WELCOME to the great outdoors….. Now please, LEAVE no trace

Baby wipes. Yes, I bring them backpacking.

Aside from defecting in the back country..

Please try your best to stay on trails.. especially at switchbacks. I know it may be tempting to short cut through when you see the trail “over there”,  but unless you are bush wacking, you are hiking a trail, STAY ON IT!

“…and countless idiotic escaped mylar balloons. It’s amazing how far Dora the Explorer or some other cartoon character can make it into the wilderness. These always make you work for them; snagged in trees, laying at the bottoms of ravines…”

Or strewn across a previously pristine exfoliated slab of granite up in Kaweah Basin.  The ultimate sacrilege.  The next time I was up there it was a discarded plastic ground cloth.  Sometimes I think a new Dark Age is upon us.

Or strewn across a previously pristine exfoliated slab of granite up in Kaweah Basin. The ultimate sacrilege. The next time I was up there it was a discarded plastic ground cloth. Sometimes I think a new Dark Age is upon us.

You know Tom, I can’t help but wonder if this whole “wilderness” idea is not a fiction of some sort. Especially when the scream of a fighter jet breaks the silence. Having walked from the southern deserts to Yosemite, climbed so many of the passes from both east and west, and explored who knows how many side canyons and watersheds and alpine lakes, those sacred high country places begin to almost feel small. I’m always well aware of where the borders are, of the locations of the roads and permit offices that hem it all in. It’s almost like these spaces become the illusion, like little fantasy parks, and the churning, gnashing world outside of them is the greater reality. I wonder if the scales weren’t tipped a long, long time ago.

Well geez Craig. Good morning to you too.  BTW you’re getting good at these perspective flips!

Speaking of leaving no trace and perspective. Warning thread drift!

We lost the little guy Herman, AKA the Herminator (all 10 lbs) last evening at sunset in about an acre of tangle in the state park that’s the backyard. He had launched after some critter or other.  He’s a complete wild thing. It was getting dark and we couldn’t find him and he was not responding to our calls or whistles or the presence of his big ‘brother’ Archie (16lbs).  I have been teaching him recall with some success so I it’s not necessary to have him on leash all the time but this wasn’t going well at all.  The park, which connects to a large maritime forest is @ 400 acres or 1 mile x 1/2 mile & roughly 50/50 mix of open sand dunes and pine scrub, recovering, re-vegetating from burning, clearing and whatever between @ 1600+ and 1900. Anyway; It is frequented  and occupied by all sorts of wildlife including very active coyotes (are there any other kind?)

Anyway at that point in time that park seemed mighty big and mighty wild; way way too big and wild. Big enough to lose something I really didn’t want to lose. I hustled home and slapped together a pack with hammock gear, some water and etc. plus Archie (maybe he’d come to his big brother at least), grabbed the mobile, so I could co-ordinate with my wife and daughter and they could begin to get some bigger plan organized and headed back out to spend the night if necessary. By now it was full dark. Mars was really putting on a show..

Met him about 400 yards in. He was back-tracking. I’ve seldom been sooo happy to see something that I was really afraid I might never see again. Whew! He went straight to the corner of the couch, curled up and crashed. Wild Thing!

Yeah, I’ve been in the wilderness in the cascades, all of a sudden there’s a screaming jet, and in an instant it’s gone

What a contrast

Afterwards I ask “did that just happen?”

Met him about 400 yards in. He was back-tracking. I’ve seldom been sooo happy to see something that I was really afraid I might never see again. Whew! He went straight to the corner of the couch, curled up and crashed. Wild Thing!

I like happy endings

Something I noticed this summer was that people would step aside to let us pass, but instead of waiting until we had walked by, and stepping back on to the trail, they would continue walking along side the trail. Has this always been a thing? Are folk really in that much of a hurry?

Glad you found your dog. Funny how they always seem to disappear just before dark!

@obxcola
I am so glad you found your little Herminator. How scary!

Yes, wilderness is a fiction, and our little pockets of it that are left are fantasy islands. But at least we have a little room left to breathe! To be outside our homes and not be in crowds. We will need that fantasy, let’s hope it lasts a little longer before it all gets sold off.

Glad that little pooch was found. In my area we don’t let small pets alone for even a few minutes in the backyard! Also glad our little pockets of fantasy still have a few predators to worry about.

Re: Craig’s post:

I’ve often met Europeans on trail in the Sierra and they’re amazed at the vastness of the “wilderness” they’re hiking through.

Frankly my guess is that hikers 100 years ago left more stuff lying around than is common today. how about those old mining operations we still see?

We will become so used to any change that we won’t collectively remember that it once was better. Not unlike our political situation. We simply adapt and move on. But we are losing a lot.

I used to think I wanted to hike in Britain, but then I realized that so much of what is left there was altered 2000 years ago. It is still “nature” but not unaltered nature by any means. Maybe I’ll still go hike there after Covid, just for the cream teas.

I remember the same as jscott

there use to be more trash on the trails.  Rusty cans.  People slashing trees.

I think things have gotten better, more LNT

My last ‘big’ trip before Covid I found this:

Here: 43.124370, -109.521472

Seems like I find some ‘trace’ almost every day in the backcountry, though I was surprised to come across that in the location above.

I put it on top of a big rock surrounded/framed by smaller blocks  where the next person that chances to come along pretty much could not miss it. Here: 43.126173, -109.518731

You know Tom, I can’t help but wonder if this whole “wilderness” idea is not a fiction of some sort.

We lost the little guy Herman, AKA the Herminator (all 10 lbs) last evening at sunset in about an acre of tangle in the state park that’s the backyard.

Yup, it can seem really small or frighteningly large depending on perspective. On the one hand, it’s frustrating that it’s so hard to plan long trips where you won’t run into roads/day-hikers, etc. In the lower 48, it’s pretty hard to be more than 10 miles from a road as the crow flies. On the other hand, hiking out with a broken ankle could make the wilderness seem pretty big.

When one of our dogs was getting old, she gradually lost her hearing. One day on a hike in a smallish “backyard” wilderness, I turned around and she wasn’t there. We were above timberline in willows. I called for her, but of course she couldn’t hear me. I had another dog with me, but she was no help. I went from zero to full-on panic mode in less than a minute as I realized I had absolutely no way to find her. Fortunately, I waited around for a bit and she eventually found me. After that I put a bell on her, and she hiked with me for another couple of years.

I completely hadn’t thought of a bell. I think from now on the Herminator’s going to have one for his walks on the wild-side, along with lots more training! He just loves exploring the wild, the joy is palpable and infectious…… but when he gets on the chase he has NO concept of staying in touch. He’s just gone. I was encouraged though that he back-tracked almost all the way home and likely would have made it if we hadn’t gotten back to him first. Progress of a sort.  Maybe there’s some sort of basic tracking device available.

maybe there’s some sort of high tech device

like a radio collar

like the one they attached to the “murder hornet” to track it back to it’s nest

Bell is always good, and a flashing light for dusk. You can buy gps collars of course, they target them at hunting dogs. We took to using a shock collar on our husky cross to establish recall. She would disappear after wildlife or become engrossed in trying to dig out a chipmunk and completely refuse to respond to voice commands.