
The end of dispersed camping? - thehoff
https://www.hatchmag.com/blog/end-dispersed-camping/7715118
======
strict9
As I've grown older I've noticed this, though at a slower pace than described
in the article.

When I was younger and lived in the appalachians, there were countless of
waterfalls, overlooks, and camping spots isolated and away from everyone. But
as time went by, these places became less isolated and full of litter, even
the more remote spots.

As much as I dislike Instagram and its effect on natural areas, I think
another large factor is the population count. The US has 46 million more
people than 20 years ago, and that's more people looking to get out and have
fun in nature.

One hope is for state and federal conservation agencies to buy more private
land and enter into more conservation land trusts. We need more public space
for people to enjoy, hopefully with fewer ATVs and campsite garbage.

~~~
cmrx64
when i go for a hike i bring a trash bag and often come out with it full.
maybe consider similar and convincing your social contacts to do so instead of
deferring to some other authority? the commons are what we make of them, and
“it’s someone else’s responsibility” is the heart of the tragedy.

~~~
DanBC
> when i go for a hike i bring a trash bag and often come out with it full.

David Sedaris did this so much they named a garbage truck after him.

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/jul/31/davi...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/shortcuts/2014/jul/31/david-
sedaris-litter-picker-rubbish-waste-vehicle-pig-pen-west-sussex)

------
cameronfraser
The lack of understanding of Leave No Trace by the general public is pretty
astounding. Even among people who self identify as hikers. Lately there have
been a lot of instances of people painting on rocks or painting rocks and
leaving them out there as well as stacking stones for aesthetic reasons
instead of a navigational aid. Both of these violate Leave No Trace but I've
seen a lot of people flamed for bringing it up in casual hiking groups.
Neither of these have as much environmental consequence as littering for
example, but it is still an eyesore and a reminder of human civilization when
one is trying to get away from it.

If you really want to get away from civilization then you should consider
remote backpacking trips. Wilderness backpackers, in general, are strict
followers of Leave No Trace and unless it is a super popular trail there won't
be too many.

~~~
mnky9800n
yes, i was climbing a couple days ago and some teenagers started stacking
rocks right in the middle of the trail head for exiting the climbing area. i
don't understand why stacking rocks is something anyone cares about.

~~~
nerdponx
It looks cool in photos. And some people egotistically want to mark their
territory, like wild animals.

~~~
ticmasta
less environmental impact if they would just pee on the existing trail markers
then...

------
dbrueck
I just got back from a week of backpacking in a wilderness area in Wyoming and
saw about 6 people over the course of the trip, and it was great.
Unfortunately for the author, he's probably going to have to sacrifice the
camper if he wants any immediate relief - if you have to get their on foot (or
by horse), it drastically affects who is going to go there.

IMO the longer term solution is to educate people. One idea (not a cure all,
but it might help): offer free classes on nature conservation, good camping
practices, etc. Each person who hasn't taken the class in the past N years
pays a much higher access fee to the campground.

~~~
say_it_as_it_is
the people who are blighting the wilderness are ignorant, uneducated urbanites
who would never take a free course even if it were available

~~~
jerry1979
Was just camping in the ozarks. FWIW, the isolated forest service road camping
spot had bullet casings and broken glass. The more popular watering hole area
was completely clean.

~~~
TheAdamAndChe
I hunt and camp around the ozarks regularly. Locals regularly drink and target
shoot around the area. The majority of trash is localized by the roads though.
If you go through the woods, most of the trash you find looks to be at least a
couple decades old.

------
UI_at_80x24
I share alot of the same feelings as expressed in the article. Parks, camping,
and 'wild areas' are victims of their own success. Where I live the largest
Provincial Park is an 8 hour drive away for me, but only 4'ish hours from
Toronto. The article talks about car-camping and towed trailers but even areas
that require a 2 hour canoe trip and multiple portages to get to and it is
still decimated by tourists.

Even though the barrier to entry is high, and isn't in the same ball-park as
these car-campers there are far too many people trying to spend some time
under the trees, and the park is being damaged.

Contrast this period with the 1980's. Disposable income is (apparently) lower
now then it was back then. Back in my childhood several of my neighbours would
have campers, or boats, or snowmobiles; and many opportunities to use them
throughout the year. Now when I look around I only see 1 on my entire block,
and with entire segments of the economy closing for good, factories being
emptied; I see the golden era of the union, and 'extra' money as a thing of
the past.

So how are all these people able to afford crowding our parks? The article
talks about this decline almost as if it's a recent thing, but I have seen
this same pattern going back over 10 years.

The only way I can find a reasonable amount of peace and quiet is to goto
Crown Land, and multi-day canoe trips into the wild.

~~~
sandworm101
>> So how are all these people able to afford crowding our parks?

It is younger people. Whereas young families might once have gone to places
like disney world, provincial parks are now the cheap family vacation.
Reliable GPS, weather forecasting and cellphones have also made previously
"remote" areas very accessible. There are no secret places anymore.

~~~
Isamu
We did family camping when I was a kid because it was the cheapest vacation.
It was never a luxury good.

~~~
analog31
Likewise here. Camping was certainly the cheap way to go, especially if the
alternative included the cost of restaurant food on top of lodging. Now that
I'm grown up with kids, we still camp, though we've also done a number of
vacations where we rent an apartment for a week, with a kitchen.

But there were other benefits to camping as well. Small kids don't belong in
hotels and restaurants -- it's a nightmare for everybody. And the process of
getting them in and out of those accommodations eats up half the day.

And if you're camping, that itself becomes the entertainment, so the
sightseeing side of it doesn't have to be as spectacular. Last summer we made
our way across the northern shore of Lake Superior -- possibly one of my
favorite places in the world. There are no bucket-list tourist destinations
unless you count the Wawa Goose, yet it was just a blast and quite relaxing.

~~~
beamatronic
>> Small kids don't belong in hotels and restaurants

Uh, what???

~~~
ticmasta
I think what they mean is that (from my experience on both sides) small kids
are noisy, messy and very active. This makes parenting in a shared environment
(if you care about your neighbors) hard. When you go camping the kids have
space, can get dirty, get tired and go to bed early. I'll take a crying baby
camping over banging and yelling through a hotel room wall any day.

~~~
analog31
Yes, precisely. Now of course not all kids are the same, but hoping for
several hours of quiet behavior after being cooped up a car -- possibly
strapped into a child seat -- all day was unrealistic in our case. There are
other problems as well: Finding a restaurant with healthy food that everybody
will enjoy, without breaking the bank. And hotel rooms are _filthy_.

Granted, it could be a matter of personal preference as well. I enjoy the
outdoors, and my own cooking, more than the inside of a restaurant or hotel.

------
putnambr
It really is modern ORVs that have made this so much worse recently. It used
to be 4-wheelers, but that's a rough and rugged form of travel. You're not
going to get an entire family plus drinks and food loaded up on 4-wheelers the
same way people do now with RZRs. RZRs and their like have made off-roading
way more accessible. What used to be outdoor gear rental shops selling kayaks
and mountain bikes have turned into snowmobile and RZR rental shops

In my experience it's the family who shows up at the trailhead with two
trailers full of RZRs who are ignorant of LNT principles, not college students
and young adults getting out to car camp with their REI gear.

------
ip26
_I was easily 100 miles from any notable population center, and I figured I
would have my pick of any number of dispersed camping sites along the upper
river. But when I arrived on a Tuesday afternoon [...] Every wide spot in the
road was occupied_

I learned recently that some portion of these people are actually living in
dispersed camping areas full-time, my guess being to avoid paying rent. The
level of destruction I have observed, as well as the difficulty of finding
sites even in remote locations in the middle of the week suddenly made a lot
more sense.

------
djsumdog
I went to a small college town and there were some amazing wildlife areas that
were not well traveled. Some were actual parks, but with poor signage and
little parking. Others were private land with neighbors who were alright with
people traveling in so long as we kept off the grass when parking.

I went back recently and those private areas were now public parks, the public
parks had full parking lots, there were signs about dangerous cliffs
everywhere, and it all felt very .. different. It was no longer exploring the
frontier. I wrote about it a few years ago:

[https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/exploration...](https://battlepenguin.com/philosophy/perspective/exploration/)

------
jwiley
Cached version of the article since it seems swamped right now
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pyUsrEA...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pyUsrEAkoqsJ:https://www.hatchmag.com/blog/end-
dispersed-camping/7715118&hl=en&gl=us&strip=1&vwsrc=0)

------
neurobashing
east of the mississippi there's precious little open/public land; a few places
I like to camp around the VA/WV line are often just fire roads that were
abandoned. They're now most popular with poachers and teens looking to party
without fear of the cops being called, along with a few campers like me.

and since Covid, everyone seemingly got into the "original socially-distanced
recreation", because now formerly rather low-traffic sites are _packed_ , with
all the trouble that brings.

trash is often everywhere. beer cans, broken glass, shotgun shells, and spent
brass abound. Once just a month ago I came across a loaf of bread and a Hank
Williams, Jr. album (as in vinyl), just sitting next to a fire ring. I think
I've seen a dozen shoes left along camp sites in the past month.

I think somehow it got into the cultural mind that the woods are somehow
maintained by a janitorial staff. i have no idea how it got so bad.

~~~
jdc0589
this is exactly what I've noticed happening a lot more in the past 2 years.

I've shown up to unmarked campsites where people had clearly abandoned 80% of
their new walmart gear, so much I physically couldn't carry it all out to
trash.

finding a good drive up camp spot in the southeast is basically impossible
unless you go in the middle of the week, especially if you wanna keep it 100%
legal (no private land). Our few national forests and their few roads stay
busy, always have.

------
Dowwie
I run at a nearby state park several times a week. After running past litter
for months, but doing nothing about it, I decided to take two handfuls of
trash to the trash bin during most visits. After barely inconveniencing myself
by picking up trash on my way to the parking area, months passed and I've
thrown away more than 500 pieces of garbage! Doing a little bit over a long
period of time can really amount to something substantial. It barely cost me
any effort. I've stopped collecting since the pandemic but it seems like
others are doing their part and helping keep an understaffed, heavily used
park clean.

------
dmurray
> This is the kind of behavior that will reduce our dispersed camping
> opportunities...More damage will lead to more closures by land-management
> agencies, and rightly so.

What would banning people from these areas achieve? Sure, you'd have an
unspoilt wilderness, but...for whom?

The easily accessible areas are a tiny part of America's public land. Litter
and vandalism don't significantly damage the local ecology in somewhere you
already have hundreds or thousands of people passing through even with a
leave-no-trace policy: they mostly make it less attractive _for other
visitors_.

I'm not arguing that people should vandalise or litter public areas, or that
the likely practical response wouldn't be to close affected areas. Just
challenging the assertion that this would be a useful thing for the likes of
the BLM to do. One possibility is that by closing them to RVs you keep them
available to walkers on day trips or camping in tents, who may cause less
damage if only because they can carry less stuff.

~~~
paganel
> but...for whom?

I guess that for animals, and rightly so, I may add.

~~~
mikelyons
We need to get in the cultural habit of looking at things for their own being,
rather than for how they can be used by humans.

------
tzs
A long time ago I was flipping through very early morning local TV, and came
across some sort of fishing program that was talking about a neat way to camp
far away from other people.

They would get a float plane and fly deep into the Canadian wilderness and
find a lake far away from any roads or trails. They would land there and then
camp beside the lake for a week or two of fishing and hiking without another
human anywhere within 50 miles, or without any signs than any other humans had
been to that spot in years or decades.

------
thedanbob
For anyone else who was confused, BLM in this context stands for Bureau of
Land Management.

------
gumby
This seems at first unlikely yet ATVs (even where not permitted) have made
attractive places close to trailheads accessible. I used to think 10 miles in
was enough to get away from most people, but like the author I have found some
of those places colonized by modern life.

Fortunately the world is still large and a lot of places are only accessible
by foot. But a lot of those ecosystems done recover quickly.

A few weeks ago I was up in the emigrant wilderness and it looked like a
majority of the visitors were using brand new gear. I hope what this really
means is we’ll have a greater appreciation of backpacking and more support.

~~~
ghaff
I try to be tolerant of people who prefer more motorized recreation than I do.
But ATVs (and dirt bikes) really tend to rip things up--to say nothing of the
noise. There are one set of trails in my town forest that are basically
unusable if it is at all wet because there are basically lakes where ATVs have
ripped up the trail. One ATV can really rip up a trail at a wet time of the
year.

~~~
liability
I'd be very surprised if even one in a thousand ATV campers had a legitimate
physical disability (being a lazy fatass doesn't count, and I can say that
because I'm a lazy fatass. If I can walk a few miles, so can they.)

~~~
gumby
I assume people drive them 1- for fun, 2- to transport extra gear like
coolers, babies, etc. I wonder really if any of them are overnighting it,
rather than heading out and car camping.

Carrying everything on your back and traveling 10-20 miles on foot to make
camp seems to cut down the number of people you’ll run into by a lot.

------
wlkr
The article raises some key issues regarding sustainable tourism. I recall
some recent posts on here that had some great discussions in the context of
high profile destinations (e.g. [0] and to a lesser extent [1]).

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20675096](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20675096)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19996108](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19996108)

------
sulam
I think at the end of the day we need to reduce our BLM lands in favor of
increasing our wilderness. The problems he describes are solved simply by not
allowing people to RV, 4-wheel, or motorbike their way wherever they feel
like. I run into trash in the more popular parts of the wilderness areas I
love, but I have to look for it, and it's my personal offset for adding load
to the wilderness with my presence.

~~~
Sunny2203
Do you not understand that there is BLM wilderness? We don't reduce public
lands to increase wilderness. Wilderness is designated on public lands by
Congress and it can be BLM, USFS, USFWS or NPS lands.

~~~
sulam
I don't hang out much in BLM lands (way too noisy, way too much trash), so
there's probably some nuance here that is lost on me, yes. What I mean is that
we should take more of the set aside public lands and deem them off limits to
motor vehicles. These "designated wildernesses" don't have the problems he
describes, except in the most extreme cases (Sierras, AT).

------
Shivetya
This is not confined to camp sites, on sub reddit dedicated to our own city
there are always pictures of trash left behind by people in our city parks.

I would just suggest the BLM apply a surcharge too all camping, they provide
you two bags, one for trash and one for recyclable materials; labeled on the
bag what is acceptable; and upon leaving and turning these over you get a
refund on the deposit. Perhaps a bag per three days with a twenty dollar
deposit.

~~~
boring_twenties
BLM "campgrounds" are usually unstaffed, there's only a lockbox and some
envelopes for you to leave the fee in.

------
textman
Another contributing factor is the rapid growth of offroad capable campers
like some of the popup style truck campers and rugged trailers. They allow you
to go almost anywhere a Jeep can go, sometimes providing as much solitude as
backpacking. I like to think this particular subgroup is more environmentally
conscientious than the general vehicle camping crowd.

~~~
throwaway0a5e
They're better in terms of impacting the immediate area around them than the
RV/trailer/car-camping crowd but way worse than the actual off road "pitch a
tent beside your Jeep" crowd because they go off the trail or stack rocks to
avoid getting a scratch on the 4Runner they're still making payments on.

It's like they took every bad habit they could find from the '00s Landrover
enthusiast crowd and unironically cranked it to 11

Frankly I like the car-camping crowd better because they don't tend to stray
far from the road.

------
brudgers
Link at archive.org
[https://web.archive.org/web/20200909133530/www.hatchmag.com/...](https://web.archive.org/web/20200909133530/www.hatchmag.com/blog/end-
dispersed-camping/7715118)

------
gkop
A little book called The Monkey Wrench Gang suggests this trend began 50+
years ago.

~~~
mnky9800n
its like the eternal september. it has always been happening. I wonder if
prehistoric man was like "man, do you remember when it was just us and the
mammoths but now the mammoths dont even come here anymore because grog is
always splashing in the water with his family."

------
JoeAltmaier
Its inevitable, as population grows yet public lands remain a constant, that
overuse becomes a problem.

Emigrate to Mars I guess?

