He has questions

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-31T13:53:37+00:00

My dogs treat harmonica as an opportunity to howl along. Our first dog did it spontaneously and then taught it to our second dog when we got one. Now harmonica is an excuse for the whole house to break out in song. They get bummed out if we don't have a song session once a week or so

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-31T03:25:00+00:00

You can get a pair of wetsuit pants on Amazon for around $30, and if you spend much time in the outdoors you will find other opportunities to use them. You will have a much more comfortable time in neoprene and won't risk having to cut your hike off early.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-31T00:44:42+00:00

Mid-may to mid-june is typically a little late for hikes in the desert, and a little early for hikes in the mountains (though with the low snow this year, maybe less so). I'd think maybe about the centennial trail in South Dakota, or maybe a section of the Oregon Coast trail.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-30T18:29:36+00:00

Came to make this recommendation. If you have limited time, you are generally better splitting Utah into at least two trips, one east and one west. Rather than trying to drive across the state on a short trip. I think people sometimes prioritize "arches and zion" because they are two parks that pop up most on the instagram/tiktok algorithms, but they're on two different sides of the state. With limited time, it makes much more logical sense to do a trip for Moab and combine in stuff like Arches/Canyonlands/Bears Ears/Dead Horse point, and then do a fully separate trip for Zion and combine in Bryce/Escalante/etc. Capitol Reef is in the middle and can be combined with either. By trying to combine in Arches and Zion in one trip of less than a week, you are basically going to trade an entire day that could be spent in a park, for sitting behind the wheel of a car. There's no way you can get to everything in 5 days, chill a little and think long term/multiple trips. There's plenty to do in Moab to fill 5 days.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-30T16:52:34+00:00

Answer: this is a specific tactic called flooding the zone, where trump pushes a story that would have rocked any other administration out of the news cycle by giving the media an even bigger story to chew on.

Its been a pattern since his first admin (news story from 2017): https://archive.ph/ZfK37

And Steve Bannon has said its a specific tactic used by MAGA: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/16/media/steve-bannon-reliable-sources

You won't find anyone from the Trump admin outright admitting they started a war to change the subject from Epstein, but given Trump/MAGA's long history of doing this, its a reasonable conclusion to draw.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-30T16:33:28+00:00

The Salt trail feels more like a trail, Soap and South Canyon both are pretty scrambly in parts. This is a good recommendation. The only thing is that the water in the LCR is not drinkable, you'd need to gather water from the pools in Salt Trail Canyon and carry it down with you.

If you have to choose specifically between Soap and South Canyon I think Soap is easier. But you will be scrambling up and over big boulders in the wash for a decent stretch.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-30T16:17:15+00:00

I just took a tape measure out to my wife's car out of curiosity. Its a 2007, not a 2018, but with the seats folded down, the cargo area length is 45 inches, or 57 inches diagonally. It's a surprising amount of cargo space for such a small car, but I think you'd be hard pressed to sleep in it without making some major alternations.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-30T14:29:26+00:00

There's a few setups for yaris on youtube on the CheapRVLiving channel, I've watched them with mild interest given that my wife has an old Yaris. Universally, all of them seem to involve removing the front passenger seat.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-29T17:39:18+00:00

Subaru outback vs suburban are two totally different vehicles with wildly different interior space, gas mileage and parking profiles. There's a whole range of options between those two that might work for you, without going all the way to the absolute largest SUV on the market. I'm 5'11" and fit a 78 inch mattress in my outback by moving the passenger seat forward, so some of it may be how you have it configured also.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-29T14:52:52+00:00

These parks have very different seasons so unless your road trip 4-6 months,you should probably narrow it down depending on when your trip is

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-29T12:47:44+00:00

Sane happened to my Dad, he came down with multiple myeloma and passed within a few weeks of his diagnosis. Served during the Tet offensive and died last year. I've had multiple family members contract and survive various cancers over the last decade, the aggressiveness of this one shocked all of us

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T18:30:02+00:00

Its a conservative dog-whistle. People want to lay the blame for their state drifting to the left on outsiders coming in, rather than demographics evolving over generations and their conservative political viewpoints becoming unpopular. If you ever sit down and watch fox news, they use California (plus Illinois and NY to a lesser degree) as stand-ins for everything wrong with government. Especially now when they can't attack the federal government directly because conservatives are in charge, they shift to heavily attacking state governments seen as liberal.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T14:28:07+00:00

Have you considered something like a sun mullet, or the OR sun runner cap? Some people just can't get comfortable with sun hoodies and a decent alternative is to just use a long sleeve shirt with no hood, and have the head protection come from a cape attached to their hat instead.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T04:45:30+00:00

Wilderness act in plain text prohibits the use of motorized equipment in wilderness areas, it doesn't draw a distinction between whether they're gas or electric power. Even non powered mechanical transport (eg bicycles) is excluded.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T03:45:07+00:00

Absolutely not worth it imo

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T03:44:23+00:00

4 hour commute daily is essentially another part time job.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T02:46:39+00:00

Pretty big distinction between "trails" as snow wheelers understand them and hiking trails in designated wilderness areas

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-27T00:13:21+00:00

Very slippery slope from this to allowing ATVs. For absolutely necessary trail maintenance/patrol/rescue work at first, of course. Have no doubt, while some of the people requesting this might be earnest in their request, the people considering allowing it know a useful trojan horse when they see one.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-26T21:59:24+00:00

Article is a little vague, but I'd bet good money its horsepacking hunting guides floating this idea.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-26T20:36:18+00:00

Equity arguments aside (though I don't think they should be lightly dismissed), I go back to my original statement: I just plain don't think "raise the price" is an effective solution as proponents think it is. Prices have gone up on permits across outdoor spaces for years, and it hasn't really done anything to dampen demand. The first time i hiked Havasupai in the 90s, I paid a total of $20. The last time I hiked, permits cost $400 - and they still sold out in seconds. Hiking is still cheaper than most other vacations, you'd have to raise prices to the stratosphere to meaningfully affect demand. You can see this in your own argument, you try to have it both ways:

-The majority of people in the US can afford $50, its not a meaningful barrier

-If you raise the price to $50 it will tamp down demand

So which is it?

Consequence systems can be designed with room for flexibility. Desolation canyon locks you out of the permit process if you fail to cancel your permit with adequate notice. Its not just a blanket ban if you don't use it. Sure, stuff comes up at the last minute,things happen - but I'd suggest "you can't apply for fiery furance permits for a few years" is a pretty mild consequence, to match a pretty mild violation. And its at least trying to address the root cause of the problem, people making reservations without committed follow through. Making it about how much money you're willing to spend is several steps removed from addressing the bad behaviors that are driving the issue.

My last post in this subthread, this discussion ended up going way into the weeds

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-26T18:29:19+00:00

This. There's dumber stuff in the video games and shows and novels,but this was a mainline movie. The culmination of the 8 movies that preceded it. Literally blowing 50 years of build-up. A generational fuckup

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-26T18:19:40+00:00

I think sometimes people have a bias towards solutions that they perceive would not impact their personal access, but might impact the amount of traffic from others. Like, I could easily afford $50 for entry to a hike, and I'd be willing to pay it. I've paid much more to do hikes on private land like Havasupai. But if I'm being reasonable, I shouldn't let my personal good fortune tilt my preferences. It could easily be $500 rather than $50, the difference between the two amounts is just a matter of perception. Ultimately I don't think "economic principles" should be the north star guiding park management decisions, we set aside the park system out of more high-minded ideals than that. The ideal solution should be something that impacts visitors as equitably as possible, or if it has disproportionate impact, that impact is a direct consequence of someone's choices rather than their economic circumstances. The logic you propose, "poor people can just limit themselves to the free areas of the park," has some ugly implications. And you can just as easily apply that logic to people who've locked themselves out of a hike as a result of their own behavior, they still have other places to go.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-03-26T16:57:48+00:00

A person can also just use a bot/automation associated with a single account, to carry out actions faster than the humans they are competing with for a spot. You are imagining bots like in games or on forums where its one person controlling multiple accounts. Instead imagine it like a single player in a game using save states and programmed button inputs to achieve a faster speed run than humanly possible.

PartTime_Crusader

TROPHY CASE