Melissa Morewitz- Outside Reading #3

I read on a website: "In America our wilderness areas are defined as a place "where man himself is a visitor who does not remain." In essence, wilderness areas are areas that lack humanity and the influences of humanity. They are areas defined by our absence. However, there are very few surviving areas that lack human influence." This is such a true statement, I feel like so many places we call "wilderness" have been either tampered with by humans or even inhabited by humans. For instance, the Appalachian Trail, a manmade path through a long range of wilderness. Do we still consider it wilderness? I think we do because if we did not enter into wilderness, we would never know it existed, therefore it wouldn't be anything at all. How are we as humans supposed to enjoy the wild land if we cannot at least bring necessities along? However, I think humans have taken too much advantage of wilderness. Rain forests are cut down to build things human want, which I think is absolutely unnecessary because we have plenty of land to build on without ripping down unique trees and disturbing amazing wildlife. Humans are too curious however to separate themselves completely from wilderness. Hence the reason man built a path by which to enjoy the A.T. and pretty much every mountain has been climbed or humans have attempted to climb it for the adrenaline rush, for the mere fact that they know it'll take everything in them to succeed. Humans cannot fully separate themselves from the wilderness.