Desert Cruiser, I just finished a hike to the highest mountain lake in the Pecos Wilderness - and while the lake itself was gorgeously beautiful, I had to spend half the afternoon picking up broken glass from my campsite.Desert Cruiser wrote:Well Jack: that's the kind of attitude a lot of people have about others driving off road (There will always be people who do it)
It's still not the thing to do, and does almost as much damage as you described. Oh and one other thing, what do you tell disabled people when they shut down all the dirt, gravel roadsJack's quote:
As concerns trash, there will always be people who throw it out,
whether on paved roads or off
into the desert -- sorry but you just can't see this anymore. I think your assumption is wrong, enforcement of the laws would be nice, but with the economy the way it is -- won't happen -- so what is the answer?
As for the snowmobiles, what kind of damage does that cause running on top of the snow. it's not tearing up the landscape --- maybe you could clarify that --- and please keep it civil. Thank you.
Don....
I myself use an eco friendly hammock system - which you can buy at every REI store - it works with bark friendly ropes and requires 0 permanent alterations to the environment. The whole thing can be set up in under 20 minutes.
Yet people bring glass bottles up those mountains, smash them and leave the pieces there and drive 10 inch nails into trees to secure their ropes.
Face it, most people are jackasses and couldn't care less about the environmental damage they leave behind.
In their narrow minded view there is always more nature to mess up next time around - that's just how people are.
Park Rangers can't be at all those places, heck it took us almost 6 hours to hike up to Lake Katherine alone. You'd need hundreds of rangers to secure the Pecos Wilderness and that with shrinking budgets all around.
So I can understand Jack's arguments, what irks me is that folks like myself end up getting punished alongside.
And as far as snowmobiles are concerned, their impact is the damage they cause to the grass hidding under the snow cover (pressure damage), and most of all the noise.
Wild game is very shy and hides out in the forest. Moving around during winter time costs an enormous amount of energy and every time a gang of snow mobile hoodlums runs through the area, wild animals of all kinds are panicking and wasting precious resources by trying to get out of the way.
And in Yellowstone the Rangers have to wear gas masks on some days, because of all the exhaust from the 1000+1 snowmobiles running amok in the park.
In Europe they have Electrical snow mobiles in many places now, but it'll never catch up in America because here you're viewed as a "girly man" if you think of the environment as something else than a huge amusement park.
So I for one think that Jack's got a point here...sadly enough
