No Need To ‘Fix’ Something That Doesn’T Need To Be Fixed

I hiked Tubbs Hills a week ago, on a quiet and beautiful spring morning before too many others arrived, so I was able to take some time and study the trail carefully.

We are often told how lucky we are to have such a beautiful wilderness trail, with its breathtaking views of our gorgeous lake, so close to downtown. I am happy to report, as virtually anyone else who has hiked it recently knows, that the trail is in good shape, and does not need the costly and unnecessary fine-tuning that some are advocating.

At various spots along the path there are some moments of slight confusion: Do you zig or zag, move up or down? Is that a switch-back, or the main trail? One can’t really go wrong, because a wrong turn can be fixed simply by backtracking a few yards.

Some trees have fallen over due to weather and water, but any obstructions have been skillfully removed. Creative burning and careful logging have been done over the past few years, but much new growth is taking place.

The hill and its trail are regional wonders, and we should treasure them, and neither fumble nor fuss with the legacy we are obligated to preserve for generations yet unborn.

Some of the motives for “fixing” the trail are suspect, and others, while well-intentioned, are impractical and wrong.

We have to face the fact that, despite whatever we do to remake the world, there are simply some activities that some people will not be able to do. Not every one, because of age, health, infirmity or disability, can hike a nature trail. Tubbs Hill should not be graded, ramped, or modified in a futile attempt to open it up to a higher percentage of the population, as decent and kind-hearted an impulse as that first seems.

Our country, rich in natural beauty, has scores of places, beautiful places, that are inaccessible to many of us. There are no escalators across Death Valley, nor are there ramps to the bottom of the Grand Canyon. If you want to hike through the Sierras or scale Alaska’s Denali, the highest peak in North America, you had better be in very good shape, able to withstand some rugged terrain. Tubbs is not as harsh a challenge as these, but it still is too much for some, and we do no favor to our heritage or our future by trying to reengineer it.

The real reason, though, that the idea of fixing Tubbs Hill has surfaced at all is not so much a commitment to the rights of the physically challenged as it is the prospect of making it more user-friendly for tourists, even though many tourists from around the country find it in a state of perfection already. No, the costly alterations some propose for Tubbs Hill would simply make our famed landmark yet one more selling point for the neighboring resort, and that’s not fair.

The studies and much of the work itself, would be generously paid for by the Resort, but no doubt those donations would end up as corporate tax deductions, which means that we would be paying for the unnecessary work with public money, indirectly, and the benefits - and I don’t think you can really deem them benefits - would accrue to private profit.

Tubbs Hill needs no major changes; this is a simple case of leaving well enough alone.