slimtrader wrote:some of these people would want you to carry your own poop out of the forest because human turds are not part of the forest. If you think I'm kidding I'm not. There is a 4 person endurance race called eco-challenge that the racers cannot even leave a turd in the forest. They make them carry them out.
In desert environments the least you should do is pack out your toilet paper. In the Grand Canyon, boaters are required to pack out everything. Hikers are required to pack out TP. (No fires are allowed in the backcountry.). In a dry environment that terd is going to take a long time to degrade. BTW, the bacteria in your terd (most of it is bacteria) is not native to that environment. Therein lies the problem.
Having canoed many times in the Boundary Waters, Quetico, White Otter (Ontario), and north east of Winnipeg out in the bush (flew in on a float plane), I have seen the degredation of the wilderness experience b/c of people not crapping off of the trail and not burying TP. The terd is gone on a few weeks. The TP sticks around for at least a year. Not what I want to see, or step on for that matter.
I am a canoer, whitewater kayaker, backpacker, mountain biker, and OHV rider (motorcycle, licensed, on the trail). If we want to keep areas open we are going to have to do a better job of
self-policing in terms of loud exhaust, off trail wandering, eroded stream crossings (sediment in the streams), etc.
Reasons why:
- Exhaust: When I am in the backcountry / wilderness much of the enjoyment comes from not seeing or hearing anything outside of the natural setting. If someboyd is on a motorcycle with a 110 dB pipe two miles away, that might be anoying. Remember that for every 10 dB the sound intensity doubles, thus a 110 dB sound is 4x's the intensity of a 90 dB sound. Further, if you double the distance from the source, the ear hears one-fourth the source intensity. Thus, for me to have a wilderness experience with some yahoo on his loud bike over yonder, he or I needs to be twice as far away. That is going to result in an increase in the no-motorized-zone. BTW, my opposition also applies to airplanes overflying below a certain threshold altitude, etc.
- Stream sedimentation: Trails that are built well do not appreciably erode. Unfortunately many of the trails we ride were done with a bulldozer following a straight line. When it rains, water runs straight down the trail, picking up sediment, and clouds up the stream it feeds into. This affects aquatic life for miles downstream. Not a problem with one trail, but a bigger problem with multiple streams. This also occurs at poorly placed stream crossings. And if you dump your bike in the stream, the gasoline and oil in the stream cause even more damage. A few drops of oil on the surface of the water will spread over a large area. This smothes insect eggs/larvae. Why care? Because this is an important part of the food chain for the fish. As to the gasoline I hope you are getting your drinking water out of that stream. A lot of energy is required to adequately remove the contaminants. This same reason is why wandering off trail, making new trails, etc. is bad. One case where a new trail would be warranted would be to replace an outdated (highly eroded) trail with a new one that drains without the problems above. An example of this is the mountain bike trails at Shanwee Mision Park. The old trails cut straight up and down hillsides, etc. Over the yeeas they got to be highly eroded. The EarthRiders group rerouted the trails and blocked off the old ones. The new ones don't erode. There are gates up that tell if the trail is closed when muddy. If you bike on it when muddy you do a lot of damage. (BTW, I am not saying stay out of the forest when it is muddy. But popular trails are probably not the place to be if you are going to do a lot of damage by riding them when muddy. Ride the areas that are rocky and that dry out faster.)
Time enough on my soap box ...