Quote Originally Posted by Tipi Walter View Post
I've seen it many times. Even came up on a burning fire in a high wind---the miscreants left long ago. The worst is finding a burning fire smothered in garbage---a loaf of wet bread, a wet shirt, booze bottles, foil, the works. It amazes me to think that the idiots have enough energy to get themselves out of the woods---and don't just fling themselves atop the fire and save themselves the hike out.
The worst situation like that I ever saw was the last campsite above Deep Creek, in the GSMNP, which is easily accessible from the campground. My daughter and I were pretty tired, having hiked down from Clingman's Dome, stayed at the bottom campsite on Forney Creek and then crossed both Forney Ridge and Noland Divide that day. We'd taken a wrong turn because I was relying on an old topo. Anyway, as we turned into the site, we passed a bunch of locals leaving. One of them shouted out that their fire was about burned down, but "you'uns" can probably get it started back up. Worst mess I've ever seen. They'd been fishing and there were fish skeletons, half-eaten fish and a couple of half-used packages of buns in the smoldering fire. We ended up cleaning it up and packing it out. I briefly considered hiking past them and sending the ranger back to get them, but they weren't carrying anything but fishing gear and probably could have made their escape before the ranger could get there...