what exactly is there to "report"?I was just up at Windsor Furnace shelter on a section and ran across a rather problematic situation. Here's the story.
I was coming down into Windsor Furnace a bit late (I made the mistake of stopping in the Port Clinton Hotel for lunch, from which I only extracted myself after two beers and two and a half hours (but that's another story.) Thus I was a bit late getting down to the shelter, rolling in just before 8:00. As I was hiking up to the bridge over Furnace Creek I meet three other hikers going south, headed toward the blue blaze to the Hamburg lot. One said "going to the shelter?" I replied yes and they said what I thought was "we'll be back" but on later reflection might well have been "you'll be back", the meaning of which will rapidly become apparent.
When I walked up the the shelter, it was occupied by two couples with an enormous amount of non-hiking gear spread around and two large tents pitched directly next to the shelter. They had a roaring fire going in the pit and were cooking a lot of stuff over it (ribs and corn as it turned out). I said hello, but it seemed obvious that they had basically scared off or refused to share with the three hikers I'd passed, though they weren't unfriendly or directly rude to me. I'm a hanger, so I just went to one of the campsites across from the shelter and set up. I'd already eaten (boy, had I eaten) so I could basically just let them do what they wanted, do my other camp chores in my own site and get to bed. One guy did actually come over and offer my some dinner, but as I said I was not interested anyway.
Problem was, I ended up overhearing a lot in the night due to a yelling-and-crying fight between one of the couples. From what I gathered, they were there on some kind of vacation or extended campout and weren't homeless (the woman involved kept demanding to go home; apparently her partner had the car keys.) I didn't know who to report this to at the time (does BMECC maintain Windsor Furnace?) and I had a long day the next day, so I left it at that and didn't report it at the time. I suppose I could have called 911, but that seemed rather extreme for the circumstance. Unfortunately, I also didn't feel it advisable to confront these folks by myself.
I'm hoping that Shelterbuilder or one of the other folks here know who to contact about this. It's not that they were bad people, just ignorant and in the wrong place. But still, shelters are for hikers, not for those seeking a free vacation for a few days and thus taking over services that hikers need and are intended for them.