Neat! I’ll have to check it out.

Still, there are things that just amaze me. Like this URL for lightning maps. The fact that we can actually see where lightning is striking and almost real time across the United States is just wondrous.

https://www.lightningmaps.org/

Thanks for sharing!

I think there’s a broader discussion to be had about what “unconfined recreation” and “opportunities for solitude” mean in an age of ubiquitous connectivity.

Unfortunately, that genie left the bottle a long time ago and granted its three wishes to people who aren’t us. Ha!

The Wilderness Act obviously couldn’t have anticipated satellite messaging or direct-to-cell service. A radio signal itself doesn’t leave an imprint on the landscape the way a road or communication tower does. But I’d argue it can leave an imprint on the wilderness experience if it changes our expectations and behaviors. Wilderness Ethics by the Watermans touched on this topic almost 30 years ago. (As a side note, I have revist to that book in my draft folder)

To me, the technology itself is largely neutral. How it changes our relationship with wild places is the more interesting question.

For sure. Starlink is impressive technology. One of the last projects I worked on with the NPS was setting up Starlink at a remote district here in Utah. It’s not overly expensive, it’s reliable, and it works well.

I’d argue that internet connectivity is a utility at this point, much like electricity or running water. If you’re living somewhere full-time, especially hosting a high-profile campground like Zion, having reliable internet is more of a necessity than a luxury.

Having said that, putting so many eggs in the Musk basket gives me pause, too!

Have fun at Zion!

Yes, one of these weekends was on the AT north out of Duncannon, PA–certainly not a wilderness!

Barely 15 years later, i was hiking the AT north out of Penn-Mar Park towards Pine Grove Furnace, and spent a fair part of the hike babysitting my boss over the phone.

Connectivity has its downsides.

DEFINITION OF WILDERNESS
(c) A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. An area of wilderness is further defined to mean in this Act an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions and which (1) generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, with the imprint of man’s work substantially unnoticeable; (2) has outstanding opportunities for solitude or a primitive and unconfined type of recreation; (3) has at least five thousand acres of land or is of sufficient size as to make practicable its preservation and use in an unimpaired condition; and (4) may also contain ecological, geological, or other features of scientific, educational, scenic, or historical value.

Good point! The infrastructure question will be interesting to watch.

Exactly!

Those weren’t remote expeditions.

But nobody expected you to have known sooner. You heard it on the radio first.

That baseline is gone now. And what strikes me is that it went without any real collective decision about whether we wanted it to. The technology arrived, the expectation followed, and opting out became its own statement rather than the default.