High Sierra Topix

intrek38 wrote:No robots should ever be aloud on trail, IMOP..

Agreed, while I would allow them, I wouldn't like them being aloud. Part of the reason I backpack is for the quietness.

sekihiker wrote:Fifty years ago when rules weren't as strict, we took a kid goat on a hike into the Kern headwaters where we ate him.

Okay, that was a plot twist I didn't see coming. But then, I'm guessing neither did the goat.

Jesse, the kid goat, became a pet to one of the scouts. Needless to say, there was a little more meat for each of us at the feast. After the NPS banned the troop from taking a goat, they took pigeons. No, not to eat, but as a primitive version of SPOT!

I talked to the ranger once in evolution and asked him what pack animals he saw the most trouble with and which ones he saw the least trouble with. He enthusiastically responded that llamas were by far the worst and burros were by far the best. Go figure, the age old tried and true donkey gets the gold medal. Not very sexy but I guess they get the job done. Just thinking ahead to when I'm too old to carry my stuff and still need to wander in the thin air.


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intrek38 wrote:No robots should ever be aloud on trail, IMOP...

I really do think the day will come when we can choose a robotic device rather than an animal. I know there are those who say robots should not be allowed. I think of it this way, if 50 years for now one could have an electric device, perhaps powered by an ultracapacitor rather than a battery, capable of following the human and actually doing less damage to the trail than the human, and which did not drop scat on the trail, what is the objection? Some will make appeal to the aesthetics, some will claim it is not natural. Well, we already use all kinds of stuff that isn't natural-synthetic insulation, stoves, GPS devices, heck almost all the gear we use isn't natural, but it helps us have lower impact on the land. Stoves leave the land in better shape than fires. Sleeping pads and bags do far less damage than building fires, heating cobble, burying the hot cobble, cutting and laying boughs over them for a night's sleep the way trappeurs used to do. Rather than the Danger Will Robinson robot from Lost in Space or the anthropomorphic C3PO, I would envision a low profile device designed to pick its way along the trail with less impact than the human foot. I would be willing to limit the robot to the same trails to which pack animals are limited, but why prevent those who are growing old from continuing to enjoy the back country? I couldn't still be out there had SUL gear not come along. Youngsters who say, Well if you're too old to haul your own weight you shouldn't be out there, you just wait; your time will come. You will either grow old and wish you could still backpack, or you will die before you get old. Besides, if I had a choice between a 75 lb. low impact machine to carry my stuff, or a 600 lb. animal that munches plants and drops scat all over the place, it just seems like a no brainer. As for those who just laugh at the idea as silly, for how many hundred thousand years did humans think the idea of themselves flying was silly? Two years ago, my daughter's team robot had to be able to drive anywhere on a basketball court, use accelerometers and computer to determine correct trajectory, then launch a basketball through the net. Last year it had to be able to climb to the top of a pile of rubble, site a frisbee golf goal, then launch the frisbee, landing it in the goal. We are on the cusp of the robotics age. For those who still object...ya know, if I were rich, I believe it actually would be legal for me to just fly a helicopter from campsite to campsite. Don't think many purists would like that. Wouldn't a robot be better?

Tom

No, I prefer animals, properly managed.

Mike

Still waiting on Segway to come out with a hovercraft that can carry 350lbs w/o touching the ground or making noise.

Teleportation would be nice, but after watching "The Fly" a few times, the skeeters might be a problem on the trip in and back.

Guess it's back to goats, llamas, burros, or mules.. sigh..

Ok, well I stand corrected. I've done a lot of reading on this topic and have come to the conclusion that for a wide variety of reasons goats are probably the ideal pack animal. Check a book called, The Pack Goat by John Mionczynski. I've been very interested in pack animals because although I'm 54 and in great shape, I want to get deep into the backcountry for as long as I can. Goats are idea because they are gentle eaters, ideal for off trail, even will eat snow, don't crap in streams like llamas, they like people and have been domesticated about 5,000 years longer than horses.... The list goes on and on.


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John Mionczynski worked in Wyoming with the task of observing and recording a band of Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep. He had a good deal of equipment to carry into the high mountains, including a big radio receiver to follow the radio collared sheep. He tried horses and then mules to follow the sheep into the high wild terrain. He could not get near the area where the sheep lived. Stuck with this dilemma, he trained his pet wether (castrated male goat) to wear a modified mule cross buck and off into the rugged slippery upper reaches they went; the goat’s presence did not alarm the wild sheep. He ultimately wrote a book called The Pack Goat and is considered the father of American goat packing.


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An Internet search brings up examples of microbial infection between domestic goats and bighorn sheep. For this reason alone I'm not a big fan of domestic goats in the wild.