Backcountry Encounter Norms, Actual Reported Encounters, and Their Relationship to Wilderness Solitude

Backcountry backpackers' norms concerning the maximum acceptable tolerance limits for visual-social contacts at three encounter sites (trailhead, trail, and campsite) were examined in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Actual encounter levels were examined by asking backpackers to report the number of parties encountered at each of these three locations. Although 83% of the respondents reported encountering more parties than their acceptable norms, only 34% of the respondents reported that the number of encounters detracted from their solitude experience. Overall, 61% of the respondents whose personal norms were exceeded at one or more of the three encounter sites indicated that the number of encounters did not detract from the trip experience. Possible explanations for this finding are: (a) many backcountry users do not have a clear or salient conception of what a tolerable number of encounters is, (b) visual-social encounters are only of minor importance in the overall solitude experience found in remote environments, (c) limitations in our measurements resulted in the apparent noncongruent relationships between norms and reactions, and (d) the number of encounters is important to respondents, but conformity of behavior to normative beliefs is not a certainty.