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Pack it in -
Pack it out! Please
©
Outdoor Adventure Canada
Frustration!
Anger! Disgust! These three emotions describe how I feel about
the garbage I find all too often on wilderness canoeing trips.
It doesn't seem to be as bad on backpacking trips maybe because
the Leave-No-Trace way of doing things is more prevalent among
members of the backpacking community. Still, it never ceases to
amaze me. Even in places where there are strict can and bottle
bans I still find these items. The lack of care is plain inconsiderate.
Not too long
ago a friend of mine, Nancy, was chatting about the same thing
on a canoeing chat forum. The next thing I knew Nancy's idea about
cleaning up garbage left in the wilderness turned into an actual
event where over 100 bags of garbage were taken out of a wilderness
canoeing area. Her efforts, which have now become wildernesscleanup.com,
are to be applauded but it is upsetting to me that this garbage
is left in the wilderness in the first place.
 Our
family has packed out quite a bit of other people's leavings too.
We've found good items like sandals, a fishing pole, life jackets
and such but we've also found our share of crap. Some of this
garbage was quite dangerous. For example my son, who was four
at the time, found a broken juice bottle on a campsite trail.
The same summer, in a different area, my friend discovered an
empty peach can that had been left lying on the trail to the privy
with the cut lid sticking straight up. Someone could have been
seriously injured.
One of the
worst sites was in a park where there are wooden privies on the
wilderness campsites. I was shocked to find that the couple we
had met with their beautiful baby a few hours earlier had left
the privy completely full to the lid with disposable diapers.
Judging from the amount of diapers the couple had been there for
several days maybe even a week. These will not biodegrade and
for sanitation reasons, lack of a big enough garbage bag and because
we were on the first day of an eight day excursion, I couldn't
pack out what had been left. Incidentally the area uses a reservation
system and I reported the issue to the rangers. They had already
been notified and had arranged for a clean-up but there was no
recourse for the couple that left the diapers behind.
The sheer
laziness of some folks appalls me. Would it be too much to ask
that if people pack something in, that they pack it back out?
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