Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
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frozenintime
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by frozenintime »

thanks for resurrecting this, maverick. five years later and little has changed!

to this site's credit, i'm so happy to see that the conversation above shows a real understanding of the complicated and systemic forces at play here, as well as some basic empathy towards the 'other' (in this case, anyone that's not white). i've seen a lot of dispiriting vitriol and narrow-mindedness when this topic comes up elsewhere on the internet.

on the positive side, there is a 2016 pct hiker that keeps a blog called brown girl on the pct (https://browngirlonthepct.com/). most of it is typical daily trail stuff, but as the name of the blog implies, she also does some important thinking about being brown in a sea of white.

there's a wonderful-sounding program in colorado called big city mountaineers (http://www.bigcitymountaineers.org/) that is trying to rectify one of the problems mentioned above: easing access to this country's amazing wilderness to children of color.

this article (http://www.rgj.com/story/life/outdoors/ ... /91202800/) offers a really clearheaded account of where we are at today, including the woman who started a "hikers of color" facebook group this year and received a ton of (absurd) backlash for it.

little by little..
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Hobbes
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by Hobbes »

Pretty interesting dialing back the time machine to see the genesis of the annual HST meet-up. As to under-represented activities, why isolate backpacking? There are a number of hobbies/activities that share the same type of demographic participation:

- surfing
- volleyball
- golfing
- tennis
- hot rodding (car culture)
- RVing
- fishing
- dining
- travel
- boating/sailing
- jogging
- swimming
- cycling

Perhaps the one consistent factor is economic opportunity. Not only the expenses associated with core material/equipment needs, but also the energy/time/effort required to actually participate. That is, those with professional careers may have more latent energy and desire to "get outside", along with the economic ability to afford both the necessary time & equipment.

OTOH, there are other kinds of over/under-representation as well. The HB library is a notable Neutra design and is well known in the region as a great, open air, yet quiet place. Even during the summer while school is out, the study desks are packed. You can probably guess where this is going, but yes, it's 99% Asian (from surrounding communities); no white kids anywhere to be seen.
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AlmostThere
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by AlmostThere »

I don't see that it's all white folks at all.
But I run large social groups on an internet platform - meetup - and they collect people from all walks of life, lawyers, housewives, disabled folk without cars, etc. and from all ethnicities -- I have hiked with Filipinos, Native Americans, African Americans, plenty of Hispanics, plenty of East Asian (Korean, Hmong, Taiwan, Chinese, Japanese, all of 'em) and plenty of others.
It's like people who are out there all alone, seeing no one, think they can do whatever they want and get away with it -- yet thousands more people come along when they are gone to see their pile of icky toilet paper sticking out from under that rock. You're out there with everyone, one at a time. You just don't know who.
People come from all over the world to California. They all hike. They join groups so they don't have to go out there alone.
One hike last month I had ten ladies from the Bay Area. Half of them were Asian, two of them were Indian (from India).
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by rlown »

interesting. My one experience was on the trail to Vogelsang. A Japanese couple. was coming up the trail and they asked me "how far?" I had to express myself in meters, or at least I felt that way in the broken english. Who hikes in heels and a sun dress? just asking. No Idea why they were going to Vogelsang as it was already closed. I do applaud their attempt towards a goal.

I have invited people of color on trips before, and they don't want to go. It does appear cultural.
Last edited by rlown on Sat Oct 15, 2016 10:01 am, edited 1 time in total.
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AlmostThere
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by AlmostThere »

There are plenty of white people -- all of the ones I have known throughout my life in fact, leading me to the kinds of groups I currently operate - who refuse to go car camping, let alone put a pack on. Everyone I have ever worked with, all of the people I've ever met socially, majority of my family other than my parents, in fact -- all of them are unified in their complete disinterest in doing more than driving up to Yosemite for the day. One friend got out of the car at Tunnel View, experienced that chilly breeze -- and then refused to get out of the car for the rest of the day.

ALL of the people I hike with, I met them through hiking.
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by giantbrookie »

I haven't seen any actual statistics but I actually seem to have noticed an increase in Asian American and Hispanic American hikers in the Sierra in the last several years. The real anomaly for me was my visit to Jennie Lake back in September. In my original post I had mentioned that I was rather surprised to see so many backpackers headed in the week after Labor Day. What I didn't say was that I was even more surprised that most of the folks headed into Jennie were Asian American and this did not appear to be one group, but rather several separate groups. Jennie Lake, however, is not the only place I've seen groups of hikers-of-color within the last several seasons in the High Sierra and I was under the impression I was seeing more hikers-of-color long before visiting Jennie L.

Regarding pursuits/hobbies/activities that are rare among people of color, I wouldn't include fishing on that list. There have long been large numbers of people of color who go fishing, but very few who do wilderness fishing at the end of a hike at altitude. A visit to a drive-to lake, the coastline, or a fishing pier is a pretty good illustration of this.

The fishing thing is funny because where I grew up in the 1960s Japanese Americans, although there were very few of us, had this reputation of being good fishermen, so I was a bit embarrassed as a kid that neither me nor my dad seemed to have a clue when we took fishing gear someplace. My dad, though, was unusual in that he wanted to go mountain climbing and take the family with him. Whereas this certainly wasn't the norm for Japanese American adults in the 1960s his stories of his time in Japan (pre WWII and WWII) indicated that lots of folks were hiking around there. He would mention doing really sketchy (probably class 4) scrambling to pick flowers for his mom. I think he was in fact cut out of a different cloth than many of his generation here. He was also very much into body surfing, which was in fact the first outdoor activity he got my mom into in the days before they had kids. He didn't start going to the mountains until we were old enough to be mobile or semi-mobile (he would carry my bro on his shoulders a long way on many of the early trips). It happened that he was also a freakishly good athlete by any standards, too. He regularly won masters swimming and distance running events, and his athletic prowess is probably best measured by the fact he ran a 2:58 marathon at age 48. So, although he didn't measure up to the "fishing" standard, his individualism, outdoor orientation, and athleticism contributed to him getting me and my brother into High Sierra hiking. Anyhow it is pretty clear I owe the fact that I became one of the rare Asian Americans hiking and leading trips into the High Sierra (leading my first trip (off trail, of course) in 1976) to the fact my dad was in fact a rare Asian American outdoorsperson of his generation.

Speaking of cultural barriers, there is certainly the perception among some/many people of color that the High Sierra backcountry is not a friendly place for them, even though this isn't really true. In the "front country" I have certainly had some scary encounters in small towns and backroads, including one that prompted two of my Caucasian friends in the car to say afterwards "Whoa, that was like something out of Roots". To make a long story short a store owner initially refused to let me buy gas, served others who arrived after me, and continually intimidated me (he was in fact armed). The High Sierra backcountry is vastly different, but the perception among some/many people of color is that what I encountered at that gas station/store is similar to the human interactions they'd have in the High Sierra.

Accordingly, this approximate paraphrase of a conversation I had with some of my friends who were going on their first backpacking trip--this to Desolation Wilderness back in the late 1980s is not surprising:
"So Wako, is it safe up there?"
"Whaddya mean by safe?"
"Well...yunno... are there, like a lot of red necks up there? Cuz...yunno, I been watchin Deliverance and sh-t..."
Since my fishing (etc.) website is still down, you can be distracted by geology stuff at: http://www.fresnostate.edu/csm/ees/facu ... ayshi.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by dave54 »

The comments after the story are interesting. I expected the usual diatribes accusing the NPS of racism, etc. Instead the general consensus among the commenters was "So what? Why is this a story?"
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by rlown »

giantbrookie wrote: Speaking of cultural barriers, there is certainly the perception among some/many people of color that the High Sierra backcountry is not a friendly place for them, even though this isn't really true. In the "front country" I have certainly had some scary encounters in small towns and backroads, including one that prompted two of my Caucasian friends in the car to say afterwards "Whoa, that was like something out of Roots". To make a long story short a store owner initially refused to let me buy gas, served others who arrived after me, and continually intimidated me (he was in fact armed). The High Sierra backcountry is vastly different, but the perception among some/many people of color is that what I encountered at that gas station/store is similar to the human interactions they'd have in the High Sierra.
C'mon just say it with me.. Bridgeport.. I have no clue how they get that way, but it must be just like in "High Plains Drifter."
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by Hobbes »

2:58? That's hauling ass; way under Boston qualifying time.
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Re: Why mainly only caucasian backpackers?

Post by WarrenFork »

rlown wrote: C'mon just say it with me.. Bridgeport.. I have no clue how they get that way, but it must be just like in "High Plains Drifter."
Funny that someone from Petaluma should single out Bridgeport in a thread about diversity. I've lived in both, and the demographics are actually quite similar.

Bridgeport is 84% white; Petaluma 80% white. African Americans make up less than 1% of the people in both towns. The percentage of Native Americans in Bridgeport is almost twice as high as in Petaluma, which in turn has a higher percentage of Asians and Pacific Islanders than Bridgeport. Hispanics and Latinos of any race make up 25.7% of Bridgeport's population and 21.5% of Petaluma's.

Those Census Bureau figures for Bridgeport don't include the Marines based at the Mountain Warfare Training Center at Pickel Meadows. It's a pretty diverse group, and they spend a fair amount of time (and money) in Bridgeport during off hours. I've never heard of any of them being treated with other than genuine respect and sincere hospitality.

I suppose it's possible that a few of the old-timers amongst the Bridgeport businesspeople enjoy playing up to flatlander prejudices about rednecks. That's the only explanation I can think of for comparing a town peopled for the most part with decent, sensible, and tolerant folks with the vicious locals of "High Plains Drifter." And you can be sure that people in Bridgeport would be the last to judge Petalumans based solely on the murder there of Polly Klaas.

When I lived in Bishop in the 1980s, there was local speculation that Asian Americans were shy of the East Side because of the proximity of Manzanar and the knowledge that people in the Owens Valley towns had staffed and profited from the concentration camp. I don't know how true that was, but to second what Giantbrookie posted above, I also find that I am encountering many more Asian Americans out and about in the backcountry. Last week in Northern Yosemite I saw perhaps 9 hikers in 7 days, and three (not in the same party) were Asian Americans.
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