[at-l] Low impact camping

[RDUDLEY <rdudley%40ARSERRC%2EGov>]

Hi All,

Slim made an interesting posting about no soap or chemicals. 
Basically he was talking about low impact camping.  I find that most
hikers follow this philosophy when on the trail.  The real problem
comes from large groups of people like boy scouts, girl scouts and
other youth groups.  It is not necessarily true that children are
messier than adults, it is just that they generate more trash and in
large group they tend to lose track of the trash.

There are biodegradable soaps that one can use on the trail.  One
should also use biodegradable toilet paper.  I can tell you about
backpacking out the yum yum bag of left over scraps.  However, I
sometimes think we get a little carried away with our obsessions. 
Just hiking a trail makes an impact on the envviroment.  The AT is a
high usage trail and therefore more subject to abuse.  Our Boy Scout
troop carefully plans it AT outings to make sure that we are not on
the trail during peak hiking times.  We also carry extra bags in to
pick up any trash that we find on the trail.  Most of the trash we
find is generally near the trail head and therefore must be left by
day hikers.  But we have found some very interesting trash that could
only be left by section or through hikers.  We make sure that our camp
site does not look like a camp site when we leave.  We also educate
the people along the trails about low impact hiking.  You should leave
nothing but foot prints and take nothing but pictures.

Slim complained about letting dogs drink out of water sources.  In PA
most of the water sources are used by a variety of animals.  I can
tell you about the time we patiently waited while a skunk finished an
evening drink at one spring or watching deer one morning splash around
in a small pool were we had taken water from the night before.  I do
not think that an additional dog or two are going to make a difference
to the water quality.

Bob Dudley
rdudley@arserrc.gov


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