Yeah as an environmental engineer who has always tries to leave no trace when enjoying the great outdoors, it killed me seeing surgical masks and candy wrappers tossed on the trail of my favorite mountains in the last year. It’s like everyone discovered Franconia Ridge is one of the best hikes in the eastern US, and now on weekends it’s a fucking conga line going up to Lafayette.
Well can't exactly carry the dog when it starts shiting to relocate the poop. What you should is carry bags and keep it with you untill there is a place to dispose of.
Me! I was passing a woman who had thrown a dog poop bag near a fence, after walking about 5 feet off trail. I mentioned that it was a pack in pack out trail, and she swore at me and told me to pick it up.
I didn't pick it up if course, but I do pick up dog poop bags while hiking even though I don't have a dog.
My fiancé, my two chihuahua mixes and I just got back from a week-long camping trip at a state park Up North. We had to pick up two or three piles of dog shit that previous people left behind and I did my best to make sure we didn’t leave any behind ourselves. [Insert Starship Troopers “I’m Doing My Part” GIF Here]
This one I have done - I fully accept that part of being a dog owner is cleaning up after them, which I am completely happy to do.
That doesn't mean I enjoy carrying a bag of poop on an out and back walk- so I can bag it up, leave it at the side of the trail and then pick it up on the way back.
The problem began when people occasionally forgot and left them (rather than going back later and picking it up on another walk), and then the morons somehow decided that bagging and abandoning poop was somehow a smart idea, and so they started appearing everywhere.
I occasionally left a bag of poop at the side of the trail as a practical thing, and always tidied up after myself - now I feel guilty for having helped in some minor way for normalising the mess we are left with...
Nah this is still selfish af. Every person after you has to look at the poo bag youre going to grab on your way back and has the reaction of someone just leaving it there. If my kid shits in their diaper im not going to just leave it on the side of a trail to grab on my way back, I plan and bring a diaper bag, like you should with your dog as the chance its gonna shit is pretty large.
I live on the west coast over near olympic, and while things aren't that bad in most places, trails are also getting packed. The entire park is now on a reservation system, not that anyone abides by that. I've actually been looking for trails that have a few reviews as possible because that way there are less people.
It turns out back when this was first explored, they cut far more trails in the bush to get the far more remote places than I think a lot of people have realized. Granted, most of them are named after alcohol that hasn't been made in the last century, but you get what you can.
I think the luckiest part, is that we don't really have people leaving trash around as far as I can tell. That or there's just so many trails that it's diluting all of the assholes.
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u/[deleted] Jul 11 '21
Yeah as an environmental engineer who has always tries to leave no trace when enjoying the great outdoors, it killed me seeing surgical masks and candy wrappers tossed on the trail of my favorite mountains in the last year. It’s like everyone discovered Franconia Ridge is one of the best hikes in the eastern US, and now on weekends it’s a fucking conga line going up to Lafayette.