Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Grab your bear can or camp chair, kick your feet up and chew the fat about anything Sierra Nevada related that doesn't quite fit in any of the other forums. Within reason, (and the HST rules and guidelines) this is also an anything goes forum. Tell stories, discuss wilderness issues, music, or whatever else the High Sierra stirs up in your mind.
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maverick
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Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by maverick »

Here are some great examples of considerate campers, really! :\

Stanislaus NF:
More than 100 bags of trash and 42 abandoned campfires were left for forest employees to deal with after last week's 4th of July celebration. The abandoned campfires could easily become out of control wildfires.
Smokey Bear reminds you that all forest visitors MUST have a valid CA Campfire Permit. The current fine for a campfire violation on the Stanislaus National Forest is $380.

We want everyone to have the opportunity to enjoy our forest public lands. It only takes one abandoned campfire to become the next major wildfire in California!

The trash left behind is unsightly, smells terrible, but also harmful and potentially deadly to our local wildlife and natural resources. All trash MUST be disposed of properly!
If you are in a remote location, "Pack It In and Pack It Out!"
PLEASE be a RESPONSIBLE forest visitor!
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I don't give out specific route information, my belief is that it takes away from the whole adventure spirit of a trip, if you need every inch planned out, you'll have to get that from someone else.

Have a safer backcountry experience by using the HST ReConn Form 2.0, named after Larry Conn, a HST member: http://reconn.org
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balzaccom
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by balzaccom »

Utterly disgusting. We're any of these campers cited?
Check our our website: http://www.backpackthesierra.com/
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by Wandering Daisy »

It looks like those campsites were accessible to car camping, not backpacking areas. Nevertheless, a mess. I do not think backpackers would carry in all that stuff. People who drink themselves into oblivion are also less likely to pick up after themselves the next morning. Unfortunately, holidays seem to be full of that kind of behavior.

One problem I see with the "pack it in/pack it out" system is that some people may not want to "pack it out" all the way home in the trunk of their cars particularly if they are going to disperse camp the next night in bear country. In the Wind Rivers, where there is the same policy, there are well-marked large FS garbage bins at the start of each back-country access road so you can get rid of it and not carry it smelling in your car for days. Of course, there are slobs who would leave it at their campsite anyway. But I think efforts made to accommodate dumping of that garbage would help a bit.
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by SSSdave »

I agree with WD that the only logical way to deal with trash is for more trash cans and dumpsters. Those that hate that strategy have been proven wrong over decades. It is easy for them to continue so because their budgets have been abysmal since the Reagan years. It would cost significant funds for more garbage collection in our remote areas, and politicians could care less unless it became a platform issue that will never happen. But the alternative of tossed trash littering is much worse than this status quo.

More generally, the whole state of California has a horrible littering and trash problem that one can point fingers directly at authorities, politicians, and vast numbers of urban people for. As a kid in the 50s/60s, there were huge media campaigns of Don't Be A litterbug and Keep America Beautiful. And the state indeed for the most part had far less trash everywhere as most people didn't behave like inconsiderate pigs. That all ended after the counterculture early 70s when many of the following Gen-X kids embraced trashing, especially those with Punk attitudes (ahh the wear your baseball cap backwards days!). And with so many new people migrating into the state from elsewhere from both the US and other countries, they adopted that Gen-X punk style and authorities never paid much attention after that. Police stopped nailing people for littering because when they did, minority and poor advocates would whine to media that sensitive to complaints politicians then went to police to preferably look the other way...Ahh we have more important things to do now.

The other thing we need both in our parks, public lands, and especially in cities besides a lot more trash cans and dumpsters is more public restrooms and water drinking fountains. Elect me brothers and sisters and this will all change. :nod:
Last edited by SSSdave on Mon Jul 15, 2019 11:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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rlown
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by rlown »

SSSdave wrote: Mon Jul 15, 2019 11:20 am

The other thing we need both in our parks, public lands, and especially in cities is more public restrooms and water drinking fountains. Elect me brothers and sisters and this will all change. :nod:
Umm, here in Santa Rosa, there was a proposal to build public restrooms in the square.
The public said no. So many druggies and homeless that will just trash the facility. So, the homeless do their business at the door fronts of the merchants. Need to move the homeless along and restore some values in society. SF is much worse with their feces and needle brigades.
I would never drink from a public drinking fountain.
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neil d
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by neil d »

Truly disgusting. I saw something similar (on a smaller scale) on the Silver Fork out of Kyburz (El Do Nat Forest) after the July 4th weekend...bags of trash, and lots of Wally World gear left behind. I wonder who shells out for car camping gear and then just leaves it behind...

But the absolute worst was the amount of human **** and TP left on the ground, usually just steps away from the campfire ring. It blows me away that people don't know how to handle this. I collected a big bag of TP and threw the dried **** into the chaparral...disgusting, yes, but I could not walk away from that.

This section of road along Silver Fork (up to mile marker 4 or so) is getting loved to death, and it has been getting worse over the years. I guess I blame the same phenomena that leads to the hordes out on the trails. I think it's only a matter of time before they eliminate dispersed camping along this stretch, which will actually be a good thing.
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by SSSdave »

Maybe someone in a USFS vehicle on weekends/holidays ought drive along that paved road and others where dispersed camping is popular and then get out and while occupants are watching from where they set up, without actually talking to whomever, take cellphone pictures of their vehicles. Like those camping so would probably wonder why and consider it might be in order to track them down if their spot was left with trash or other abuses. As someone that has disperse camped over decades, there are numbers heavily used roads like the Silver Fork throughout the Sierra Nevada where doing so really would not take much time or effort. Perpetrators would start being busted, fined, become news, and those camping so would hear about it on social media, and likely change their pig habits. In this era the honor system simply does not work well so enforcement and pain is necessary.
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Re: Respect for Nature and Fellow Hikers

Post by Lumbergh21 »

Almost as bad as what the University of Oregon students did at Shasta Lake in 2016. Over 30 cubic yards of trash were removed from Slaughterhouse Island after the students left! I like the article the next year about how much better it was with only a little over 3 cubic yards of trash left behind. That trash included some rather disgusting stuff that this site's policies probably wouldn't allow me to reprint from the newspaper article.
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