Randy-

It means a lot to hear feedback like this. There's no getting around the fact that GORP is a commercial site, but the only way our business will work is if more and more people learn to (a) trust our content and (b) depend on us as a point of contact for connecting with those who really care about a given public-lands area. We will do anything we possibly can to help people like yourself--and parkland managers, public-lands "cooperating associations," guides, outfitters, trail-maintenance organizations and clubs, everybody who works to preserve, protect, and maintain public lands for recreational use--get your messages out to the public in general. Helping local outdoors-centered communities get their message out to the broader world is the only way we can become what we want to be: a one-stop source of up-to-date, responsible, dependable, insider information about getting outdoors.

I'm trying to figure out how to demonstrate that the interests of local outdoor-recreationist communities and GORP's interests actually coincide. You want to see fewer backcountry accidents, more respect for the outdoors, fewer trail-use conflicts and other squabbles among people who ought to get along. I definitely have the same personal values, but in my role at GORP what might matter to you is that I simply want to give you a reason to come to the site, tell people about your home turf and (some of) your favorite places. (Hey, we all have to have our secret backcountry spots.) And let us all know what issues are an ongoing problem up your way--whether it's conflict between the wilderness-canoe camp and people who want to do motorized fishing, or that there are just too many people certain times of year, or that too many people arrive not knowing how remote they'll be in Boundary Country and unprepared for emergencies.

Please forgive me for rambling; I'm more or less thinking aloud here, and we're trying to make it up as we go along. But I'm very interested in hearing what you and anyone else thinks about the site, any aspect of it.

Thanks for your time, and happy new year!

cheers,
Ian

Posted by Ian Wilker, GORP staff on December 28, 1999 at 12:20