Removing pink tape from trees?

[FrogLevel]

What's the etiquette of doing or not doing this?

I went on a hike yesterday and saw over a dozen different tree branches with pink plastic tape marking who knows what. Part of me wanted to remove them and part of me wanted to leave it because who knows what it indicates. I could tell some of it marked a random turn off point because I could see more tape down into the woods off trail.

So what would you do? Leave it? Take it down? Does it matter if you're in a wilderness area vs a national forest?

[Puddlefish]

Leave it. It could be a Forest Service marking, historic, rare, trees to be preserved and not to be touched, etc. Or, it could mean that this one is to be chopped down because it has some kind of communicable tree disease. Either way, it's not really your place to decide. If you think you're rescuing that tree, you'll likely be doing the opposite.

[trailmercury]

+1 Leave it

[Old Hillwalker]

+2 Leave it. Our trail crew boss would walk a trail under future maintenance and mark work areas such as new drainage or waterbars and the like. He would usually number the flagging so that we could refer to his/her notes as we worked our way up the trail. We also use to use flagging when we were doing AT boundary swath work to show where we left off in the evening to eliminate searching the next morning. Leave it alone please.

[soilman]

I agree with Old Hillwalker. Could be marking for the upcoming trail maintenance season. Flagging is often used to mark locations of trail structures like steps, water bars, dips, and future trail relocation.

[chknfngrs]

Too confuddling don’t take

[Rain Man]

Leave it! But take trash on the footpath, at shelters, etc.

[Christoph]

Another leave it from me. I've seen a lot of forest service folks use pink marker tape to mark short sections of trail they plan on repairing or relocating. I also agree with Rain Man, pack out actual trash if/when you can. Every little bit helps.

[ocourse]

What's the etiquette of doing or not doing this?

I went on a hike yesterday and saw over a dozen different tree branches with pink plastic tape marking who knows what. Part of me wanted to remove them and part of me wanted to leave it because who knows what it indicates. I could tell some of it marked a random turn off point because I could see more tape down into the woods off trail.

So what would you do? Leave it? Take it down? Does it matter if you're in a wilderness area vs a national forest?

It's litter. Remove it if you like. I do it often.

[Deadeye]

It's litter. Remove it if you like. I do it often.

No, it's usually not. As previous posters have said, most often it's markers for trail work.

Do like Rain Man - leave the tape, take the trash.

[Mockernut]

Leave it. I work with a volunteer organization that does restoration work on both federal and state lands...we mark sections a week or so in advance of bringing in work crews and then we take the tape back out with us when we're done. If it goes missing, we have a problem.

[ocourse]

It's litter. Remove it if you like. I do it often.
Any thing unnatural is trash and can be removed. The nay-sayers are usually the leave no trace folks.

[Crossbar]

If it looks fresh I leave it; faded/weathered/eyesore goes out as trash.

[Slo-go'en]

If it looks fresh I leave it; faded/weathered/eyesore goes out as trash.

A lot of times the tape is not removed after it is no longer needed. If the flags have writing on them and look new, it indicates where and what work is to be done.

No writing and faded, probably some hunter marking a spot.

[rhjanes]

We use flagging tape like that when we are doing preliminary work for our orienteering events. But we also write on them our club name, control number and the year. Sometimes a bad storm rips it. Sometimes some deer or varmints get it. But please don't take it! We often send out other members to assist with set up and when they can't find the tape.....means a course setter has to double back to find it. When we deploy, we also remove all the tape! And we are careful to also remove stuff we flagged and don't use.

We've also seen tape used for marking trails (Scouts), marking boundary's, marking where logging will and will NOT happen. And also on ruined fencing. That can become a safety issue if you remove it. Because the tape is marking barbed wire laying down in the forest floor or hanging off a tree where it grew into the tree.

So as other's have said, old and torn up, can't tell that it marks anything.....remove. Otherwise, please don't.

[Alligator]

Not really a good idea to remove even if weathered. It could be part of monitoring or a research study. It's not always a good idea to get too close either. It could be marking a yellow jacket nest, a hazard tree, or a widow maker. Perhaps a nest or a den. Typically flagging is marking a specific spot because there's some work to be done and the location needs to be marked. Dozens of legitimate reasons for flagging to be in the woods.

[perdidochas]

What's the etiquette of doing or not doing this?

I went on a hike yesterday and saw over a dozen different tree branches with pink plastic tape marking who knows what. Part of me wanted to remove them and part of me wanted to leave it because who knows what it indicates. I could tell some of it marked a random turn off point because I could see more tape down into the woods off trail.

So what would you do? Leave it? Take it down? Does it matter if you're in a wilderness area vs a national forest?

Leave them alone. They cost somebody time and money to put up, and they have some reason for it. As other posters said, it could be trees marked to save, or it could be diseased trees marked to kill. My guess is that this isn't a wilderness area, but national forest.

[Stikbow]

It really doesn't matter who put it out there. It's litter. If you want to remove it, go ahead. The odds that whomever put it out there coming back to retrieve it are quite low.

[Alligator]

It really doesn't matter who put it out there. It's litter. If you want to remove it, go ahead. The odds that whomever put it out there coming back to retrieve it are quite low.No it's not litter. Very likely whoever put the flagging out has permission from the national forest or even wilderness land manager to place the flagging and very possible to have been placed by federal employees. If in doubt, ask at the district or supervisors office for the forest. If you are actually meaning to be altruistic, you aren't helping with peoples' legitimate work or recreational activities.

[Tennessee Viking]

Where is the supposed location of the flagging.

Leave it. You can report seeing it to the land manager or local trail club.

Flagging tape on trail usually means an initial maintenance issue identified or forestry study being conducted.

Also it could mean a future trail relocation which also may require a biology or archeology studies. When trail relocations are considered, there is an initial proposed path tape, then there biology or archeology follow-ups to make ensure that nothing of value is destroyed when new trail is built.

[John B]

I don't know how you guys do trail maintenance, but my years of volunteering with the Red River Gorge Trail Crew (http://rrgtc.com/) , I can't think of a single time that tape was used. If standing trees are to be taken down, they are marked with yellow paint on the trunk; if a section is to be rerouted, the US Forest Ranger for that distric knows where it is and takes us to it; if a section is to be 'maintained' (cutting back brush, clearing dead-falls and blow-downs), we are always told where to begin and end on maps. The only time that I can think of seeing tape was when it was used by a group doing a trail run (their version of white blazes since many trails in the Boone National Forest aren't uniquely marked) and we had to cut it off the branches and haul out the bits of tape. But maybe things are done differently in the trail maintenance groups you're with.

[skater]

I don't know how you guys do trail maintenance, but my years of volunteering with the Red River Gorge Trail Crew (http://rrgtc.com/) , I can't think of a single time that tape was used. If standing trees are to be taken down, they are marked with yellow paint on the trunk; if a section is to be rerouted, the US Forest Ranger for that distric knows where it is and takes us to it; if a section is to be 'maintained' (cutting back brush, clearing dead-falls and blow-downs), we are always told where to begin and end on maps. The only time that I can think of seeing tape was when it was used by a group doing a trail run (their version of white blazes since many trails in the Boone National Forest aren't uniquely marked) and we had to cut it off the branches and haul out the bits of tape. But maybe things are done differently in the trail maintenance groups you're with.

I can assure you they are different. Not that your way is wrong (it is better in some cases), but we use flagging tape. As an active trail maintainer and responsible for marking areas for work by large crews, these flags are very important to our work. This is in Georgia. Practices may differ where you are.

For the minority that are calling these trash, maybe it's different wherever they are, but please do your friendly volunteers a favor and leave the flags alone. The maintainer will be by, and he or she will know if it is trash or not. The good you could potentially do is dwarfed by the potential negative impact on the trail crew. If you'll pick up the obvious trash, I promise we'll handle the flags.

[Traveler]

Surveyors (flagging) tape is commonly used for trail maintenance, when I was more involved in this kind of work it was the marking mechanism of choice. Typically it is used to bracket a section of trail needing water management, trail reroutes, or treadway maintenance, mark specific trees/shrubs/bushes for removal. I have also seen it used occasionally for large groups like scouts to mark their direction of travel at intersections or waypoints, however the tape is usually removed by the hiker walking drag.

Tape was a preferred marking system over paint that remains for a very long time. Unlike paint, tape moves in wind and can be seen more easily, it can last as long as needed and be quickly removed or restored when those who are not familiar with trail maintenance processes mistake it for "litter". Sometimes there will be writing on the tape identifying it as being there for a reason if not the reason itself. Bracketing tape can sometimes be identified by the knot in the tape, which will point to the next tape marker up or down trail that may be a distance away.

[peakbagger]

I use tape on my AT boundary section. 25 year old painted blazes are difficult to see under a full canopy especially when coming in perpendicular to the line. We are not allowed to add permanent markings only repaint old ones with any trace of paint so flagging is good short term marking. I have some orange and white stripped flagging that is far easier to see when scanning the woods. We are discouraged from making the boundary a path so following it can be challenge. There are lot of commercial timber lots butted up to the AT boundary in Maine and it real important that the line be well marked. There was a large timber trespass on the AT in Maine several years ago where the State of Maine logged an adjacent lot and cut into the NPS AT corridor. The boundary was not marked as the assumption was that state preserved land would not be cut.

The bummer is that the original NPS boundary from the big relocation in the seventies and eighties in Maine was ax blazed and painted where the bark was cut on the tree. In the intervening years the trees have either died due to the wound from the blaze or has substantially healed up the ax blaze. Paint lasts a heck of lot longer on an ax blaze then it does on bark.

[Crushed Grapes]

Any thing unnatural is trash and can be removed. The nay-sayers are usually the leave no trace folks.

We are all Leave No Trace folks. Leave the tape alone and move on. It's there for a reason.

[V Eight]

It's never occurred to me to take any of those kinds of things down. I wondered what's that about? But that's about it. Keep walking

[Tennessee Viking]

It's never occurred to me to take any of those kinds of things down. I wondered what's that about? But that's about it. Keep walking
I flagged a number of re-routes and worked a lot trail at Falls Lake.

[George]

Any thing unnatural is trash and can be removed. The nay-sayers are usually the leave no trace folks.

so also remove survey markers? (in violation of federal law)

[randy.shopher]

Just move it to somewhere it doesn't look so bad.

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[4eyedbuzzard]

It's litter. Remove it if you like. I do it often.


Any thing unnatural is trash and can be removed. The nay-sayers are usually the leave no trace folks.


It really doesn't matter who put it out there. It's litter. If you want to remove it, go ahead. The odds that whomever put it out there coming back to retrieve it are quite low.

Yeah, just do as you please without having a clue as to why or by who the ribbons were placed. So if I find your tent unoccupied while you're off getting water its okay if I haul it off as trash? Because it's unnatural litter at that point, right? /sarc