- Joined
- Jul 14, 2011
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- 13,928
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- 8x10 Format
We all agree on a lot of this. But the Sierra Club which solicits funds around here (to which we sometimes donate) is based in Berkeley, and involves a lot of students looking for a cause, as usual, who don't have the slightest idea of what they are talking about because they've never been there. One day I hauled my 8x10 out to the tip of Tomales Point - about a 7 mi round-trip hike - and right at the very end of that thing were about 20 S.Clubbers having a debate about population control in Africa. Fine. Do it somewhere else, rather than creating your own population traffic jam on NP land. So, without saying a word, I just stepped in the middle of them, plopped down my huge pack and set up my big Ries wooden tripod while they stared with their little REI book bags. They got the point and moved somewhere less obstructive. Well, you can imagine what is was like back when trailheads basically used only by a few local were suddenly policed with a messy camp of thirty or forty
volunteers with an attitude trying to boss you around. I'm truly grateful for all the formal designation of wilderness which did transpire; I just don't care much for when a particular group thinks the rules apply to everyone but them. So I'm more an admirer of what the Nature Conservancy has accomplished with darn less fuss and darn fewer lawsuits simply by talking to ranchers etc than taking an attitude of superiority to them. Get rid of all the cattle in some places and what you get in place
of them is concrete and asphalt sprawl. And in many places, now that the original big herbivores are all gone, cattle hooves are the only thing properly aerating the soil. Ecologists are taking note (I've got a degree in field biology myself). But I have zero sympathy for Cliven Bundy types... End of diatribe, and back to petty arguments over photographic issues.
volunteers with an attitude trying to boss you around. I'm truly grateful for all the formal designation of wilderness which did transpire; I just don't care much for when a particular group thinks the rules apply to everyone but them. So I'm more an admirer of what the Nature Conservancy has accomplished with darn less fuss and darn fewer lawsuits simply by talking to ranchers etc than taking an attitude of superiority to them. Get rid of all the cattle in some places and what you get in place
of them is concrete and asphalt sprawl. And in many places, now that the original big herbivores are all gone, cattle hooves are the only thing properly aerating the soil. Ecologists are taking note (I've got a degree in field biology myself). But I have zero sympathy for Cliven Bundy types... End of diatribe, and back to petty arguments over photographic issues.