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Recreational Areas and Human Impact


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Visiting Yellowstone park in '92, we were stopped at an overlook and a couple of mountain bikers talked about the smog haze hanging over the park and commented something about banning RVs. We didnt camp in the park because there were not enough open spots and to sit and wait for hours for a check out to occur, when we could camp outside of the park with no hassle did not seem a valued use of our time. I wondered about whether the bikers were on to something. Tenting only would lessing this impact and create more spaces for people to enjoy the interior of the park.

 

There have been numerous articles on loving our parks to death.

 

The camping trip I took on the St. Croix revealed some things. I grew up in the area I was camping at, and in the past, the pollution along this river was much more extensive. Over the years I have packed out things like Boom Boxes, coolers, lawn chairs, etc. Every year there was less and less garbage.

 

In my campsite, I found a fire pit that was a foot higher than the rim, which I cleaned out. There was a second fire spot built on top of the ground that appeared to be used for burning empty fireworks. There were large pellets left over from some of these ground display packs. The amount of glass was troubling being as you are not supposed to have glass here. It was beer bottles and wine cooler/hard lemonade bottles (I know from the caps left around). I packed out a paper grocery bag full of garbage. There was an amazing number of cig butts, mostly in the fire pit areas. My garbage was a half Ice bag full of stuff, mostly cans, from 4 days/3 nites of camping.

 

So as I worked on this project, I kept reminding myself that it was the tail end of the camping season. I could tell by the layers there was multiple usages of this pit and probably none in the last two weeks due to rain. I also had no idea if others had cleaned out the site earlier in the season, so I reasoned with myself that a whole grocery bag probably wasnt that bad, thinking that this was probably the remenents of 30+ people, since before the 4th of July (based on the layers).

 

Map of area:

http://www.nps.gov/sacn/planyourvisit/upload/St.%20Croix%20Section%204%20back.pdf

 

There are new rules going into effect that will greatly impact the ability of people to enjoy this resource.

 

Anyways, what are your experiences with recreation areas and human impact? I am struggling between knowing somethings popularity should be accomodated as much as possible vs preserving an area. For this particular area, we are talking about 7 miles of river (I dont know the total acreage it encompasses via the wild and scenic river designation) and impact areas that total around 5 acres +/- with all the campsites/day stops in this 7 mile area (I am excluding the osceola park area and above, and everything below the Log house Landing) as I am not nearly as familiar with the patterns of use there.

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I always try to pack out more than I packed in.

It is unfortunate that people have no respect for these recreational areas and sometimes treat them like trash dumps. I've always wanted to put signs next to fire pits that say: Glass does NOT burn!! :)

 

So you see alot of this stuff where you are? Is it getting better or worse or staying the same (in general) for the areas you frequent?

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So you see alot of this stuff where you are? Is it getting better or worse or staying the same (in general) for the areas you frequent?

 

Some places are worse than others.

I suppose pollution has lessened over the years, but it's difficult to quantify that. Mostly, the pollution seems to revolve around the fire pits. (you know; bottle caps, half burnt coffee grounds, etc.)

I must admit that it's actually probably a good thing that people treat firepits like garbage cans cause at least that way the trash is all in one place. :)

 

The worst pollution I have ever seen in a recreational area was a place in the north GA mts. by a river. Someone had decided to defecate on the banks of the river near the campsite and simply threw the used toilet paper all over the ground. It was sickening and I couldn't bring myself to clean it up, I let Mother take care of that one.

 

On a different note, I recently read about the Yellowstone snowmobile debacle. NPR : Snowmobiles Likely to Keep Access to Yellowstone

 

And here's some good background on the issue:

Ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park Parks & Recreation - Find Articles

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Some places are worse than others.

I suppose pollution has lessened over the years, but it's difficult to quantify that. Mostly, the pollution seems to revolve around the fire pits. (you know; bottle caps, half burnt coffee grounds, etc.)

I must admit that it's actually probably a good thing that people treat firepits like garbage cans cause at least that way the trash is all in one place. :turtle:

 

The worst pollution I have ever seen in a recreational area was a place in the north GA mts. by a river. Someone had decided to defecate on the banks of the river near the campsite and simply threw the used toilet paper all over the ground. It was sickening and I couldn't bring myself to clean it up, I let Mother take care of that one.

 

I didnt see any feces on the ground, but back about 100+ feet was where people relieved themselves. Toilet paper marked the spots. The guidelines are to dig a hole at least 100 feet away from the water and 6 inches deep for feces and you could see marked spots, sticks poked into the ground as a warning or the dirt turned over so a root clump was on top.

 

I love my little fold up camping shovel/pick ax combo tool.

 

The toilet paper issue is a major complaint along the river. They used to have these really cool porta-pottys on pontoons positioned near this popular site. It was heavily used by all boat traffic. They need to put those back (the pontoons became damaged). They also had primitive toilets set up in other areas that they stopped maintaining. I dont know why they did this but I hold the NPS kind of responsible for the mess created when they stopped these efforts.

 

I think a better education effort would help also. The posted info at the entry points do not address toilet paper, just feces. I think many people believe TP just kinda melts away in the first rain or something like that.

 

I did not pick up other peoples T.P. either. Too damn gross.

 

I will talk more about the snomobile/yellowstone thing later. Thats a good example of recreation vs impact issue.

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On a different note, I recently read about the Yellowstone snowmobile debacle. NPR : Snowmobiles Likely to Keep Access to Yellowstone

 

And here's some good background on the issue:

Ban snowmobiles in Yellowstone National Park Parks & Recreation - Find Articles

 

I have not snomobiled for years simply because of the changes in this area have limited the amount of open space to ride on. That and unpredictable winter snows. If I were to personally invest in some type of rec vehicle, it would be the 4 wheelers that can be used all year long.

 

I do know some people who have taken several trips to yellowstone to snomobile. They love the deep snow. They love the miles and miles of trails centrally located. They love the park.

 

There are 25,000 visitors a day to Old Faithful Visitor center. We went there once in the 5 days we were at yellowstone. 3 million visitor a year enter that park, of that, 150,000 visit during the winter months.

 

There are no rules regarding smoke spewing motorcycles, cars, RVs etc that frequent the park in the summer months. While I have not been to the park in the winter, I have seen the smog haze over the park from summer use (we were there the first week of Aug '92). If the rangers are wearing gas masks at the west entrance, there are methods they can use to limit the amount of smog created via making people park and shut off their engines and walk to the entry station to purchase their stickers.

 

I am curious about the gas mask issue and whether these people wear these devices when the smog cloud hangs over the park in the summer. Or is it some psychological issue within them that inspires them to react more violently to snowmobile discharges, yet they have no smog issue when running a chain saw for the NPS.

 

There have been issues with bad snowmobilers in the park chasing wildlife, going off trails etc. But you get that year round with people picking flowers or carving their initials into cliff walls. Its a matter of enforcement and education rather than an approach of Lets Ban Everything We Dont Think Is Fun (because we dont enjoy that method of entertainment).

 

I simply do not believe the impact of 150k persons over an entire season (assuming nov - march) compared to the other visitors smashed into this area during the breeding season is even a compariable issue impact wise.

 

As far as brucellosis, cattle men can (and should) immunize their cattle from this disease rather than kill off a bison because it MIGHT have it.

 

I think there is room for snomobilers in the vastness that is yellowstone. Its not like they can just go wherever they want too. They have rules of the trails just like every summer visitor does. I could support a weekend a month of no snowmobiles to accomodate those persons who go there for a quiet (I only want to hear wildlife and wind) experiences in the winter months.

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  • 2 years later...

I tent in the state and national parks here in Pa.

What the flurp is wrong with people these days!!!!!

The garbage, the noise, the huge assortment of "essential" crap! (toys stereos tv's etc.etc....the drinking and shouting till all hours of the night even though the noise kerfew is sposed to be in effect after 9 pm)

 

Of course last trip we had to fend of bears which were drawn by the dumpstrer near our site filled with all sorts of tasty things.

 

this year we seek out a more isolated placxe to tent.

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