Calls From the Wild Replace Call of the Wild

High above the trees and surrounded by sky, the Adirondack peaks can seem far removed from the everyday world.

Unless, of course, the guy next to you is jabbering on his cell phone.

Such a surreal scene played out on Mt. Marcy’s summit in front of state forester Jim Papero. He remembers it well: “It was cold and windy. Beautiful. You could hear the wind whistling and everything, then this . . . he was talking to his stockbroker.”

Cell-phone chatter, already common at restaurants and shopping malls, is heard more and more often in the wilderness. Hikers and campers are tapping into personal directories to ask directions and apologize for dinner delays, to bum rides and call in sick.

This is not amusing to many campers, hunters or others who appreciate nature’s quiet. The problem has prodded New York environmental officials, who worry about hikers using cell phones as lifelines, to promote phone etiquette in the wilderness.

“To be walking down a trail or expend the effort it takes to climb one of the high peaks, and to see someone on the telephone . . . it’s disconcerting,” said Stu Buchanan, regional director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

There’s no backwoods cell-phone epidemic just yet. But calls from the wild have become noticeable recently, now that wireless phones reach about 74 million users nationwide.

What can be a mere irritant in civilization can be a lifesaver in the wild. Rescues have been launched after timely calls for help from remote areas. Even many “Ridge Runners,” whose job is to help hikers on the Appalachian Trail, now carry cell phones.

Problem is, cell phones aren’t reliable in the wild because cell towers tend to be far apart. Then there’s the problem of getting a phone to work in gorges, gullies and other pockets amid peaks. It’s a Catch-22 because efforts to build cell towers in remote areas are often opposed by locals and conservationists concerned about rural eyesores.

Even when phones can hail a signal in the backwoods, rescuers complain about trivial “emergencies.” Rangers in New York report picking up the phone to hear hikers asking directions or complaining about sprained wrists.

Rick Donovan, owner of an outdoor gear store in the Berkshire hills at Great Barrington, Mass., has received cell-phone queries about how to light the camp stove. Or worse: “They’re calling my store and asking me for a ride. What happened to the days of walking down the mountain?”

Baxter State Park in Maine has banned the use of cell phones on park grounds, as it had earlier excluded radios and cassette players.

Park naturalist Jean Hoekwater says the ban in part targets nuisance calls the likes of, “Honey? Guess what I’m in front of right now. A big moose!”

New York has no bans yet, but the state-sponsored effort to discourage frequent and nonemergency use of cell phones is to begin this summer with brochures, videos and trail-head postings.

Can education work? Michele Morris, senior editor of Backpacker magazine, calls it the key. She’s hoping for new attitudes of self-reliance and consideration.

Stephen Jacobs, an associate professor of information technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology, predicts that the problem will “auto correct” over time as more people consider it rude to ring.

Don’t expect cell phones to disappear from the woods any time soon, though. A survey by Backpacker magazine last year found cell phones a popular item on readers’ “to buy” lists.

Meanwhile, some high-end cell phones can pull in signals from satellites, eliminating the need for towers. With the right equipment, even the deepest, most remote gulch can be just a phone call away.