Abusive behavior deserves rebuff

A certain Big Sur habitant, having a long history of venomous verbal attacks on others and whom I will call “Birdseed” aka BigSurRecCrew, sent me this email Tuesday morning a week after Labor Day:

Update the maps old man.  Why you stalling? Come on,you wanted to be the map guy.  You wanted to help Vwa gatekeep the illegal man made hot tub in lost valley.  Come on old man.  Why you shy all of a sudden?

With no honor or integrity as a man, you should be much ashamed,but it takes honor and integrity to feel shame for false and misleading actions and intents.

Up date your maps old man.  Dont be shy now.  I thought the whole point was open safe accessible trails for all.. you disingenuous, dishonest, disrespectful, old ass honky cracker piece of shit its white folks like you that Ive spent my entire life apologizing to everyone else for youre fucking disgusting

Hard to believe anyone would think this type of abusive email would get the desired response.  Has throwing a tantrum and calling names ever worked for him – would you do as he demands ??

For me, at least, a push back is my response. I will cold shoulder anyone who assaults me verbally, so will in the future be ignoring Birdseed. I decided to make the circumstances public since all sorts of stories might circulate in the chatterworld.

Ironically, I had planned to honor a request he’d made in an email four days before (see “Back story” below), as I’ve honored other trail reports made directly to me in the past.  But not now.

To be clear, this website will continue to use and show all VWA Trail Reports (or any sent privately, to the trailmap forum, …).  But – I was the one who had been approving Birdseed’s previous trail reports there, which I will no longer do.  The VWA relies heavily on volunteers (its Trails program is 100% volunteer-run).  Volunteers do what they want to do – if no volunteer wants to do something, it doesn’t get done.  The VWA Forum is maintained by volunteers and awhile back their number had shrunk to just one (the displayed ‘Moderator’ list is badly out of date). So I’d stepped in to help and lately have been the one doing most post approvals there from unregistered users. But in the future some other VWA volunteer must willing to do any Birdseed approvals – which is questionable, as he has been directing this same kind of venom towards both the VWA and individual volunteers for some time now. Somehow he expects to do that and still have others do things to benefit him. I know someone at some time will hike the trail and send in a VWA trail report, so that will suffice.

I thought only children threw tantrums, acted out and called people names.  At least I now know what he really thinks of me! 🙂 Seems to be a lot of hate out there, but life goes on, even for us “old men”.

Back story

On Labor Day evening my server farm needed to do ‘maintenance’ on my server.  The server then rebooted – but without any connection to its network! So on Tuesday the website was unreachable and I myself could not reach it as administrator.  Making a long story short, it took three long stress-filled days with help from AWS support to find an obscure problem – the bootup script itself had somehow become corrupted, so would get the server running but without a network connection. Replacing that script with an uncorrupted file and re-booting, the website was finally back up on the internet on Friday.

So I was burnt out and needed to get away for awhile. Sometime Friday or Saturday, can’t now remember which, noted I’d been sent a trail report email by Birdseed and mentally put it into my “to do later” bucket.  Then on Tuesday, when I again sat down to do some trailmap work, I first read my email and found the above gem.  If Birdseed had waited one more day (instead of just four) before sending, or just send a rational email, the trailmap would have been changed as he desired.

But that is now a what if, in a now different alternative universe. Trying to be reasonable does not work with unreasonable people.

Finding the Mount Manuel Trail – Hike 2

Extravagant flagging, an unhappy couple, Launtz Creek Camp is “found”
but have to shortcut trail
(with Paul Danielson)
Hike 2 = Orange
Over a year after our first hike, in February of 2012 Paul Danielson and I decided to re-visit the “lost” Mount Manuel Trail – to go beyond the ‘Apex of Brushiness’ which had stopped our last hike and hopefully reach, and so “find”, Launtz Creek Camp.  This turned out to be the most interesting hike of my 11 hikes “finding” the Mount Manuel trail.

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Finding the Mount Manuel Trail – Hike 1

Little tread, much brush, give up at “Apex of Brushiness”
Find sign and rockwork, Paul follows deer track
(with Paul Danielson)
Hike 1 = Red
February 2011 found myself and Paul Danielson, who had introduced me to the wonders of hiking old trails in the Ventana Wilderness, at Pico Blanco Boy Scout Camp.  We’d obtained permission and gate access, but were warned the dirt road was very rough as not worked on since summer.  Indeed it was – I needed the 4WD of my Xterra, newly bought for just such places.  Being my first time there, the camp’s setting under tall stately redwood trees with nearby creek was very impressive and peaceful.

 

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Finding the Mount Manuel Trail – Mapping technique

All hikes

Of the “lost” trails I GPS’d, the north end of the Mount Manuel Trail took more effort than any other.  And in the end, was the one trail not completely mapped when foot problems prevented further work.  In several sections the route went over steep slopes from which all tread had eroded and no trail clues could be found. In all, I made 11 hikes there between 2011 and 2016 looking for traces and clues (while aging from 65 to 70).

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Unquestioned ignorance spreads mis-information

Wilderness boundary facts vs. un-facts
(after being called “criminal”)

Everyone knows the internet is full of mis-information.  And that mis-information is often passed on via social media.  Having a gap in one’s knowledge, “simple ignorance”, becomes “damn ignorance” when that gap is filled with incorrect assumptions, or even made-up “facts”, and posted to the web as factual without any attempt to question or verify, spreading still more mis-information. 

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NatGeo creates a Big Sur map
(but gets it wrong)

 

In 2005 Wilderness Press (“WP”) produced the first sheet map available for the backcountry Big Sur trails – before that, hikers had to depend upon upon quadrangle maps with their many drawbacks.  I first used that WP map when exploring the Ventana Wilderness and always liked its very clean and readable format, with trail lines clearly displayed atop contour lines.

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Black Butte semi-bushwhack: views from the fifth-highest Ventana peak

Round trip: 3.2 miles & 900 ft elevation gain & 5 hours
Hike date: December 26, 2017
Black Butte Semi-bushwhack

(Click here for full-size interactive map)
Many don’t realize that Black Butte is the fifth highest peak in the Ventana (and in Monterey County), only 35 ft lower than South Ventana Cone.  In fact, some have not even heard of Black Butte! Yet the views from there are magnificent – the summit is narrow, so gives a 360° panorama from a 4936 ft elevation.

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Elfin Redwood Forest: Andrew Molera State Park

Elfin Redwoods – Andrew Molera SP
(Click for interactive map)
I was ignorant – I called them Cypress trees.  Actually, I knew they didn’t quite look like Cypress – but their wind-blown shaping was akin to what I’ve seen in Cypress and I didn’t know what else they might be.  Surely not Redwoods, those magnificently tall trees we here on the Central Coast know so well – these trees were only 15-20 ft high.

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