plywood in the binders, place backpack on it and sit with legs splayed/boots resting on ski shovels. Used the handle of my avy shovel for the brake. Worked pretty good for deeply incised sled track sections but, gonna have to add some fins to the skis for true directional stability. Plywood busted hitting a minor compression near the bottom of the run, so gonna have to figure out a more robust design for version 2.0. Twas pretty fun, actually...adult G.T. snowracer kinda/sorta like feelz....and truth be told, was nice not having to buckle the ski boots for the down. Just put 'er into low gear, dragged/modulated the brake, kicked back and just watched the world go by, stress free.

Attachment 322618

Attachment 322619

Swissiphic, your relentless, creative, out of the box thinking continually amazes me. You must bring endless fun to your household.

[mall walker]

Swissiphic, your relentless, creative, out of the box thinking continually amazes me. You must bring endless fun to your household.

+1. I think you’re insane maybe, but I love reading your posts in TT especially. the MacGuyver of skiing.

[skiJ]

Wrecked - your point is well-made - and I will be glad to read when gatherings have greatly decreased
( I believe this is an example of 'mistakes will be made' ) ;

I am empathetic to ill-advised and his dissatisfaction with his local hill --
given pending circumstances, current circumstances, and (future) circumstances and ,,, future events, I do not see any favorable outcome by escalating conflict There or anywhere
( That was the point of my post - and I am sorry to extend the thread drift )

Wrecked, your point is well made --
I encourage each of us to make the better choice we can at this time :

Be well ;
Please - be Safe. tj

[old goat]

In theory yes.
The thing is structured like this though: your employer can’t compel you to work if their operations aren’t essential.
That’s not how people operate, that’s not how life works. If your boss is an idiot who says “there ain’t no cases up here yet”, and doesn’t believe the downstate governor has anything to do with his life and work, and he’s still going on like everything is normal, and you refuse to go into work, you think he’s not going to remember that next year?

I want to mention again, one of my coworkers was chasing me around trying to touch my face with his dirty hand last week..while I was just trying to drop off bus keys and paperwork at the fucking counter we all have to come and go from.....because I’m “chickenshit” and it’s funny to them. Same place they all waited to heckle me the morning trump got elected...because we all have to go there, so they can wait around to hassle people like jackals hanging around some water hole in the dry savanna.

The only responses to this, around Marquette Michigan, seem to be undertaken cynically (like the ski hill happily closing, keeping our money, and lapping pow laps with the snowmobiles) or grudgingly...as the most common attitude here, as always, is we’re different and special and all the problems of the rest of the state/country only apply to us insomuch as they affect things like funding or mandates people or organizations can’t blow off. The proud talk about us not having the virus (subtext: like the dirty or evil city people) is almost nonstop.

They’re still snowmobiling, driving like assholes, doing construction on a luxury hotel, walking and driving around in groups.
If you can keep everyone’s membership money and blow off work, you close your gym “for the virus”. If you need money coming in you keep doing your construction project or selling pasties “because it’s essential”.

We built a society where everyone has to watch out for themselves and there’s no safety net. We did this. To ourselves. We shot this one into our own goal. You can’t go overnight from generations of “if you go broke you’re completely ratfucked” to insisting people choose to go broke for some nebulous collective good, or passing up a chance to take your customers money and shut down.. people don’t work that way. It’s not going to work that way. We have a president who proudly shafted thousands of contractors...we did this. Own goal.

Enforcement? Ya sure, I’ll check with the boys down at the crime lab, they got four more detectives working on it, they got us working in shifts..

Well said (especially for a UPer)

[snowaddict91]

No one should be driving from the city to the small town or the small town to the city to recreate right now. Glad to hear some on this board are awakening. To our world right now and dialing way back down. Travel as little as possible, take it easy. Get out to exercise and get fresh air and see the sky and some human faces from a distant.

Not sure why anyone would think this is a city disease. This virus is in nearly every county in our country. How it got there is irrelevant at this point. It is there. Could have been a tourist who came to your town to spend their money and support your economy or a local who went into the city to get goods at Walmart because things were needed that are not available in a small town. Does not fucking matter. It is out there. The beat thing we can do to show our love for our fellow humans is dial it back.

In a way we have this great opportunity to slow things down and take a good hard look at our own lives and how we live. How lucky are we that we get to complain about missing out on accessing skiing, biking, surfing, fishing or other leisure activity. We are not that nurse in NYC who died helping other people, or that family in Detroit that does not have running water, or the parent of some kid who insisted on spring breaking in Florida saying fuck the world we are gonna party.

Take stock of what you have. It is more than most. Appreciate that. Wait for a better time.

They are closing things done because people simply are not listening. Seems folks are still driving into San Miguel after they asked you to stop. So now they are ticketing. Or closing trailheads or lands. Too many yahoos out there. Not saying any one of you is the Yahoo. Perhaps you are doing things responsibly. Others are certainly not. There is no good reason to drive across a county line to ski. If you can ski near home, you don’t ski right now. If you can’t bike near home, you don’t bike right now. Emergency services don’t want to be dealing with accidents right now. Around here it stemmed from the fact that they had no PPE a week ago in the county, outside 10 masks at the hospital.

Is it all done smartly? No. This is the government trying to manage things. There will be poor decisions.

Wilder Ranch is parking its lot at 50%. It was full Friday afternoon after home school. I wanted to take my kid on a short hike and there are a few trails in Wilder that rarely see bike traffic because they are to undeveloped. Because the lot was full, people instead packed their cars along the highway shoulder which is a much more dangerous place to park. It’s literally the highway shoulder. Kind of bummed me out. But we drove another mile and hit another trailhead, which turned out great because no one was over on that loop. Not sure what the SP reasoning was to 50% capacity in the lot, but it did not cut down on users driving in. Next time we will just bike the two miles from home to access the hike.

Well said. I'm fortunate that I have close access to skiing and am keeping it mellow. If I had to drive farther, I suppose I'd suck it up and ride my bike or something instead.

I'm also super grateful for my neighborhood dog walks these days.

[old goat]

To be clear, I'm not against closures as a response to overcrowding since they seem to be necessary. What I'm against is us against them. If it needs to be closed, close it to everyone.

When people in the mountains get seriously ill they will be taken care of in the city, no questions asked--Barton sends to UC Davis in Sacramento, Tahoe Forest sends to Renown in Reno. You will have the same priority for a bed as a city local. If you get coronavirus some of the doctors and nurses risking their lives to care for you will be some of the city people you want to stay home (FWIW my son who's a doc at UCD and an avid BC skier is staying home.)