Rant On:

Is it just me? I have always picked up trash on the trail, I was taught to be that way in the Boy Scouts. It used be that I would collect and carry out cans and glass bottles but the last 3 or 4 years it is mostly plastic disposable water bottles. It has ticked me off so much that I'm trying to stay clear of as many disposable goods as I can. I find it hard to believe that people will pay so much for bottled water and I have a real WTF moment when I find those bottles beside pristine mountain streams. Why would someone buy gussied up tap water and then turn around and trash a headwater?

Rant Off:

Same here - I pick up trash - first did it in Boy Scouts

What I hate is balloons. I hate it when people "release" helium balloons. You know, they're going to go somewhere, like into the wilderness, at least I pick them up occasionally when I'm walking around in the wilderness.

Would people throw trash out their car windows like that? I don't think so...

Why is okay to "release" helium filled balloons????

Rant off:

My WTF moment is when people leave bagged dog poo on the side of the trail. I *imagine* they have the idea that they will pick it up on the way back and "forget." I saw one bag hanging on a tree (?????). I would rather see people toss the stuff off the hillside than leave it there in a bag that won't decompose. One reason my dog wears his own pack is to haul his poo out, and I can add the leavings from the others as needed.

I see more trash at trailheads and fishin' holes along river roads than I do on trails.

I constantly find little scraps of packaging around too. The hikers before seem to remember to haul out the big stuff, but forget that they tore off a strip of the package.

Pick it up?

And the doggy doo thing, though it is even more obnoxious when people just squat near a trail. For heavens sake people, you aren't the only person on the trails!

I hiked the southern 200 miles of the AT in October, and I was flabbergasted at the amount of trash on the trail. Literally every fire pit had scraps of food, plastic wrappers, foil wrappers, tea bags, and other non-burnable crap. Even in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, people were tossing their foil and plastic crap in the fireplaces at the shelters. How much of a pig do you have to be to not carry out a few grams of plastic wrapping from your ramen or jerky?

I see much less trash on trails here in New England. Are southerners just lazy slobs?

Lately, the prevalence of neatly tied, blue bags of dog doo left alongside the trail for who knows who to pick up from the preserve I ride and hike in, has been driving me berserk. I pick up trash, but dangit I don't wanna...!

Agreed that this is both sad and disturbing. We carry out someone else's trash on every hike...

But one night I had carried a nice bottle of wine up to a backcountry campsite, and left it in the stream to chill while we prepared dinner. A few minutes later another couple of hikers arrived...and crossed that stream.

Yep--you an see this one coming, right.

They arrived at our camp full of righteous indignation about people who leave garbage in the creeks in the backcountry.

End result--we had to share some of our lovely wine with them to calm them down.

sigh

Edited by balzaccom on 01/04/2012 17:50:45 MST.

I thought this thread was about Snooki.

Well played, Matthew. Well played.

I see almost none up here (Alaska), so some places are as yet unspoiled by litter. Just the ocassional wrapper that hopefully just slipped out of someone's pocket.

People seem less likely to litter in a clean place and when it's first bit anyone's seen in 5 miles, most anyone will pick it up. It's when the balance of cleaners to litterers gets too out of whack that those in the middle start to slip.

I was picking up trash on trails long before Scouts, but what I learned in Scouting was to the "police" the campsite for litter. Little of it was ours, but we cleaned it all up. Now my grade-schoolers expect to do the same thing on any cabin, camping or BPing trip.

My two gripes: Ammo cartridges. I don't care if you don't reload, pack it out. And any foil or glass in a fire. Tin cans to burn out the smell, okay. And if you want to burn paper or plastic, do while you have a hot fire and it will combust decently.

Dale,

I live on Queen Anne Hill in Seattle. Same problem. Plastic bags of dog poo thrown into bushes, blackberries, etc. I dispose of it, reluctantly, in hopes of inspiring better behavior.

Daryl

Beer cans


Damn those creative litterbugs too. This was a tricky one for my vertically challenged self

I see that often, around here they would have bullet holes in 'em. A holes and cheap beer will always be a bad combination.

Even here in "ultrapristine" Japan I often encounter trash on the trail. I pick it up and pack it out along with my own trash.

I don't really understand what is going on in the mind of a person who goes through so much trouble to travel and hike to such a beautiful spot only to sully it with their own refuse.

Anyway for those of you that go through the trouble pack out other people's garbage, my hat goes off to you. Thanks...

you find a mylar wrapper half concealed under a rock in a place like this, miles off trail and a lot of work to access. As I told my devoutly religious partner: "It's akin to pi$$ing in the baptismal". :=(

David T, I'm up in Anchorage and I see very little when I'm out, except on the Crow Pass trail. That thing was littered with old TP, and I spied 2 shirts left behind at different campsites. I suppose it's one of the most popular trails up here to overnight, though.

And of course, the shoe collections on either side of the river don't really count. =)

Like y'all, I've regularly carried out plastic bottles as well, although I can't quite bring myself to hauling out other people's dog doo doo bags.

There will always be considerate hikers and 'good samaritans' too -- but seems like the evermore pervasive "me generations" would rather just trash the world then bring upon even the slightest inconvenience to themselves.