LEAVE NO TRACE

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[Roger Caffin]

Trouble is, Nick, I agree with so many of your suggestions!

> Quit building new trails.
> Ban all domestic animals to include horses, mules, and dogs.
> Remove all roads in the Park.
> Remove all buildings
> Allow no one to operate a business in, to, or out of Yosemite.
> Ban all mechanical equipment to include bikes, drones, and helicopters of any kind.

Cheers

[Justin Baker]

Nick, I agree with everything you said except the maintenance of trails. Trails have been around long since Europeans came here. If hikers are willing to maintain it themselves, I don't see a problem.

[Jerry Adams]

Ha, ha,…

I totally disagree with Nick

Yosemite is great. A lot of people enjoy it. Leave it as is.

A lot of places are more wild for those of us that don't like the crowds in Yosemite.

The government authorities have to do their best to manage the people and minimize impact on wilderness. I think they need to do more on minimizing impact on plants and animals, but that has to include more than wilderness – entire world.

[Randy Nelson]

"Ban all domestic animals to include horses, mules, and dogs. "

Dogs are already banned from all non-paved trails in Yosemite. And you're advocating tearing up all the pavement.

And I guarantee my dog is more LNT than Nick. (Well, at least after I bury his poo for him. Haven't taught him to do that himself. No TP for him, either.) 80 lb quadruped with padded paws vs 130+ lb biped in trail runners. Not even close.

Are we talking about all wild areas or just Yosemite? Might need to shoot some wild horses elsewhere.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

Years ago I was on the PCT up above Crystal Ski Area in Washington, putzing down a section that was very narrow, on a hillside. A mt. biker came up behind us. He KNEW bikes were banned on the PCT and didn't care. He wanted to make a loop via it, and the trails below that do allow them.

So after a few seconds of conversation where I realized that his attitude wasn't going to change, I then walked veeerrrryyyyyy slow through this section, holding him up behind me (he couldn't pass me).

I believe in his never ending rant I was told that hikers were hogs, because we can use ALL the trails and that I was harshing on his mellow. Snort.

Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

[Jennifer Mitol]

As I was getting my permit in Big Bend this past winter the ranger was giving us the LNT speech he has to give everyone, but this one was a tad different than most…

Apparently a young boy hiking with his dad was very proud of himself for bringing in some trash he found out along the trail and bragged to the ranger about it when they returned…except for the fact that it was a tin can from the turn of the century, left by cowboys, and the park considers those to be part of the landscape now. The boy and his father were fined for removing artifacts from the park.

[Buck Nelson]

I think we have a pretty good idea of what Leave No Trace means when it's applied to backpacking.

I'm not overly literal in it's application, just like I don't campaign against the Golden Rule, against which many of the same arguments about exceptions can be applied.

There are some ways I can't literally Leave No Trace, and reasonable people realize this. I try to leave no trash, and to pick up a bit of other people's trash. I especially try to avoid leaving any hatchet marks or saw marks or big fire scars that will be visible for many years or decades.

[Don Morris]

As a retired NPS archaeologist, I find this fascinating. It is true that if your trash persists long enough, it becomes treasure. Fifty years is the official yardstick.

While the ranger might have taken the now historic can, he surely didn't actually fine them for a well intentioned act? That would be excessive…..

[David Thomas]

Yeah, you go to a place like Olduvai Gorge in Africa and the place is trashed! Littered with old stone tools, even human (well, proto-human) bones left exposed – not even properly buried! What otherwise could be a remote, wilderness, rift valley is now just a million-year-old garbage heap!

[Ralph Burgess]

Well, the boisei (who, let's face it, were just a bunch of rednecks) made a huge mess, then when some well meaning H.erectus started tidying up, the rangers fined them. So you can't really blame H.sapiens for saying " living in the wilderness is just too complicated, let's invent television".

[William Chilton]

So you can't really blame H.sapiens for saying " living in the wilderness is just too complicated, let's invent television".
LOL. You just made my evening.

[Ian]

Funny stuff!

[Ralph Burgess]

Roger, can you enlighten me as to why you edited my comment (and William's) above to insert a space after the quotation marks? I'm intrigued.

[Ken Thompson]

f bomb and other colorful language. I read the unedited posts. Up until quite recently there was a profanity filter in place that would not let you spell arsenic.

[Katherine .]

"f bomb and other colorful language. I read the unedited posts. Up until quite recently there was a profanity filter in place that would not let you spell arsenic."

I believe his edits also resulted in the non-US copy style of putting the period after the close quote.

Which sort of leaves a trace…

[Roger Caffin]

> Roger, can you enlighten me as to why you edited my comment (and William's)

We do have minors reading these Forum channels. As a matter of policy we attempt to keep the language to a standard which will be acceptable to the parents.

In other words, if we think a posting contains the sort of language you as a parent would prefer your children did not hear, we censor it. (As Ken and Kat said.)

Please help us by keeping all postings reasonably polite. By all means, if you think someone is a complete raving lunatic, feel free to say so – but do so politely.

Cheers
Roger Caffin
Online Community Monitor
Backpacking Light

[Ralph Burgess]

Ah, right, I totally forgot that I put a casual f in there

[Nick Gatel]

Good to see you made it back. Enjoyed following your 2 month living off the land Alaska trip. You should post it on BPL.

[Mark Ries]

A quote from the book Baron Von Mabels Backpacking written and illustrated by Sheridan Anderson. "Thou Shalt Not Wreck The Place". I would be a hypocrite if I said I followed perfect LNT or back country etiquette but I believe its better to not be able to follow a good plan perfectly than to have no plan cause you can't or won't follow it perfectly. I appreciate Craig W and people like him who do something to make a difference. I KNOW that I've packed out far more of others garbage than I've left behind and cleaned up more messes than I've made. I for some reason have neater campsites than my housekeeping at home so its lucky for the world that I only live outdoors part time. This could be a really good thread and in my mind is a great topic that gets little attention on this forum. I hope it comes back to a useful direction that I think the OP meant for it to be

[Peter Boysen]

While the definition of "leave no trace" is somewhat transient in a lot of the little details, I'm pretty sure we can all accept that this is way over the line.

http://www.modernhiker.com/2014/10/21/instagram-artist-defaces-national-parks/

[Nick Gatel]

Execute her.

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[Nick Gatel]

See my previous post.

[Billy Ray]

I'd like to see this girl on the evening news paraded to a patrol car in handcuffs.
They need to make an example of her to discourage others.
Hope they prosecute her to the max.

And would be nice if they march her in chains out to every one of those paintings and make her remove them with toothpicks… one mm at a time.

Billy

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