Annoying Hikers

[neo]

hikers that do their dish's in the water sourceor brush thier teeth in the water source,that piss's me off to no end neo

[generoll]

for true joy, try hiking the Grand Canyon sometime. Mules have the right of way and they all seem to empty their bladders in the same location. nothing quite like wading through desert mud made of mule urine.

[clayrfarris]

Can I play too?
Seems to me this is a master / servant relationship. The master (dog owner) is responsible for the actions of the servant (dog). Actions of the servant are considered to be actions of the master. So it is assumed that it is absolutley positively totally socially unacceptable for me to walk up and pee on someone's tent. I would expect repercutions if I were stupid enough to do that. I can say with certainty that if your servant pees on my tent or pack or bag, I will at the very least be finding that master's property right after I finish my quart of lemonade. If servant bites me I bite the master. Seems to me to be the best possible training program. If I am scoffed at for such vile and aggressive behavior I ask why is it acceptable for the dog to do it and not incur the consequences? I like dogs, at least the kind that are seen and not heard or smelled. We know dogs can be well behaved, safe, and non-aggressive. I know working dogs such as seeing eye dogs, search and rescue dogs, law enforcement dogs can function in society without any improper behavior. It seems to me that unless your dog can meet these same standards, it should not be placed in a public environment. If I were to go to a dog park or the home of a dog owner, I would understand that I have accepted the consequences and responsibilities of doing so. Meaning if I step in poop, or get bitten I have no right to whine. If the dog and owner are in any other public environment then they must adhere to the standards and accept the consequences of doing so. Thanks for letting me share.

[RITBlake]

Pardon all the typos on that, horses arnt allowe on the AT.

uhh, wrong

[minnesotasmith]

http://www.appalachiantrail.org/site...egulations.htm

Can people ride or drive the Trail?

Generally, no. The Appalachian Trail is designed, built, and maintained by hikers for foot travel. Motor vehicles are illegal on all off-road sections of the Appalachian Trail. Bicycles and mountain bikes are not permitted except where the A.T. coincides for about three miles with the C&O Canal towpath in Maryland, the Virginia Creeper Trail in Virginia, in certain Pennsylvania state gamelands, and roads in town. Horses, llamas, and other pack animals are not allowed on the A.T., except along the C&O Canal towpath in Maryland and on about 50 percent of the A.T. in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (where, by law, the route is open for horses as a historical use).
==========================================

So, it sounds to me as if the ATC considers horses (with their hooves cutting up the Trail surface, big horse turds, etc.) to possibly be less bothersome than are dogs, yet the ATC puts up with horses on the AT only on the stretches where they are forced to by laws grandfathering in casual horse use. Interesting. BTW, if I understand the length of the sections correctly, that is under 100 miles of the AT that they are forced to currently accept some horse use on.

[minnesotasmith]

(Same page, bolding mine.)

"Dogs must be leashed on the forty percent of the Trail that uses National Park Service-administered lands. (Actually, we recommend that you keep your dog leashed at all times.)"

2167/40 = 867 miles of the Trail. Dogs are legally allowed only if leashed there, plus Baxter and GSMNP ban them altogether. How many Park areas have past thruhikers seen unleashed dogs? I see a phenomenon apparent; dogowners refuse to leash their dogs ("But it's sooo complex and sooo hard to remember to do!!!!!!" I can hear them rationalize already), so only banning dogs works for controlling dog issues in Trail operation. The trend is obvious, and is caused by thousands of dog owners having the mentality of "I'm special, with far more right to be on and use the Trail than anyone else". Well, you're not, and if you'd been courteous when on the Trail, you could have kept this privilege, but the way things are going, I predict that 50 years from now, there's NWIH anyone not blind or whatnot will dare bring a dog on the AT.

[firefly]

What annoys me most is people who assume I do not know what I am doing probably because I am female. I have backpacked for over 32 years and guided trips for over 20. I teach backpacking clinics. But there are always people who come up to me when I am setting up camp and tell me I am doing something wrong. Another thing that annoys me is people who interupt a conversation you are having with someone else about the gear that works for you and states that gear does not work and is a bad choice. It does not matter that you are actually using this gear at the time..that it obviously works fine and that you were not talking to them..its not their way of doing things so it must be wrong. I would love to say the worst offenders are the rookie Walmart cowboys out there but that is not the case. Usually its the ultralight hikers with the really cutting edge gear. You would think these people would be the biggest cheerleaders for talking about and playing with different gear but some of them are insufferable. They finally got their holy grail of gear and thats it and everybody needs to just get over it and recognize their brilliance. Maybe this is what happens to good people who read all the books..troll all the sites..and spends endless hours tweaking their gear...UT OH

[Ridge]

Annoying, rude and arrogant: Rocks defaced to a point of nonrecognition, step threads torn apart, and the trail turned to mush by the carbide tips on the high dollar poles. Those with the steel tips consider the noise from the scratching of rocks as music to hike by. They will no more be convinced to change than those who carry their dogs on the trail, for which a lot of hikers see as a trail nuisance.

[Alligator]

---Yawn---

[Alligator]

Hikers on WB with 25 consecutive posts referencing dogs.

[Big Dawg]

Hikers on WB with 25 consecutive posts referencing dogs.

... or the carbide tip debacle.


Yea, no kidding.

[skeeterfeeder]

Thanks Jack, for the great list. It brought tears to my eyes as I laughed, recognizing so many of the situations, and also realizing I was guilty of some of the infractions myself.
You brightened my morning!

[Tich]

Ridge- I get your point but, do you think smokers are going to carry out their butts? Yes, I suppose there will be a few that will.

Here's the options as I see them

1) Throw them in a fire---it's been pointed out that they only melt into a ball of molten plastic
2) Throw them out into the woods or on the trail. I don't like seeing them laying around anymore than anybody else.
3) Burying them in the ground. I haven't seen any studies but my guess is once they go in the ground, and I meant a couple of inches, not just below the surface, they will probably stay there unseen forever. I can't see how one would work it's way up. Even after considering frost/thaw cycles I don't see how. But I could be wrong. Educate me.
4)Carrying them out. Yes, you would hope that they would. But to be realistic, I don't think so.

First time here so apologies if this seems rather presumptuous but how on earth can someone/anyone who makes the effort to reach and then hike these particular environments, i.e. beautiful, sometimes remote and ALWAYS fragile, consider it unrealistic (???) for others to make the very small effort to carry out something so insubstantial in weight and yet SO SO DETRIMENTAL in consequence to that very environment? Boggles the mind...
I guess you could say that littering is one of my biggest bones of contention and something that only seems to get worse each year. Yeah, both the littering and my 'ornery-ness' to it.

Other than that, smoke away!

[mindi]

re: Cigarette butts. I carried a square of aluminum foil with me for my butts, inside a ziploc. Stick the butts in the foil and crimp the edges, then put the whole mess in the ziploc. When I got to town I just threw the whole mess away. An old Lipton Sides package works well too, just fold it over and stick it in a ziploc also.

[mweinstone]

their are no annoying hikers.

[mweinstone]

hikers should eat your children. i want hikers in gaurd towers at every corner controlling all. hikers and god should ride together. hikers need non hikers for fleash in case of bearbite. non hikers are annoying.

[TOW]

Like sands thru the hour glass............

[mindi]

I rarely ran into any hikers who annoyed me, I liked them all for the most part. I can only think of a very few instances and none of them were a big deal.

I never had any problem with a hiker's dog, either.

The only time I ever felt threatened by dogs was on a section of trail that came out onto a road with a small house. Several dogs came running from the house snarling and growling...soon enough the owner came out of the house, shotgun in hand, and called them off. I don't know who scared me more..the owner or the dogs. He was not friendly or apologetic in the least and stood there with his gun until I was out of sight. He seemed pissed that I had gotten his dogs riled up.

[Chaco Taco]

Baltimore F***in Jack
Im sure someone else has said that Love ya Jack

[Lemni Skate]

I've only ever been slightly annoyed by hikers (one guy poked me about five times in a shelter because I was snoring so I stepped on him the next morning as I was leaving (in the opposite direction from him)). One thing for sure, they don't annoy me nearly as much as people in the "real" world.