Alright, just one more time…

[snowhoe]

Weasel good for you for standing up for something! Even though it is just poo. I know how it is when everyone is against you on a topic that you REALLY believe in. Keep fighting maybe you might be able to change one persons mind. If so you WON!!

[Dances with Mice]

TP & improvised poo places are irrelevant compared to the most serious threat to the AT.

[Petr]

Weasel, my good man, I'm glad your still online!

My penultimate comment was a veiled and somewhat hazy allusion to some argument between you and (I think) LW that I read months ago where he insisted on calling you Weasy to your apparent chagrin which I found voyeuristically amusing. Reading between the lines, I suspect that you suspect that I really have no interest in being unfriendly. And, by the by, MSU is universally known to be a fantastic school if you have an interest in underwater basket-weaving. Their program is really strong.

In response to your middle paragraph: I have no disagreements, only admiration for the fact that you can appreciate the middle ground in an argument.

Why does your local park want you to bag it and take it with you? Aesthetics. I know your beliefs/arguments don't rely on this, but given some of the insanity in the legislation of city/county/state/federal bodies, I'd be shocked if these laws weren't primarily motivated by the unpleasant scenario of stepping in a pile of dog detritus (not that I'm particularly captivated by that idea myself). I'm not saying that there aren't other good arguments for why these laws should exist (as opposed to why they do exist), but I think that basing any scientific argument on existing legislation fails to strengthen your cause. I must admit, and in doing so reveal my ignorance, that I don't know what/where Mt. Rogers National Recreation is, but I guess that the difference would be that it is likely that a nationally protected recreation area is more remote, larger, and more wild than an urban 2 acre dog-walking park, thus limiting the waste/sq. mile/unit time.

By the way, I enjoyed the extra emphasis at the end of your post.

Petr

Petr

P.S. Upon further review, I'm not sure if the antecedent to "changes" in my original post is "level" or "piles," which would, of course, determine whether or not "changes" or "change" is the appropriate usage. Any English dorks care to enlighten me?

[Petr]

Damnit!

you're still online. No more whiskey and posting for a week.

[Petr]

The Weasel,

I'm relatively new to the hiking game and I'm wondering, with your geographic familiarity, if you could recommend the best hiking areas within an easy day's drive of SE MI. Thanks.

Petr

[snowhoe]

Weasel, my good man, I'm glad your still online!

My penultimate comment was a veiled and somewhat hazy allusion to some argument between you and (I think) LW that I read months ago where he insisted on calling you Weasy to your apparent chagrin which I found voyeuristically amusing. Reading between the lines, I suspect that you suspect that I really have no interest in being unfriendly. And, by the by, MSU is universally known to be a fantastic school if you have an interest in underwater basket-weaving. Their program is really strong.

In response to your middle paragraph: I have no disagreements, only admiration for the fact that you can appreciate the middle ground in an argument.

Why does your local park want you to bag it and take it with you? Aesthetics. I know your beliefs/arguments don't rely on this, but given some of the insanity in the legislation of city/county/state/federal bodies, I'd be shocked if these laws weren't primarily motivated by the unpleasant scenario of stepping in a pile of dog detritus (not that I'm particularly captivated by that idea myself). I'm not saying that there aren't other good arguments for why these laws should exist (as opposed to why they do exist), but I think that basing any scientific argument on existing legislation fails to strengthen your cause. I must admit, and in doing so reveal my ignorance, that I don't know what/where Mt. Rogers National Recreation is, but I guess that the difference would be that it is likely that a nationally protected recreation area is more remote, larger, and more wild than an urban 2 acre dog-walking park, thus limiting the waste/sq. mile/unit time.

By the way, I enjoyed the extra emphasis at the end of your post.

Petr

Petr

P.S. Upon further review, I'm not sure if the antecedent to "changes" in my original post is "level" or "piles," which would, of course, determine whether or not "changes" or "change" is the appropriate usage. Any English dorks care to enlighten me?

Well I can help out with this one:
I was shocked when moving from Tennessee to Colorado that people here do pick up pet poo and I think the reason why is that the yards here are ALOT smaller then those back east. Now, I do sprinkler and landscape lighting and I can tell you when people dont pick up the poo from there pets you can tell before you even get in there yard the smell is absolutly terrible because the animal has no place to poo and its just pooing on top of poo, because the yards are so small. 2nd it seems everyone here has to have at least 2 dogs. I dont have any because I love my grass and I will not have a dog tearring it up. So, if you have a couple dogs and you let them poo every where they want without picking it up and everyone else does that you just have poo every where. I cant stand it when some one lets there dog poo in my front yard. It takes money to keep my yard looking nice and to have a dog poo in it and the owner not pick it up makes me MADD!

[Lone Wolf]

TP & improvised poo places are irrelevant compared to the most serious threat to the AT.

which is?......

[snowhoe]

which is?......

You stirrer you O.k. I will say it....... Global warming!!!!!!!!! OH NO NOT THAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!

[The Weasel]

We all do it, but TW has taken it to a new level. At least that's what I tell myself because I know he can't be that ignorant -- he can't, right, after all he's a lawyer

Weasel good for you for standing up for something! Even though it is just poo. I know how it is when everyone is against you on a topic that you REALLY believe in. Keep fighting maybe you might be able to change one persons mind. If so you WON!!

John, let me tell you why I feel as I do.

For over 30 years, I've done parts of the Bruce Trail, which runs from Niagara Falls (Ontario) to Tobermory, at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula, which is the headquarters for Bruce National Park, and a town with the largest concentration of shipwrecks (in water that is so clear you can see 100 feet down) on the Great Lakes and, perhaps, the world. The last 70 miles of "The Bruce" are among the most beautiful trail miles in eastern North America, as it runs alongside of Georgian Bay, a hugely clear and wondrous body of water off of Lake Huron. The "Niagara Escarpment" here is wildly challenging, rising from water level to hundreds of feet above the shore, and it is home to a vast amount of fascinating animal and plant life; thousand-year old cedars along it led the United Nations to name it a UNESCO Biosphere. The trail itself is Canada's oldest marked trail, and in many ways it was inspired by the AT, being surveyed in the early 60s. It is a grand place, and those who have walked it consider it a special and very beloved place. In that, it is akin to the affection most of us feel for the AT.

Yet for many years much of The Bruce was on private lands, and people who hiked it often had little or no understanding of LNT concepts, even the most rudimentary. Of course, in the 60s and even into the 90s, there were no formal campsites on most of the peninsular sections, much less privies. Yet as campsites became established in scenic locations, they became heavily used. As that happened, "latrine areas" became informally sited. Yet, as with much of the AT, The Bruce is rocky, with only shallow soils where campsites are most common. And those latrine areas - as sometimes exists along the AT now - became massive litter areas, with toilet paper and feces uncovered by rain, by animals, or simply imperfectly buried, if at all. Worse yet, they were often close to water sources (including the Bay), makign water dangerous to drink, and they were highly visible (and often stinking, as well). As a result, in the '90s, as the trail (in that 70 mile stretch)became controlled as a National Park, the park simply did what it had to: It closed most of those campsites, making it extremely difficult to 'thru hike' the most wonderful section of the entire trail. In short, since the hiking public did not clean up after itself, Parks Canada simply eliminated those areas from being used. It's gone. You can't camp at many of those places now, and not at all in the gorgeous stretch from Cypress Lake to Tobermory. Gone. Forever.

That result already exists along the AT in places, such as GSMNP where backcountry camping is forbidden except at shelters, which have privies (and, you'll note, even those are mostly composting ones or ones which do not enter the ground system). If we're not careful, the AT - which is subject to the control of the NPS, in conjunction with the ATC and other state/federal agencies - are going to do the same thing, sooner or later, to the AT as Parks Canada has done to The Bruce, and, in fact, as the NPS has already done in a number of national parks: Require "blue bagging" or even forbid backcountry camping other than in sites with privies.

This could be avoided. Not by saying, "We have a right to leave tons of thousands of pounds of human fecal matter along the Appalachian Trail every year," or by saying, "Build more composting privies" in an era when we're luck if parks stay open at all (most California parks will be closed this month, it appears, for budgetary reasons). It's avoidable by realizing that this is a real problem, and looking for ways to solve it before we get told, "No more stealth camping. Camp in allowed campsites only. Permits required." That's what Parks Canada did. And it was the right decision, and I hate it.

I don't want that, and while my ideas may not be the best ones (and I'm open to any that are better), they confront a real problem and provide a real answer. "Do nothing" isn't a good answer here.

So while I respect how you - and others, obviously - feel about this, and how you may (and do) disagree with my solution (easy though it is), I hope that you and others will take a moment to realize that The Bruce isn't as wonderful a thru hike as it once was. It didn't have to change. But the hiking community did nothing, and so it was changed for us.

TW

[The Weasel]

Petr --

All MSU lovers tolerate UMmmers, so thanks for your comment. UM is an excellent school, also, for those who dream of excellence and are not disappointed by having to work for MSU grads.

As for me and Lone Wolf, he and I use each other's full names now, having gladly (for me) made peace. He's a good guy.

As for the local park, why don't they let you bury the dog waste, if it's just aesthetics? Because it's unsanitary. QED (Blue people usually need that translated. Let me know if you do.)

TW

[Petr]

John, let me tell you why I feel as I do.

...

So while I respect how you - and others, obviously - feel about this, and how you may (and do) disagree with my solution (easy though it is), I hope that you and others will take a moment to realize that The Bruce isn't as wonderful a thru hike as it once was. It didn't have to change. But the hiking community did nothing, and so it was changed for us.

TW

Well, hell. I've lost plenty of arguments before, but I rarely concede defeat in public. I don't even want to argue my point (and I love arguments for the sake of arguments)...just goes to show that passion will generally cow rationalization. But apparently, in my case at least, it can't cow laziness, because there is no way in hell I'm carrying around my own *****. And there goes my streak of fecal synonyms. I'm out.

[Dances with Mice]

TP & improvised poo places are irrelevant compared to the most serious threat to the AT.

which is?......

You stirrer you O.k. I will say it....... Global warming!!!!!!!!! OH NO NOT THAT!?!?!?!?!?!?!

No, far worse. But no one really cares.

It may already be too late.

[pyroman53]

Try as I might while searchin the internet, I could not find any source that refutes TW's assertions. I gotta give him props for a strong argument. As much as I dislike the idea of carrying a bag of poop, it just might be our future. I won't vote for it, but I'm thinking he might not be wrong.

My problem is I always go WAY off into the woods, and there's a lot of woods when you get WAY off. Plus, carrying a bad of kitty litter sounds so effin wrong.

[hikingshoes]

lol,74 post over some pooo.lol

[Safari]

I was just thinking, after digesting all this talk of poop and tp... my impending thru hike could take on a whole new turn if I decided to pack out all my faeces... Wow! Imagine that! 2000 miles, a pack full of poop, I would always be on the lookout for a rubbish bin, the flies would think I was mighty fine and instead of gradually losing weight from my pack as I eat my way through a gourmet smorsgasbord of freeze dry packet pasta meals... I have something soft, yet yielding to lay my head upon at night as a pillow...

[Tin Man]

Weasy's theory is all very interesting and everything, but it is a theory that doesn't hold waste water when applied to the AT. If pooping in a cathole was as bad as he suggests, the AT would be declared a superfund site and closed after years of abuse. As a leader of Scouts myself, I encourage the boys to use common sense and question theories that do not stand up to practical applications of time and experience.

[Bronk]

A few further thoughts:

- "Ah!" you say; "I use the privies." OK, folks. Try this experiment: Dig a hole in your backyard, instead of catholes. Put a little wood shed over it, maybe with a half-moon on the door. Use that, instead of your unnecessary plumbing inside. Result? Same as above: Illegal nearly everywhere because of public health dangers, objectionable most places, and - after a few moves of the privy when it fills up - sorta destructive of your yard.


TW

http://weblife.org/humanure/default.html

[bloodmountainman]

TP & improvised poo places are irrelevant compared to the most serious threat to the AT.

Mr. Mice, you are the master of the "cliff hanger".
Could this be urban sprawl, erosion, global warming, or just the common weed?

[Dances with Mice]

Could this be urban sprawl, erosion, global warming, or just the common weed?

Far, far worse.

It is the diabolical plot by the Illuminati for world control using Sports Juggling.

[mister krabs]

Far, far worse.

It is the diabolical plot by the Illuminati for world control using Sports Juggling.

Says so right here.