View Full Version : MY side of the mountain!
mcskinney
02-15-2011, 13:15
I was talking to a friend the other day about some backpacking trips we might have time for before I start my CT hike and as I made a suggestion for a place to go I caught myself pausing just before I named the place.
It was the name of my best spot. MY spot!
So I wanted to ask you all a question and see how others felt. I don't claim to own this piece of public land, nor did I build that particular trail... but it is a place I've been hiking more than half my life and every year it seems to get more well known, more and more fire pits, less and less brook trout. It's gotten so bad its now a fireless protected area. And every time I go I still see people building roaring fires. They make no effort to extinguish them when they are politely reminded about the fire ban.
I know it's not my place in reality, but I practice LNT to the T and it bugs the living hell out of me to see other abusing the land. I want to tell them "hey! you don't belong here! You're ****ing it all up! Go camp at an RV park and get drunk"
Does anyone else feel this way? DO you sometimes feel like people aren't ruining just the wood but ruining your woods?
mweinstone
02-15-2011, 13:40
bigfoot suit.
Sickmont
02-15-2011, 13:42
All. The. Damn. Time.
Especially when i'm 10 or 12 miles away from any road and i find a load of empty beer cans......THAT pisses me off to no end. I started carrying a garbage bag in my pack(both while hiking and mountain biking) to pick up all this crap people decide is too hard to carry back out and it really saddens me to say i have yet to go out into the woods/wilderness/sticks, etc. and come back with an empty garbage bag.
Well, no one has found my "private" spot (YET), which is off the AT in NY. I have to bushwack to it. Built the fire ring about 1983. I've been back many times and keep it spotless. No signs of anyone been there so either nobody's found it or they are great LNTers.
mcskinney
02-15-2011, 13:51
I started carrying a garbage bag in my pack to pick up all this crap people decide is too hard to carry back out.
AMEN!
I regularly carry out at least a gallon sized ziplock of other people trash, usually more.
Bullet shells piss me off too. I shoot my guns in national forest sometimes, I pick up my casings why can't you?
mweinstone
02-15-2011, 13:59
Well, no one has found my "private" spot (YET), which is off the AT in NY. I have to bushwack to it. Built the fire ring about 1983. I've been back many times and keep it spotless. No signs of anyone been there so either nobody's found it or they are great LNTers.
buit yourself a litle getaway did ya? layed in a trail and a firering i hear? been enjoying yourself there 28 years eh? new york you say? is that that part of the AT with the narrowest protected lands and the most private land shared access agreements? you know the agreements hard won by aldha and atc?
maby ill come build a firering near there if its cool.have sort of my own little peice of trail.cause right now , my private place is actually a public place called the hamburg watershed area of the appalachian trail.its fun. we cant build fires though. but i love it.
zombiegrad
02-15-2011, 14:40
I don't have a special relationship with any part of the trail just yet, but I experience a similar indignation when I see people throw recyclable trash when the recycle bin is just around the corner. I'm at the point where if i see someone throw something away that can be recycled, I inform them of it. I'm not being pushy; I just respectfully want people to know that being environmentally considerate is important. Developing activism about these things is needed. I'm disappointed to hear that a lot of that happens on the trail. You would think that the trail inherently draws people who have an appreciation and respect for nature, but not necessarily huh.
WingedMonkey
02-15-2011, 15:12
I was talking to a friend the other day about some backpacking trips we might have time for before I start my CT hike and as I made a suggestion for a place to go I caught myself pausing just before I named the place.
It was the name of my best spot. MY spot!
Then he is not your friend and you should not even be hiking with him :rolleyes:
Sickmont
02-15-2011, 15:40
Then he is not your friend and you should not even be hiking with him :rolleyes:
Exactly. My best friend knows ALL of my spots/places, etc. in the woods, and i know all of his. Disclosure to others beyond ourselves has never been an issue. His wife doesnt even know where we go off to when we go hiking/riding/metal detecting, etc. And he mostly tells her everything.