Joel Holsteen- Natural Setting #2

After Christmas break this semester I went up to the Appalachian Trail with my dad, my friend Matt and his dad to do some clean up work on the trail. My friends dad takes care of three miles of the Appalachian Trail and tends to it every month or so. Me and my father decided we would go out and help this time. We first hiked to the end of his section of the trail and then we moved blown over trees off the trail, weeded and made sure the trail was kept clean. I used to think that we were doing a good thing but now i am conflicted. I still feel that maintaining the trail is good because it allows others to enjoy nature and wilderness in a convenient way. Now that i look back at it though i can also see how its wrong. If you think about it you are destroying wilderness in a contained way just so we can have a convenient way to walk through and enjoy nature. At the same time if there wasn't a trail you would have less people going out and experiencing wilderness and those that do would just walk any way they want possibly even bush waking which would destroy more of the environment. So in the end i guess maintaining trails are good over all.