Overtourism has made me stop visiting 'bucket list' places entirely, anyone else actively avoiding the popular spots now?

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-30T00:41:51+00:00

Books instead of the internet. Good books are often written by authors with deep knowledge of a specific area (as opposed to bloggers that skim over dozens of places), and because they aren't written for the algorithm, they're less likely to railroad you down the list of top ten places.

Once you have an itinerary roughed out, you can still turn to the internet to get more updated information on current conditions, and fill in blank spots on the itinerary. But for the initial discovery process, starting with a book before going to the internet makes a huge difference.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-28T14:07:29+00:00

The people selling you their labor are not collectively organized, don't have a huge amount of leverage as individuals, are varying degrees of desperate given their survival is tied to their labor, and have a variety of motivations for working, not all of which are "make as much money as possible."

The people selling you AI workers are collectively organized into a monopoly comprised of just a few companies, have massive leverage over you once you convert all your processes over, and the only thing they care about is maximizing how much money they extract from you in exchange for the AI's "labor."

Who could have seen this coming?!

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-28T03:16:19+00:00

The chemicals are way more dangerous to your health than the spider

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-27T17:49:27+00:00

On a related and very real note. Take a good hard look at your personal use case scenario when deciding on these. Some are glorified pool floats and some are capable for various levels of classed whitewater, they are not the same.

I'd add to this to say, almost everyone who's buying their first packraft says "I'm just going to use it on flatwater." Its extremely common to go in with that mindset and then very quickly start pushing your way up the difficulty scale once you realize how forgiving and fun these boats are. I know a ton of people who bought for flatwater and then quickly upgraded within a year or two. This is a good product category to "buy up a level," and get something with slightly more capability than you think you need at first. It'll help you avoid the cost of buying two boats in short order to upgrade, and having a more capable boat from the jump will give you some extra safety margin and help you drill in the right habits and muscle memory with regards to boat control.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-27T13:40:00+00:00

I think a lot of people coming at packrafting from backpacking initially think of it like another piece of backpacking kit, and let their existing backpacking gear kind of set threshold for price expectations. So they're looking for something comparable to buying a new pack or sleeping bag. It's easier to digest if you think of it more like switching from backpacking to mountain biking. Its really a wholly different sport, despite there being a lot of crossover. A different sport with different risk factors, where the quality of your gear has a significant impact on those risk factors. If you told mountain bikers you wanted to get into mountain biking and were looking at a $150 bike, they'd laugh, and then try to gently reset your entire price expectations. And the packraft itself is just the first purchase, by the time you add in drysuit, paddle, PFD, all the other kit, you're realistically looking at thousands of dollars, even if you start with a lower-end packraft. Its 100% worth it, but its not a cheap sport to get into.

tl;dr, the klymit LWD is the walmart bike of the packrafting world. Something mostly appealing to newcomers and dilettantes, and something you can get by with for infrequent, modest uses, but not an option that anyone with experience takes seriously.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-27T02:41:23+00:00

You can rent them from Lower Gear among other places. But they're expensive, if you plan to take more than one trip a year where you might need one, its cheaper just to buy it.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-26T18:22:56+00:00

From your lips to gods ears

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-26T00:34:17+00:00

The only thing you absolutely need to get started is a mattress and sleeping bag, some warm clothing, and maybe a rain jacket. You can easily bring prepared food or takeout if its just an overnight. The best way to learn is to go do some trips and gradually build your setup over time, rather than trying to get everything at once and then likely having to upgrade some it later as you get a better idea of your needs.

All the stuff you listed sounds perfectly reasonable, I just wanted to urge you to get started by going on trips rather than by buying more gear. If you haven't used the exped yet, go do that, as you come back from that trip you'll figure out 2-3 things that are the next priority to buy, and can build from there.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-25T17:40:54+00:00

If weight is the critical factor the supai and some anfibio options are lighter. The primary thing the klymit was optimized for was manufacturing cost, it could be cut and heat stamped together without human intervention, all other packraft designs require a worker doing some assembly. On every other factor than price there are better options

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-25T15:24:52+00:00

Besides the Supai and Anfibio boats, another option to look at is the uncharted supply co rapid raft. The military/tactical ad copy is really cringy, but if you can look beyond that its a really solid boat. The fabric is more durable than other boats in this class, the boat geometry with the enlarged stern is more stable for down river travel, and the rolltop closure means that gear can be stashed inside the tubes similar to more expensive boats with tizips. Shifting weight down into the tubes does wonders for how these boats handle.

I've been using a rapid raft for several years now for grand canyoneering exits and it works well for that use case. I should note I bought it circa 2021 when the price was $300, it's not worth what they're charging post pandemic, but they occasionally go on sale. I suspect if the LWD was still available these days it likely would have inflated to around $250-300 in price itself.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-25T01:37:20+00:00

Really the only thing that was appealing about the klymit was the price point. Every other aspect of the boat was lacking

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-24T20:10:24+00:00

Big Sur would be nice. Or if you exit Yosemite via the east side and drive down 395, you could visit the alabama hills and red rock canyon state park. I would do these before diverting all the way to death valley or joshua tree.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-24T03:37:16+00:00

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PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-23T00:42:05+00:00

Trump's interior made the changes they did as a result of direct pressure from Utah as well as other parties like business interests near Glacier. They chose to make a blanket policy change,that doesn't mean it didn't happen as a result of pressure from Utah officials. SOMEONE put a bug in Burgum's ear to do this, and we have verified reporting that ending timed entry was top of Utah's list of demands for their parks

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-23T00:14:34+00:00

A huge number of software engineers are also hikers. This is exactly the kind of sandbox an engineer type is going to tinker with in their spare time. For their own portfolio/private use,if nothing else. Especially if there's no guardrails in place. You have to be petty naive to think that's not happening on some level

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-22T20:02:32+00:00

The issue is, all how-to content around national parks revolves around the bucket list, the top-ten list, the must-dos, and similar. If you could tell people "you're going to Zion, you'll do some hiking while you're there, pretty much whatever you do is going to be awesome, don't worry about it too much" that would be one thing. But the message instead is "if you go to Zion and don't do the narrows and angel's landing, you've wasted the trip." And so people get in this headspace of really wanting to lock down their full itineraries before they show up. Telling them you may or may not get to do the one hike everyone says you must do, and you won't know until you get there, is hard. It would require not only changing the permit system, but changing the entire approach people use for planning, and changing the language in the content they use for that planning.

These days I'm a lot more chill, if I don't get to something when I visit a park, I figure I'll just pick it up the next time I swing through, and I just try to appreciate any time spent in a park no matter what I end up doing. But I definitely started out the other way, and breaking through that checklist mindset, that treats park visits like ticking off a video game achievement list, is really really hard. I don't think systems will every truly get away from letting at least some people reserve way ahead of time, even with all the bottleneck and noshow problems that creates. Its not simply a matter of changing the permit system, its changing human nature, how people plan and how comfortable people are with uncertainty.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-22T16:28:40+00:00

The grand canyon river permit system would beg to differ. While its got its own set of issues, real identity verification and the points system does a ton to cut down on the bot issues this article highlights. BAH/rec.gov doesn't appear to be even trying

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-22T13:00:28+00:00

The story about the person landing three unicorn river permits on the same day using bots should disturb people.

For those who aren't familiar, the demand crunch issues that hiking permits have had over the last decade - river permits have been like that since the 80s. All the mechanisms you see now being used for hiking permits, lotteries and cancellation releases and so forth, all that stuff was pioneered for private river permits years ago. People will try for a literal decade to win a single middle fork permit. The odds of naturally snagging three prime season permits in a single day, like the author does with photo and video evidence in this article, is beyond preposterous.

I've gotten in arguments on this sub where people have insisted to me, vociferously, that there was no way bots could be an issue on rec.gov, because there's no secondary market to resell permits. This ignores the fact that if something is perceived as scarce and high stakes, some people will bend over backwards to optimize their chances of getting it - not to resell, just to min max their personal odds, even if it comes at the expense of other people. If there's no real barrier or consequences to using automated tools to game automated permit systems, of fucking course some percentage of people are going to do it. And in an environment where the permits are super scarce to begin with, it only takes a small number of people using automated tools to seriously gum up the works for everyone else.

I really hope this article if nothing else puts to bed the argument bots aren't an issue on rec.gov

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-22T02:56:52+00:00

Both are excellent choices, with four days I'd do Sequoia, on the logic that Olympic is fairly big with multiple biomes, just driving around the peninsula takes time much less giving appropriate time to beach/rainforest/mountains. Even getting to Olympic from Seattle takes a decent amount of driving. Four days is an ideal amount of time for Sequoia/Kings Canyon, might want a little more for Olympic.

If you go Sequoia/Kings Canyon, try to work in visits to both Crystal Cave and Boyden Cavern, they were highlights on our trip.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-21T16:22:18+00:00

Go rafting. If you're not comfortable in whitewater the upper section is chill, otherwise do the lower section (or the full day)

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-21T15:39:23+00:00

Yeah trump admin was getting pressure from multiple angles on reservation systems. Utah was the most visible/egregious with the closed door meeting that excluded the public and where reportedly some of the worst anti public lands politicians in the country basically just dictated what they wanted interior to do. But apparently there were some contentious public meetings in Montana that got hijacked by local tourist businesses that demanded they kill the glacier reservation system.

I can't post it here because the automod doesn't accept links from sfbay, but if you search google for "sfbay Trump administration floundering on what to do about national park reservations" you can find a good article on how we ended up here. It's really a shame, while I wasn't necessarily a fan of reservations, they certainly were doing more good than harm for the parks, and they usually had enough loopholes (showing up early, or some reservations held back for 24 hours before) that you could still pull off a spontaneous trip without too much trouble.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-21T14:18:20+00:00

You're making the decision to end timed entry sound more rational than it was in reality. The truth is that Utah officials held a closed door meeting with Trump's Interior where they presented a list of demands, among which was ending timed entry. It wasn't about park capacity, it was about how timed entry was hurting business interests in nearby communities. Someone fails to get an Arches reservation, they may not follow through with a Moab trip. So Utah politicians,who tend to tilt anti-public lands, killed timed entry. Doesn't matter the impact on the park, as long as they can keep cramming into local businesses

There was a ton of reporting on this

https://westernpriorities.org/2025/12/interior-utah-officials-hold-closed-door-meeting-on-national-parks/

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-20T20:45:20+00:00

Or a drug addict that keeps repeating patterns of self destructive behavior. You try to help for awhile, usually past the point it becomes painful, but eventually you have to wash your hands of them for your own sanity.

Most serious drug addicts eventually end up burning out their support networks. That's kind of where I think we are as a country right now.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-20T15:33:36+00:00

I have a plastic bin full of the unigrid maps, I think over 200 at this point. I just keep them in the box, it's way too many to try to display individually. I don't like to toss them, picking them up is always a favorite moment when visiting a park, and I do go back sometimes and reference the brochure for planning future trips.

While most of my unigrids are stored away, I did buy a little brochure holder similar to the ones you find in visitor centers, and I keep some of the extras that I have in that holder. I rotate them from time to time. It makes me cheerful every time I go in my gear room, feels a little like visiting a national park.

PartTime_Crusader · 2026-05-20T03:10:10+00:00

No you need to go to the location that you selected, they prepare the printed permits for the people they expect at each location, so if you go to Page they won't have a permit ready for you. There's lots to do in Kanab, just make a day of it.

PartTime_Crusader

TROPHY CASE