I have been camping and backpacking for over 30 yrs. Nothing has changed. There is always going to be places that are not kept up and people that contribute to that. I have seen it 30 yrs ago and now and all the in between years.

It seems like it is more prevalent near a higher populated area and/or it is easily accessible. And hey if seeing or smelling people smoke pot in the wilderness is new to you, it must be your first year camping. There are those that mess. We need to encourage them not to and if they still do then we put it in as community service and clean up the mess.

Camping Trash
Camping Trash

I have rarely found a campground totally clean, county parks are usually cleaner than most with state an federal parks coming in behind them. Open areas that people use for camping are usually trashed as no one is around to clean them up often. The same goes for hiking trails, even the Appy Trail from Ga to Maine has areas that seem to collect trash.

I have found over the years that there are ‘classes’ of campers and hikers, they run from trashy to spotless. The best policy in the woods or anywhere is simply – leave no trace – this is something that the scouts have been teaching for many years and most of them not all follow this teaching.

Its really to bad that not much can be done about it, you can pick the trash up, walk by it, try an turn the trasher in – which can be time consuming, costly, and dangerous, try to teach others by your
example.

Photo by MicAttAck.