LNT is a concept that was developed a while back. When I worked at NOLS in the late 1960's the USFS and the school worked together to try out many methods that would reduce human impact. Some of our original practices were later revealed to be not so good. I did not hear the term "LTN" until much later. LTN is just a catchy name that someone put on a set of methods that reduced impact. It has a more marketing ring to it than "minimize impact". The practices we worked out was never meant to exclude people from the wilderness or exclude fires per se. A basic premise of the FS is multiple use. LTN is an evolving set of wilderness practices that are based on good judgement and should be applied on a site-specific basis. Unfortunately some groups of regulators are trying to turn it into rules set in stone. We just need to be aware of how our actions impact the earth and potentially spoil the wilderness experience for those that go after us; then we need to have a "set of tools" or practices that mitigate that impact.

As for trail maintanence, it is arrogant of us to pick our point in time and then say - no more change. I feel there are some trails that need to be made more "pristine" and some that need more work and a few areas that actually need a trail to be built. For example, boardwalks through fragile meadow areas is an improvement that actually mitigates impact. When an off-trail area becomes a web of individual use-trails, it is time to build a trail to contain trail damage. I even think some very popular trails could be paved (as they do in Yosemite for the VERY high impacted trails). I am certainly NOT an advocate of making entry to the wilderness more difficult as a means of controlling numbers. A permit system also works without the arogance of not allowing less fit people enjoy the wilderness. The wilderness belongs to all, not just elite athletes.