Ryan Ghelfi

Executive Director

Wilderness exists as a line on a map. It’s a line that also exists in reality, though it’s not always apparent when you cross it. Once you traverse the line, rules and feelings change. Change from a chainsaw to a crosscut, from a vehicle to foot, from loud to quiet. Another thing that generally changes when traveling from the front-country to the backcountry is cell phone reception. Of course, cell phones (particularly smartphones enabled with the internet) are a new thing in the last generation, but they are ubiquitous. In many Wilderness areas, a lack of cell service causes phones to become a lot less useful and distracting– until recently.

You can now use a cell phone to send SOS emergency text messages via satellite (which a Garmin In-Reach also does). You can also carry a Starlink in your backpack and take the internet anywhere, even in the deepest canyons and highest peaks of the Selway and the Frank. Traditional cell coverage continues to expand quickly. These changes are happening in real time. This is a big deal, and it will change the way we interact with wilderness.

Soon, it will require a conscious choice to leave the connected world behind, even 20 miles from the nearest road. Many of us now bring our cell phones into the Wilderness to take pictures, use offline maps, and listen to downloaded podcasts. These changes have already been monumental and have, in many ways, eroded the Wilderness experience. I am personally guilty of each of these things. But now, the decision about how to use technology in wilderness will be even more consequential over the coming years. Once there is widespread cheap satellite connectivity to the internet, we will have to actively choose to unplug. Otherwise, emails and texts will never stop pinging at us, even when we are 6,000ft deep in the Middle Fork of the Salmon.  READ MORE