LNT or RAT?

Good question

I pick up trash.  Mostly, I find very little.  A candy bar wrapper corner, rubber band,…

There’s a thread about tape on trees.  Some of it s put up, for example, to mark a portion of a trail to be worked on later, or marking for a race.  I think I’ll just leave it in place.

Some cairns are pretty nice to have.  Hard to tell which ones are “needed”.

Sometimes I’ve seen a display of rocks, meant to be artistic.  I just ignore it, it’s not permanent.

Painted rocks are pretty annoying.  Someone painted over some graffiti with neutral color – nice of him.  You could throw a painted rock to where no one will see it – I think the problem is aesthetics for humans, not environment damage.

I would probably just leave up signs put up by people.  Some of them are pretty useful.  Mostly, annoying though.

Someone once posted that they picked up some old nails.  Someone else criticized that they were archeological artifacts.  No good deed goes unpunished?

Unneeded cairns-piles every 20′ on extremely worn clear path. Most of the tape I see is hunters marking game trails-it’s faded, disintegrating. I guess picking up trash, not adding to the problems that bother each person is a good place to start.

I’d remove tape that looked pretty old but not fresh tape.

I routinely disassemble decorative cairns. I would never touch a navigational cairn.

There’s an unmarked turn on the Cabin Loop in AZ that really is hard to find where you transition from and old forest road to a trail that is totally hidden and unmarked.  There has been a large arrow maybe six feet wide laying across the old forest road. I tightened it up on a subsequent trip with the thought that it helps LNT to help keep people on the trail.

If I see something I want, I take it.  Otherwise, I leave it.  ;-)

It’s just aesthetics. I pick up obvious trash. If hate for some fool to get lost because I destroyed his cairn. While I follow LNT, it’s really for the tourist industry. We’ve polluted our entire planet. We sell nature. True RAT would involve explosives.

True RAT would involve explosives.

Or a much more effective pandemic.

I keep prairie dogs in my front yard. Actually they won the battle.

https://youtu.be/mxiIEVoqlC0?si=2QepJzk2U0vqnimQ

Decorative cairns is a perfect definition. Same for stacked rocks near rivers-they are getting kicked over.

I’d probably kick that over. I’d compare it to stone circles in the desert. It only encourages others to do the same. On the other hand, I came across some intricate stonework on trail along the Kern River. It blended right in. I didn’t see it until I was on top of it. Even then it blended in. I had to look twice. I watched others walk right past it. Once I saw it, I started seeing more. It was somebody’s passion. Not somebody just stacking rocks. Months if not years of work. I guess it depends on how much I like it.

See if anybody knows where this is. It’s been painted over multiple times, but it always comes back.

https://www.jimwitkowski.com/blog/the-legends-of-elephant-curve/

I backpack in the Southeast mountains and we’re taught to Leave No Trace except it’s the Forest Service who leaves the biggest trace—mainly due to their addiction to supporting rolling tourism, i.e. logging back roads to accommodate more traffic, clear cutting a mountain side, even landing helicopters in wilderness areas.  In 2007 I was backpacking in Slickrock/Kilmer wilderness and reached Hangover Mt at 5,000 feet and the FS logged out an acre to land a helicopter—in designated wilderness!!  I got there right after it happened and sent my pics to a Sierra Club lawyer in Knoxville but the damage has been done.

I pick up trash too, and was happy on a trek to see my son more anal about it than I was.

I did a 3 day loop last week and cleared a lot of winter deadfall.   I also have a habit of removing low hanging branches right at eye height on planned and well travelled trails.  I can’t help but wonder if a night hiker would take it right in the eye and that’s one situation where human safety trumps LNT for me.

I’m doing a 3 day trail end of next week and hoping for some ribbons, or it could get interesting.

I agree David. When I am on a trail removing something like that feels like stewardship, similar to picking up trash.

Brad, I find game trails and LNT complicated.  In general I know to avoid using them and wearing them in but I think it’s situational.  A passion of mine is to backpack deep into a wild area and fish lakes that no one will bother to touch.  Game trails make excellent passageways as deer and moose find open spots to drink which are also great spots to cast from.  I’ll only do this in areas that I know will see next to zero human traffic given the location, only once a year and I won’t break any brush or leave any signs of passage that could draw others in.

A bit off topic but not for a fisherman backpacker, my LNT pet peeve are poachers that fish out of season on backpacking trips, that think nature is just open season.  On last week’s first trip of the year barely after ice out I encountered less than 10 others but did see 2 groups shore fishing where the only things you can catch from that vantage are bass which are still 2 months away from season opener.  These Yutz’s are yanking bass off the nests ensuring the hatch gets stolen by predators.

I know it’s just ignorance so I’m always debating whether to say something or mind my own business.

Any type of poaching really irritates me. I see your point on game trails. Where I hike, as I said, very limited hiking trails, tons of thick forest. The only way through much if it is following a game trail-moose, elk, deer. I don’t reuse the those most of the time-too many. It’s incredible how efficient the animals are when at choosing their routes. They have to be when conserving every single calorie is life or death.

… it’s the Forest Service who leaves the biggest trace …

Check out these cairns. The taller one is over 7 feet. South San Juans, CO.

I think you should tell them if they catch fish now, they won’t protect nest from predators so there won’t be any later

Sometimes people just don’t know

I volunteer for the USFS IN a number of jurisdictions in the Sierra. We clean up after hikers, restore illegally placed or constructed campsites, and remove all cairns in wilderness areas.

I also talk to as many hikers as I can, explaining what I do,and encouraging them to help where they can.