Originally Posted by jowey

You can build open fires, didnt know parks allow that anymore. Flip side is that I really do not blame the parks either having found fire pits with litter and broken bottles around them.

Loved to back pack till my favorite site started looking like a zoo - humans. Used to take my sabbatical to a small falls several miles off a road on the Appalachian trail, first couple of years I was by myself it was great, then one other camp site then many....

.....right on about the electronic diversions, but then human society is not what it used to be either. This is identified by driving habits, every day I am nearly hit by cars "working the road" driving in my lane and they get upset when one beeps at them. This behavior makes one not want to go out risk thousands of dollars of equipment, ones life, hours on the road going ten or twenty miles to try to relax and have fun (counterproductive).

Then after arriving listening to others boom boxes and having ones tent pissed on - yeah pitched my tent in a remote place in a camp site and woke up listening to someone pee on it, guess they came in while I was asleep. That was a rafting trip, not quite backpacking.