A recent phenomenon of western countries seems to be a growing polarization in both politics and in personal and institutional ideological belief. This narrow and rigid world of absolutes and all-or-nothing thinking seems to have spread to our local Outdoor Recreation Groups. The concept of balance, flexibility, open-mindedness and a world of grey/many colours appears to be, in some instances, a distant memory.

In this post I will refrain from naming the specific organizations.

That being said, I have witnessed outdoor recreation groups move radically away from their foundational principals and mission statements of promoting and advocating for backcountry recreation and the improvement of access and trail infrastructure, towards a strict anti-recreation conservation agenda.

No new trails without studies, broad strategic planning, assessments, management plans, etc. The outdoor community itself is actively putting in as many roadblocks as it can to block and to place delays of years and even decades upon new hiking trail development and infrastructure.

How did this happen, and how did these organizations stray so far from the very reason they were created?

Sadly, the conservation zealots that have infested and applied their black and white ideological principals to the hiking community have a blind spot to the fact that commercial operators, industry, mechanized users and other recreation groups (mountain bikers for instance) continue to build and lobby for increased recreation facilities for their user groups and companies as never before.

Conservation values and new trails/improved trails, facilities and access can and must coincide with one another. Furthermore, it seems like these outdoor recreation groups (which I will not name) are engaged in self-sabotage, by undermining our user group’s recreational opportunities, while all the other user groups (including commercial interests) move in a more rational and balanced approach for their respective communities and stakeholders.

Black and white all-or-nothing conservation thinking in the non-motorized community will leave us left out, locked out, left behind, and relegate us as a bottom feeding, bottom of the barrel laughingstock.