Once again, for those of you not quite sure what the difference is between the two, here’s a very brief explanation.  Conservation is the controlled management of lands while preservation is the total setting aside of lands with little if any use by humans.

These are the two sides that have been, are and it seems will continue to be fighting over the way the lands in the Adirondacks are to be used. Here’s where I have a problem and find myself torn.

Many years ago, my two sons and I regularly hiked and backpacked in a wilderness area in North Carolina known as the Linville Gorge.  The Linville Gorge lies south and slightly east of Grand Father Mountain and has been carved out by the Linville River who’s waters flow off the mountain to join the Catawba River near the city of Morganton. 

On the northern end of the gorge are the Linville Falls and immediately south of the falls the walls of the gorge rise up over a thousand vertical feet with Table Rock and Hawks Bill mountains guarding the eastern rim. For more than 30 miles, the river has cut the gorge making it into one of those places that is called “the Grand Canyon of” such and such a place. I don’t know if I would compare it to the Grand Canyon, but there is no doubt that the Linville Gorge is a fantastically beautiful and wide place both viewed from it’s western edge where a dirt road provides some spots to pull off or from the valley floor.

When I first hiked the gorge, all who entered were required to register with the North Carolina Rangers located in Marion up to 30 days prior to entry. Registration required listing the date of entry, the place, the names of all who where entering and the date and place of exit and the number of people allowed within the gorge was controlled and limited. In those days, we could hike from one end of the gorge to the other seeing only two or three others and sometimes no one at all. It was a wild, isolated, pristine area.

Some years past as my boys grew and went off to college and made their own lives before we decided once again to visit the Gorge. We planned a three-day trek entering from the western rim and base camping at one of our favorite spots along the river.  I called ahead to the ranger station in Marion to request a permit only to find out that the rules had changed and permits where no longer required. The gorge had been opened to non-monitored use for the past few years. 

After a particularly difficult hike down, we found our targeted site and set up camp. Immediately we all felt that something had changed.  The trail and the camp site both showed signs of wear and over use that we had never seen in the past.  After settling in, we decided to take a hike along the river’s edge. What we saw was a shock. We came upon campers using non-designated areas to set up their tents and stringing tarps and tents from trees and bushes destroying the under growth in the process. These sites looked more like homeless hobo hiding places than campsites.

Further along the way, we found half a dozen spots littered with disposable diapers and, worst of all, soiled toilet tissue laying right next to the trail with no attempt made to hide or bury the remains. Beer and soda cans added to the shock. We wondered what had happened…what happened to the campers creed of “leaving the land better than you found it” or “carry it in – carry it out.”

Needless to say, our three-day stay in the gorge was tainted by what we saw to the point that we have never returned. It no longer was what we remembered it to be…it was spoiled.

This is the type of thing that scares preservationists and rightly so. Conservationists don’t like it either, but seem to accept the idea that things of this nature sort of go along with the risk of human use or simply say “that won’t happen here.” Well, I didn’t think it would happen in the Linville Gorge either, but it did and that’s why I’m torn between the two positions.

See you outdoors!

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