The outdoor West is going to continue to get more heavily visited, no matter what ... that's just the way it is, and we need to accept it. Trying (or pretending) to keep fragile or favorite places a "secret" won't be effective, and it just comes across as being arrogant. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about the kinds of outdoor information that's out there -- quite the opposite, in fact.
Social media and mass-market print media is throwing more outdoor stories into the world than ever before, and the vast, vast majority of it is shallow and incomplete. Backpacker and Outside magazines are obvious offenders, endlessly recycling story themes along the lines of "Ten overlooked National Parks," "Ten quaint, undiscovered mountain towns," "Ten thrilling park trails," and so on. Stuff like that is shiny, appealing ... and terribly superficial. The same is even more true of nearly all the material you see in Facebook and other social media outlets. Cookie-cutter articles and postings, designed to appeal to advertisers or sell destinations or monetize page views. It's rare when those pieces are actually composed by people who are intimately familiar with the landscapes they're hawking ... but depth is usually ignored even when knowledgable outdoor authors are at the keyboard, because depth doesn't encourage more clicks or ad views or gear sales.
All this media certainly encourages outdoor travel and lifestyle in volumes we've never seen before, but I tend to think it's mostly a glossy brand of travel that has less forethought and depth and that is sometimes less respectful of the destinations that are visited. In travel information, and in travel itself, much of America is going for quantity over quality ... and it's not the sort of travel I think the world should be focusing on.
Forums like this, though, are the antithesis of our trend towards shallow, Facebook-level travel. There's some real depth here, and genuine love for the places we experience, and though there's an amazing amount of information it sometimes takes a while to ferret it out. It all encourages, I think, more thoughtful trip planning, a stronger sense of place, and a more honest and deep appreciation of our outdoor landscapes. And of course we hang out here because we have that appreciation ourselves ... we're not just trying to fill a book contract or hawk overpriced fleece jackets.
Anyhow, though it may sound a little self-indulgent and hokey, those are my two cents. The world needs less Facebook, and more Backcountry Post!
