A recent comment on an old post about a desert cabin, the terrible crime at the Fish Slough Petroglyphs, and other posts in the outdoor blogging world have got me thinking about something I’ve been wanting to write about for a while. What is our responsibility as bloggers when it comes to sharing special and perhaps secret locations?
One of the goals of Calipidder.com is to share the passion and love I feel when I am out there hiking, climbing a peak, and sleeping under the stars. I strongly feel that we can only keep these special places protected if there are enough people to care about them. I love how some outdoor bloggers, like UpaDowna, have been able to transform into organizations that execute on this mission in inspriring ways.
But I struggle with the flip side – more people means more use and more destruction. Many places are in danger of being loved to death! This is one of the reasons permit systems have been put in place for places like Mount Whitney. However, outdoor recreation has actually declined since its peak in the late 80s, and with it comes a reduction of people who are willing to fight for these places when they are in danger.
I believe in leading by example by taking care of these places, calling out illegal behavior when we see it, cleaning it up a little better than when we showed up (even if it’s just picking up a granola bar wrapper I see on the trail). Check out my friend Katie’s effort to spend 2013 traveling the US spreading this message in the climbing community.
I know that the readers of my blog share the same passion and love for these wild places, but unfortunately, there are people who can be maliciously destructive. This is always in the back of my mind when I’m writing about the places I love. I wrote this post to describe the thought process that I go through when writing about particularly sensitive or secret locations. I suspect many other bloggers and photographers face the same internal conversation when publishing content.
If the information can already be easily found on the internet with basic Google skills, I have no problem writing about locations and how to find them. A good example of this is the Fish Slough petroglyphs outside of Bishop. The BLM actually publishes guides to these glyphs, and nothing I write is going to make it easier for someone to find them, no matter what their intentions. I have no guilt sharing this location even with the recent vandalism. In fact, with the ease of access, I feel it is important to write about them so that more people are aware of them and will feel the same outrage when reading about the recent destruction.
However, a few years back we visited another rock art site in Death Valley, and I deliberately obfuscated some of the details in my trip report and pictures. We spent all day looking for this site, using only an old black and white photo. We knew the approximate location, then tried to match up the ridge line on the distant mountain range in the photo. It took hours of wandering around a canyon before we pretty much accidentally stumbled across the site.
Even if you know the name of this site, nothing you will find on Google will help you find their specific location – trust me, I recently tried after realizing I lost my GPS data from that trip. There are still tools, arrowheads, and beautifully preserved art at this site. I trust that the regular readers of my blog would treat this location with the respect it deserves, but my content shows up in Google, and I have no idea who will be looking for the information and what their intent is.
I have a similar rule regarding one of my favorite things to explore, old desert mining cabins. Some are quite easy to find with a little bit of Googling. My photos and trip reports may add to the content on Google, but I try to keep my information at the same level of what is already available. I haven’t published maps and coordinates (though some are available online), but sometimes names and pictures are fine. Other times I deliberately keep the information generic or publish it out of context. A book has recently been published that shares the locations of a large number of these cabins. Admittedly I was a bit upset when I saw this book, sharing locations I have been careful to protect, but at least it is hard to find and not available online (at least for now). However, an interesting data point is that one of the cabins that is easiest to find is also in the best shape. More people to love it, more people to watch out for the vandals.
Lastly, I consider the circumstances in which I learned about the location. Did someone take me there with the expectation of keeping it private? Did someone share the location freely on the internet? I try to approach my sharing with respect for how the information came to me in the first place.
I’ve also been accused of being “arrogant and stuck up” by not sharing a location with some anonymous person who had emailed me about privately. Look, I feel that way sometimes too, especially when I’m teased about a location but am given no information about how to find it. But I also understand the reasoning behind that decision, just as I understand the reasons for sharing it. It’s a choice that everyone has to make about the knowledge they have, and no one is going to please 100% of the people out there.
Maintaining a balance between sharing these amazing places as well as protecting them from those with malicious intent is a line that I am always conscious of walking. People have tried to make me feel guilty on either side of the fence (“you shared too much!” “you should tell us where it is!”). It’s a filter I have to apply every time I write about a trip, and I have no guilt about what I’ve shared due to my self-imposed rules as described in this post.
For any activity, whether you’re a dog owner, a photographer, a gun enthusiast, a 4×4 driver, a hiker, or a climber, there are going to be the people that give the activity a bad name. People are going to graffiti over native rock art, pillage old miner’s cabins, and litter in the wilderness. It is our responsibility, as passionate and responsible enthusiasts and bloggers, to lead by example, call out the bad guys when we see them, and inspire people to love and protect these special places.
How about you? Are you frustrated when people share interesting locations without information about how to find them, or are you supportive of keeping them secret?
I’m torn. I always feel like I want to keep my favorite places a secret. I like the solitude. On the other hand, I enjoy showing people the amazing experiences that the trail has to offer. Sorry Rebecca, but I don’t know if I helped…
It’s okay, I don’t have the answer either!
I think you have it exactly right. I deal with similar things all the time and it can be tricky sometimes, but your thought process is right on. Besides, what’s the point of exploring if you already know everything? Wasn’t that “discovery” of the Death Valley rock art a way better experience than if you’d just followed a GPS track right up to it? I wish more people were open to that kind of experience…
You’re right! I admit getting a special thrill from the hunt. Part of the fun for me is the entire trip planning process, and I love to dig into photos and google earth to solve a mystery. Getting there and finding out if my solution was correct is great fun. In fact, I have one of those spots in the plans this weekend…
Well balanced and logical, even if I really wanna know more about how to find those places 😉
I think some places need to be kept secret for their own protection, and other places should be publicized – at least enough to encourage people to visit them and want to protect them. Unfortunately, there’s no simple, hard-and-fast rule to determine this, and that’s the real issue. I generally don’t have a problem with mining ruins and cabins, as these are usually easy to find on topo maps and Google Earth anyway. I say this despite the fact that two of my favorite old cabins (Madulce Cabin in the Dick Smith Wilderness and Last Chance Cabin in Death Valley NP) have burned to the ground in human-caused fires over the years. Petroglyph sites, on the other hand, should probably remain as secret as we can keep them.
Your comment reminds me of a tangent topic I often think about when I’m out in the desert – at what point does trash become historically interesting? I love wandering through old mining sites and digging through the piles of old ‘trash’ to find interesting things, but really, it was just a pile of garbage. If I tossed my cans next to my campsite and left it would be littering! And good point about the mining sites being on maps, although I have noticed glyphs labeled as well (for example, one of the sites near the trail up Owens Peak in Indian Wells canyon is labeled on the topo maps).
In Australia we have an officially secret place, the location of the Wollemi Pine http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s1371627.htm
Great post! As a former park ranger, I have no trouble hiding the location of some of the spots I know about in some of my posts, which goes against what my job(s) were – to preserve, protect, and provide access. The distinction for me was that when I was a ranger, under the law it was my job to provide access to all areas, while protecting them. However, as a private citizen, I don’t have any responsibility to provide access by sharing how to get places. In my mind, this better “protects” the spot/area/resource. However, I’m not going to lie – this mindset is very Dirty Harry-esqe, and definitely a Catch-22, like you noted. There’s no perfect solution, except as my friends in the interpretive division always noted: “better education regarding wilderness spaces”. That, I think is where our “duty” lies as bloggers – to hopefully avoid the “tl;dr” conundrum, and educate people to see/visit these sites with respect to preserve them for future generations.
I completely understand this predicament. My husband found a pocket of 600 ghost orchids in Florida in a remote location previously unknown. We let a teeny, tiny handful of people come and visit and I was highly peeved when one of those people brought others out there. That’s the problem with orchids in Florida, an area can easily become popular and worn down. There are already known locations to visit these places, well known places too. Trust and asking permission from people who may have taken you somewhere always goes further than doing so without asking.
I tend to operate under your same guidelines, talk about it but keep the location under wraps. I also get questions for certain places sometimes and I usually tend to ignore them.
I wonder if the original rock artists were criticised for desecrating the virgin rock?
It’s a bit pretentious to not share what you don’t own in case somebody changes it.
Ha, this is a great article. I completely agree with you that there are many places that need to be kept to locals, or generally not placed on the internet. At the same time, wow, your photos are awesome and tantalizing! I would love to visit those petroglyphs in southern death valley!! Arg…
Hello! I rarely comment on blog posts, but I want to commend you on what you’ve said in this article. I stumbled on your blog after Googling “fishing Snow Creek” and (to my alarm) found a picture of Snow Creek Cabin, one of my favorite backcountry secrets. I know it’s gaining popularity each year, but some selfish/protective part of my heart wants it to remain obscure forever. Though I don’t have a widely read blog, I do understand your dilemma around sharing this sort of information, and I am really grateful that you take such a conscientious approach. Some wild places are more precious when you have to labor to seek them out! Keep it up, calipidder.
Thanks so much for this comment, I really appreciate it!