5 ms·

I spend a lot of time tooling around one particular pnw national forest and can anecdotally confirm that sort of camping activity has gone through the roof from

I spend a lot of time tooling around one particular pnw national forest and can anecdotally confirm that sort of camping activity has gone through the roof from summer '21 onward. While I'm sympathetic to the situations a lot of these folks are in (had some extensive conversations with campers) the bit in the article about environmental damage is unfortunately super true. I'd say that at least in my area, as many as half of illegal long-term campers put very little effort into trash disposal. These days, every time I go out I come back with a pickup bed full of bags of trash. Last time, I had to figure out how to get rid of a bunch of partially rusted through propane tanks. Yelling at individual campers about it doesn't really work because they're all constantly cycling through anyway, so in a week the same spot will have been trashed by another jerk. One bright spot is that the FS, at least in my area, has been stepping up enforcement. A couple trips ago I ran into a pair of rangers who'd been turfing out RVs and issuing citations for litter.

OpieCunningham 4y ago
Am I supposed to be more concerned with leave no trace than I am with people slipping through the cracks of society? Because I’m not.
- livueta 4y ago
  Are those necessarily mutually exclusive? Plenty of campers in this category manage to LNT. The sort of stuff I'm talking about is driven by being an asshole, not by having slipped through the cracks of society - if anything, IME those genuinely down on their luck do better with trash and it's the cheap vacation people who are really bad about it. That aside, that kind of behavior eliminates this sort of resource for everybody, including those who need it most. A sibling comment mentions a camp getting shut down by bad behavior of a few. Letting trash accumulate to the point where a camping spot is physically unusable is in the same category of behavior. If you're concerned about those who slip through the cracks of society, you should be concerned about commons-torching abuses that cut off their remaining options.
  - mistrial9 4y ago
    curious wording, since after decades, it seems people that have seriously negative habits about trash and cleanliness, are also people with what amounts to toilet-training trauma and/or obesity.. these are are a few traits that coincide, not causation .. its a "soft" analysis ! secondly, people in the urban areas here that live literally in filth, are almost always abusing pain killer drugs
    - livueta 4y ago
      Sorry, I don't think I get your first point. Could you maybe elaborate a bit? Re second point: same here, but (again, just in my experience) making it 200+ miles out of the city requires resources people in that category don't have. If you're camping in a national forest you almost definitely have at least a van, though I did once meet one guy who lived out of a bike with a trailer and a little Subaru ICE motor. Fwiw, I think urban camps are a different category of problem and I don't advocate for "sweeps" in that context.
- StanislavPetrov 4y ago
  I'm all for the right of people with nowhere else to go to camp on public land for as long as they want, but it is ridiculous to pretend that we don't all have the responsibility to be responsible stewards of the land. The suggestion that it is okay for people who are forced to camp to litter and destroy our public lands only gives ammunition to those who want to prevent such camping all together.
nebula8804 4y ago
Thats around the time that tons of Youtubers have taken off promoting 'vanlife'. Its all these older Millenials that promote a lifestyle of living out of your van/car because there is no future due to rising costs/climate change/collapse of society so might as well live now. [1]:https://youtu.be/9f9PIMdlJnY?t=89 https://youtu.be/9f9PIMdlJnY?t=89
Beaver117 4y ago
The invisible hand of the market has decided that profits for landlords is more important than national forests.
- lfodofod 4y ago
  This is the very visible hand of the government deciding to not create and enforce rules which would appropriately address this issue. You could, for example, aggressively imprison people for littering in national parks and perhaps restrict them from entering such lands in the future.

OpieCunningham 4y ago

Am I supposed to be more concerned with leave no trace than I am with people slipping through the cracks of society? Because I’m not.

livueta 4y ago
Are those necessarily mutually exclusive? Plenty of campers in this category manage to LNT. The sort of stuff I'm talking about is driven by being an asshole, not by having slipped through the cracks of society - if anything, IME those genuinely down on their luck do better with trash and it's the cheap vacation people who are really bad about it. That aside, that kind of behavior eliminates this sort of resource for everybody, including those who need it most. A sibling comment mentions a camp getting shut down by bad behavior of a few. Letting trash accumulate to the point where a camping spot is physically unusable is in the same category of behavior. If you're concerned about those who slip through the cracks of society, you should be concerned about commons-torching abuses that cut off their remaining options.
- mistrial9 4y ago
  curious wording, since after decades, it seems people that have seriously negative habits about trash and cleanliness, are also people with what amounts to toilet-training trauma and/or obesity.. these are are a few traits that coincide, not causation .. its a "soft" analysis ! secondly, people in the urban areas here that live literally in filth, are almost always abusing pain killer drugs
  - livueta 4y ago
    Sorry, I don't think I get your first point. Could you maybe elaborate a bit? Re second point: same here, but (again, just in my experience) making it 200+ miles out of the city requires resources people in that category don't have. If you're camping in a national forest you almost definitely have at least a van, though I did once meet one guy who lived out of a bike with a trailer and a little Subaru ICE motor. Fwiw, I think urban camps are a different category of problem and I don't advocate for "sweeps" in that context.
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
I'm all for the right of people with nowhere else to go to camp on public land for as long as they want, but it is ridiculous to pretend that we don't all have the responsibility to be responsible stewards of the land. The suggestion that it is okay for people who are forced to camp to litter and destroy our public lands only gives ammunition to those who want to prevent such camping all together.

nebula8804 4y ago

Thats around the time that tons of Youtubers have taken off promoting 'vanlife'. Its all these older Millenials that promote a lifestyle of living out of your van/car because there is no future due to rising costs/climate change/collapse of society so might as well live now. [1]:https://youtu.be/9f9PIMdlJnY?t=89 https://youtu.be/9f9PIMdlJnY?t=89

Beaver117 4y ago

The invisible hand of the market has decided that profits for landlords is more important than national forests.

lfodofod 4y ago
This is the very visible hand of the government deciding to not create and enforce rules which would appropriately address this issue. You could, for example, aggressively imprison people for littering in national parks and perhaps restrict them from entering such lands in the future.