High Sierra Topix

I have noticed that people are posting stuff in the "Backpacking" section that really better belongs in "outdoor gear" or the "campfire". There seems to be a couple of problems with this:

1) Others may want to search in the future, and, for example, if searching for information on stoves, they may just search the gear section and miss an informative post.

2) I thought the backpacking section was for trip reports and questions on trips and routes and permit information. I hate to see the section get cluttered with things that have a better home. Perhaps not a big issue in winter when things are slow but during the backpack season it crowds out more pertinent posts.

Anyway, moderators, what do you think? I know some people post in "backpacking" because they think others will read it more if it is there, rather than where it really belongs. I know you are fussy about what goes into "conditions"- report of conditions experienced or specific questions on current conditions- not a catch-all for question on routes. I am sort of an organized person and like to see things in their proper place. Not sure it matters to anyone else.

I second that, things are getting a little loose out there in the forums. Greats points WD, i have noticed that as well in the last year. And yes the crowding in the wrong area can lead to missing valuable information. Sometimes you want to sort through it and sometimes not, but we have definitely lost the integrity of years past. Lets all be a little more conscious about where we are posting

Moderators can just move threads if they think it's appropriate. Just PM Mav or whoever and have them bump it to the right place.

Could someone tell me how to post a backpacking question? It has been a year or more since I posted, and cannot figure out how to do it? I'm trying to get info on exploring Humphry's Basin. I have put that into search, but mostly (only?) find info on walking by the Basin, not exploring the Basin. Thanks.

Next to New Topic at the top of the Backpacking section there is a search feature “Search this forum”, type in Humphreys Basin, you will get over 500 hits, plenty of info.
search.php?keywords=Humphreys+Basin&fid%5B0%5D=1

500 hits isn't all that useful as many of them will be of the same threads, and you'll forget which ones you have opened in a tab over time. I've run into that issue when looking for a pass that is a bit gnarly but is underdocumented in the XC passes subforum.

@d_silva1 In search options you can choose to limit results to the first post of each topic, which helps reduce chatter of someone making a random comparison to the basin elsewhere.

Another tip would be to search for specific lakes you're interested in XC in Humphrey's in quotes that don't show up elsewhere "Desolation Lake", "Forsaken Lake" etc. That way you're unlikely to get people that just passed by.

I'm in the minority here in that I don't really care for the classic narrative trip reports (they made more sense a century ago, I don't want to read about common campsites by popular XC lakes or see photos of basin I haven't been in), but understand they're mostly social vs informational. That said having some chronological index of them on a page, with some searchable keywords of basins/passes etc after would make them more useful than sifting through hundreds and hundreds search results, many of which I imagine are random questions or people just going over the pass etc. While backpacking trip reports have a bit more metadata than peaks, some of the lists ala https://www.snwburd.com/bob/ and https://www.sierraclub.org/angeles/sier ... ip-reports are useful for skimming.

A simpler solution would be to break up the backpacking forum into a trip reports forum, and then a backpacking questions forum - you could then just search one or the other (or the site/forum as a whole).