Dispersed Camping Impacts on Rural Counties

It will be interesting to see how successful they are at pulling it all together in the end and how well they achieve their desired outcomes. I wish for them success in the endeavor and an enjoyable experience for the end user.

Thanks for sharing.
 
With restrictions being lifted hopefully some of those who tried camping can go back to their usual modes of travel.
 
Around Flagstaff, the city, the county and the Forest Service have coordinated efforts to close certain areas to camping. It was done partly to reduce fire danger. About ten years ago, some campers up on the San Francisco Peaks failed to properly put out their fire and we lost the forest on a third of the mountain. Housing to the east of the city got hit by mud floods after the fire. The closure was also done because some popular areas were being trashed and denuded of vegetation. Forest Service was hauling a lot of trash out of the forests. Now, Campers have been pushed farther out away from the city. The program is in the second year and some of the areas are recovering quite nicely.

Wish I could say that education works but there are too many yahoos out there, too many people who do not understand that freedom needs responsibility to work.

Just an aside. We’re going to Iceland later this year and have rented a camper van. About four years ago, Iceland ended boondocking because of the abuse.
 
"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo

I hope the education works. Most of us have enjoyed the backcountry and boondocking for years. I hope we all leave the areas we visit cleaner than we arrived. But just the number of people can be a problem. Last time I was at Alabama Hills there were hundreds of campers, many with bad habits. But the Covid may have changed things forever. People who were used to paying $50+ for full hookups at a campground have tried BLM campgrounds and liked them just fine. Next they may try a true four wheel camper and go to the areas we like so much. There is a reason there is almost a year wait to by a FWC. Just did a couple of nights on the North Coast and mid week no shortage of campers. State campgrounds that took reservations were all full. We stayed at Burlington campground and must have been 15 sites with reserved tags and no one in them. The CA state system it making the situation worse. People don't cancel their reservation if they can't go, every little if any refund. And the price $35 to park at Westport Union campground, high for what you get. Drove by several areas where people just parked for the night and save $35. I am sure there sites will be marked not overnight parking soon.

I am old and have seen several changes to back country camping. Both not good depending on your viewpoint. 55 years ago camped a lot in the Spicer Reservoir area. Once it as an accomplishment to to get there. New road and you can now drive your Class A to Spicers, not much backcountry camping now. Same at Utica/Union just too many people. Another area I have camped at is Elephant Lake now part of Carson Iceberg Wilderness, not gonna take a jeep there anymore. No easy answers just my opinion.

I did see one of the best sunsets at Westport/Union.
Redwoods and Mattole Rd - 1 of 1.jpeg
 
In regards to education, I am a pessimist. I see no way that will work without aggressive enforcement - and that takes LEO's, prosecutors, and federal magistrates making it a priority. Caring for our public lands requires a lot of responsibility on all our parts. Maybe somewhere, sometime the balance will tip from users only to users who are also stewards. Again, I'm a pessimist. With the skyrocketing YouTube culture, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I hope I'm wrong.
 
ski3pin said:
In regards to education, I am a pessimist. I see no way that will work without aggressive enforcement - and that takes LEO's, prosecutors, and federal magistrates making it a priority. Caring for our public lands requires a lot of responsibility on all our parts. Maybe somewhere, sometime the balance will tip from users to stewards. Again, I'm a pessimist. With the skyrocketing YouTube culture, I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. I hope I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Not disagreeing on being a pessimist. But I feel that being a user and being a steward does not have to be mutually exclusive. I hope we can be both.
 
billharr said:
Not disagreeing on being a pessimist. But I feel that being a user and being a steward does not have to be mutually exclusive. I hope we can be both.
Click to expand...
I agree Bill and have corrected my initial post to - "users only to users who are also stewards"

Thanks for helping with my clarity.
 
While I am a very responsible person. And environmentalist. I LOVE the woods, and don't want to see them damaged. We have to be realistic. At least when speaking about the national forests.

Look at what they let industry get away with on forest lands!! The campers are doing nothing in comparison.
Drive through and see well site after well site, leaking toxic fumes, making constant noise where it should be silent. Then drive a bit further and see an clear cut area w/ a completely trashed abandoned logging camp, full of all their trash and left over bits of metal and other crud spread across the previous forest floor.

Forests are apparently there to be used and abused. If the industry gets a free pass for MASS DAMAGE. then lets let the campers have a little fun.
I am literally driven to tears many time I go out because of the vast industrial damage to the forests. I don't see why camping damage is even on their radar in comparison.. Other than the industrial damage comes w/ a pay check......
Heck, any of us can just go out and file a paper to start a mining claim and start raping the land, pretty much anywhere we want in the forest. I've run into people doing so.. Living in a little shack w/ a hole in the ground. Clear cutting all the trees around. Claiming the public land I'm on is THEIR land and I'm somehow trespassing.

And a little advice about finding camp sites for the experienced here.. Use a camping app, just like all the beginners. And if your camp site is on there.. abandon it. Find one that isn't. They're still out there, just a bit further down the road, and they're still clean.
And then, DO NOT SHARE THE SITE. STRIP ALL YOUR PHOTOS OF GEOLOCATION DATA. Keep them secret!
 
Unrelenting human population growth and better roads and vehicles plus unquenchable hunger for natural resources to feed our modern society = more stress on the land. It won't let up for the foreseeable future. Several of you know how to find out of-the-way, under-used sites, as do we. So I suggest we go out and enjoy what we can in as nondestructive manner as possible.

After a career spent trying to repair the damage done by humans to the environment, I do not see an optimistic path forward in the near and mid term. I can't tell you how many times I felt like the little dutch boy trying to hold back the rising tide by plugging a hole in the dike with my finger. But in the long term we will fade, wither and disappear. The earth and the environment will carry on -- humans are a passing illness, like a fever, whose ill effects will be lost to time eventually.
 
I've been talking to someone on another forum and he let me know a week or so ago that he's a retired forester. Used to design/plan the roads. I of course had a 1000 questions about that, and in the end basically got out of him that the majority of the roads he planned for were for loggers to get to the valuable virgin forest to log it. The entire mission of the national forests is to destroy them. Then build them up just enough to let the loggers in to destroy them again.

Also just read an article about rare earth metals and China threatening to cut off the supply of them.. so the US government has opened up protected lands to miners, and there are now several previously protected mountains that are being completely taken down to extract the minerals. I don't know exactly which lands these are on.. But again.. That destruction is not even comparable to anything every single camper combined has ever done to the forest.


(-edit to say, (after my negative comment about the mission of the forest) I do love the national forests. And there are obviously sections of that organization who do care about protecting the land. But the money making side always takes priority. So stopping or decreasing dispersed camp sites would be completely hypocritical. They should make more roads and camp sites, since there are more people wanting to use the resource. And of course education. I have seen some horrible things at distant camp sites.. I wouldn't think people who could make it that far out, would be so stupid or destructive. But it's nothing compared to the forests corporate customers.. and I think individual people will learn and change much faster than corporations.)
 
billharr said:
Just read an article in Outside Online.



Do I Have to Share My Campsite? Dispersed camping is getting less dispersed. Our ethics columnist weighs in on whether you need to share.


I may not agree with everything in the article but it does give you something to think about. I guess we can add another to the Old enough to be a Geezer thread. "You remember driving into the forest and not seeing anyone for days."
Click to expand...
That's a thought provoking article, Bill. Thanks for the link. I, like you, don't agree with everything but it is a good read and explores an expanding range of ethics. Yes, I'm feeling like a very old geezer.
 
I've been giving some thought on the "shearing" of a campsite.
Depending on the other party wanting to shear I would be up for it.
You might make a friend and the "karma" might pay off.

In most of our camping experiences we have met a lot of great people.
Maybe just luck can't say.
Frank
 
Casa Escarlata Robles Too said:
I've been giving some thought on the "shearing" of a campsite.
Depending on the other party wanting to shear I would be up for it.
You might make a friend and the "karma" might pay off.

In most of our camping experiences we have met a lot of great people.
Maybe just luck can't say.
Frank
Click to expand...
I was married to a very generous and gregarious and enthusiastic man who would invite people to share our camp in the front or the backcountry (he was also an entomologist who would become very exited over microscopic creatures inside of flowers and run around like a little kid showing everyone what he found)

Over the years we met many wonderful people and yes - I believe we both acquired and shared merit (not the same but related to "karma")

The only times I have really had "bad" neighbors has been in an organized campground.

I did not read the entire article but I saw enough of it to recognize the unmistakable reek of entitlement. There are a lot of people on this planet and the expectation and even demand that one have absolute solitude while in a motor vehicle (which means a road got you there) is delusional. I have encountered enough people like that in real life and I chose not to piss myself off needlessly even if there was more to the article than the bits and pieces I did read.. The grabby greedy bunch will not know thew joy of making new friends while engaged in an activity that you both love. They are missing out on one of the most rewarding parts of being human.

I also have to admit that I spend almost all of my time alone so maybe I am not as fed up with people.
 
Funny thing about sharing. I've met many nice people that way. Shared meals and swapped stories and enjoyed their company. I've also met people I couldn't wait to bail on. However I still prefer to camp solo most of the time. I figure if I camp in a camground I can't expect everyone to be perfect.
 
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