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Radio
08-30-2015, 09:00 PM
This is sad, but it figures with the upcoming generation. Can't blame them though, they live in the world we left to them...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20150830/us--hikers_behaving_badly-5b704abb1f.html

I had the pleasure of hiking a couple hundred miles of the southern end of the AT. Even then there were those amongst us bent on ruining the experience for everyone else. We had "elitists" then, and now there are the "entitled"

Alas, my hiking days are over and long ago. Now I'm in the state park. And of course you see the same entitled attitude. I guess it doesn't bother me so much in a SP campground that anybody with a pickup truck can get to, but to walk 60 miles with 40 pounds on your back and bump into a frat party, yeah, that would suck.

NN5I
08-31-2015, 01:25 AM
Apparently the Appalachian Trail is afflicted with Appalachian Trash.

Full-timing in an RV, as I have done for nearly four years now, I had feared that RV parks would be afflicted with that sort of despicable people. I have not found it so; every park I've been in has been quiet and pleasant most of the time. Even people who choose to live in the same space with what I regard as filthy vermin (dogs, that is), pretty reliably keep their animals from bothering the neighbors who are so very close, and clean up after them when they take them for necessary walks. This was not always so in stick-house neighborhoods. So my full-timing fears proved unfounded.

I'm surprised, now, to learn that, in places like the Appalachian Trail, people are behaving in the ways described. Those places should be treated like the Alamo -- sacred and solemn.

Alas.

Radio
08-31-2015, 07:34 PM
Back then, on an approach trail, Jack's Knob Trail from Brasstown Bald on our way to Springer Mountain. We were younger then.

electricflyer
09-01-2015, 08:29 AM
We were younger then.

You both look good in the photo. Is that a tintype print?

N3LYT
09-01-2015, 12:45 PM
We are on the northern end of the AT and I don't see any real difference people in general are pretty good trash producers though. By the time they get to us they are real hikers and know enough not to carry any more than what they absolutely have to have to survive.

wa8yxm
09-01-2015, 01:02 PM
It is not just the AT but many state parks.. In Michigan all the state parks are Alcohol free zones.. So we get a call about a driver who, when exiting the park, missed the bridge and flooded his car the hard way (in a creek).

He's plastered.. I do not know the BAC but it's well over the legal limit

he is also on parole
No operation of a motor vehicle without permission of parole agent
No consumption of Alcohol
NO possession of Alcohol
No being where Alcohol is served.
Must take chemical (Alcohol) test (He refused breath test but his parole agent overroad)
and so on.

I'm sure when they identified his friends they got to join him in ye-old-slammer too but hey... That shows how much respect SOME folks have for the law.

I have another one.. but it's not as nice (People died).

TXiceman
09-01-2015, 08:15 PM
We have been volunteering at State Parks and National Wildlife Refuges for a bit over two years and it is disgusting at how trashy people are becoming. Today, my wife and I were out on liter patrol here in Minnesota. In about 2.5 hours, we picked up 6 Walmart backs of trash...stuffed full. Two bags were beer, soda and energy drink cans. The rest was trash.

We had picked up this same area a weeks ago and got 4 bags full.

Absolutely no reason to toss the trash on the side of the road.

I'd like to take the trash and stuff it where the sun doesn't shine.

Ken

NN5I
09-01-2015, 08:37 PM
Today, my wife and I were out on liter patrol

Liter patrol?

N3LYT
09-02-2015, 07:10 PM
I work for a local camp ground part time you would not believe what they leave behind tents, sleeping bags, beer, full propane bottles, grills you name it. They outfit them self for a weekend and have no intension of ever using it ever again.

NN5I
09-02-2015, 07:49 PM
I work for a local camp ground part time you would not believe what they leave behind tents, sleeping bags, beer, full propane bottles, grills you name it. They outfit them self for a weekend and have no intension of ever using it ever again.

Put it on eBay!

Still trying to figure out what Ken might have meant by "liter patrol" -- a typo, perhaps? Usually I can figure out what was meant, but not this time.

TXiceman
09-02-2015, 08:03 PM
NN5I

auto correct.

Litter or trash patrol.

Other bad habits we found was doing a #2 in the corner of the screen shelter and leaving it. After the Rangers removed the pile, we had to wash the floor with bleach to clean it out for future use. The people that had rented the shelter were from India. I guess they want to make if feel like the home country.


Ken

NN5I
09-02-2015, 10:52 PM
Litter! I should have known that.

Wow, that's gross.

N3LYT
09-03-2015, 01:14 PM
Put it on eBay!

Still trying to figure out what Ken might have meant by "liter patrol" -- a typo, perhaps? Usually I can figure out what was meant, but not this time.

Pretty much every one that camps around here has lots of free camping gear. There is another faction that has lots of beer,soda.water and other unopened beverages. In my case it is the entertainment value. The Saco river runs through my land and this is what brings the campers, on any given day in the summer there maybe as many as a thousand rental canoes from NH through ME. They come from places like Boston and other points south and some have never even seen a real canoe much less sat in one. They are a messy group and it costs the rec counsel a great deal of money to clean up after them glad I'm not their parents. There is a 'litter" patrol that cleans up the river.

Radio
09-04-2015, 02:30 PM
The beautiful stone cabin shelter atop Blood Mountain here on the AT in Georgia has long been used as a urinal since it had a dirt floor.

So they went to great trouble to pour a concrete floor in the cabin.

No difference.

:(

So most thru hikers store their gear in the cabin, away from critters, and sleep outside.

NN5I
09-10-2015, 07:47 AM
And now this. (http://news.yahoo.com/appalachian-trail-record-holder-pays-fine-maine-bubbly-222013426.html)

NN5I
10-04-2015, 08:07 AM
And now this (http://news.yahoo.com/appalachian-trail-officials-visit-maine-over-hiker-problems-154611771.html), too.

N3LYT
10-04-2015, 05:09 PM
Katahdin is scared to the Penobscot people. It is offensive to them to have the mountain disrespected as it should to everyone; it belongs to all of us. The park service has every right to enforce the laws.

NN5I
10-04-2015, 06:00 PM
Katahdin is sacred to the Penobscot people. It is offensive to them to have the mountain disrespected as it should to everyone; it belongs to all of us. The park service has every right to enforce the laws.

Every right, and a clear duty as well. Not because it's sacred to someone (I don't think the whole of humanity should be bound by anyone's private superstitions, not even by my own), but because it's a part of the commons -- it belongs to all of us. Citizens should be restrained from trashing property that belongs to other citizens, even if it belongs also to themselves. "Trashing" includes behavior (such as drunken celebrations, or smoking, or noise, or property damage, or scattering garbage around) that makes it impossible for the other owners (such as you and me) to enjoy quiet use.

N3LYT
10-04-2015, 06:47 PM
I guess what I'm saying people would not put up with foolishness in church either.

NN5I
10-04-2015, 07:24 PM
I guess what I'm saying people would not put up with foolishness in church either.

And they're right. It's their church. They bought the land, and built the church and paid for it. No one builds a mountain.

N3LYT
10-05-2015, 07:28 AM
My point exactly.