Leave No Trace Practices for 2016

[evan_rolltide]

Sunflower seeds all over the trail for miles annoys me as well.

Orange peels on the trail are the same way. These things may not bother you, but just like any food trash they habituate bears to the trail. To me they are an eye sore.

[Wildfang]

Thanks for sharing. It's always good to be reminded of LNT especially with all the news about it recently.

[Pedaling Fool]

Did you all know this is the International Year of soils, so designated by the UN. I didn't know...but found out as I was reading the below article about earth worms, which I basically raise. I don't raise them in bins, rather I've turned my yard into a habitat for worms and many other soil organisms by reducing large amounts of grass -- replaced by mulch.

This is also why I don't worry about burying stuff out on the trail, including left over food debris and even paper trash. Too many other hikers always preaching LNT (Leave No Trace) principles, but I leave (bury) the "trash" out there -- Always thinking of the soil organisms.

P.S. The soil organisms especially love orange peels and shells of the sunflower seed.

Interesting quote from the article:

"What Leonardo da Vinci said some 500 years ago is still true today: “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.”



http://cen.acs.org/articles/93/i41/N...Chemistry.html



.

[nsherry61]

You guys are all crazy. When I'm on my own, I just go. Heck, at times I don't even know what trailhead I'm going to start at. I study maps and read about hikes and trails and areas of interest and play with gear in my spare time, all of which informs decisions, and keeps me aware of what to expect with various options. But, other than figuring out enough of a plan to leave my wife a rough set of possible itineraries, I just go. Earlier this year, doing a 4-day, 50 mile Adirondack hike with one of my sons, we "planned" our menu in the car and at the grocery store on the way to the trailhead and packed and portioned our food on the trunk of my car at the trailhead. For multi-day trips, I generally use a generic packing list to make sure I don't forget anything when I am packing the night before I leave.

Now, as long as I bring appropriate gear and am appropriately educated and skilled, I'm at a loss as to how more planning can, in any way, reduce my impact. Heck, with less planning (or at least flexible planning), I can hike a different hike from the one I originally thought I was going to do if the the trailhead is crowed with people/cars.

[Starchild]

You guys are all crazy. When I'm on my own, I just go. Heck, at times I don't even know what trailhead I'm going to start at. I study maps and read about hikes and trails and areas of interest and play with gear in my spare time, all of which informs decisions, and keeps me aware of what to expect with various options. But, other than figuring out enough of a plan to leave my wife a rough set of possible itineraries, I just go. Earlier this year, doing a 4-day, 50 mile Adirondack hike with one of my sons, we "planned" our menu in the car and at the grocery store on the way to the trailhead and packed and portioned our food on the trunk of my car at the trailhead. For multi-day trips, I generally use a generic packing list to make sure I don't forget anything when I am packing the night before I leave.

Now, as long as I bring appropriate gear and am appropriately educated and skilled, I'm at a loss as to how more planning can, in any way, reduce my impact. Heck, with less planning (or at least flexible planning), I can hike a different hike from the one I originally thought I was going to do if the the trailhead is crowed with people/cars.

But you spent a lifetime preparing to do that type of hiking, so you did plan ahead and prepare.

LNT is a guideline which does give instructions at a very basic level so those without such experience can have a safe hike with little impact. It is presented at a entry level, but there are many more levels, and the guidelines change depending on the activity, as such LNT from hunting allows travel off trail.

What you are doing is beyond a standard backpack, sort of a open itinerary, but with the skills to do it, which LNT does not have a specific card for that I can find, but it is certainly within the scope of LNT.

[Slo-go'en]

P.S. The soil organisms especially love orange peels and shells of the sunflower seed.
.

Sunflower seed shells okay - orange or banana peels NO. These peels would have to be aggressively composted to break down and even then it takes a long time.

[Uriah]

To play devil's advocate: Leave No Trace is a provincially-minded organization, worrying about the aesthetics of the "natural world," but choosing to avoid the suffocating elephant in the room. Case in point: the organization drives polluting automobiles ("up to 26mpg!") to promote their message. Hypocrisy at its finest. Keep our woods clean, they tell us, but it's okay to drive to get to those woods! And it's okay to paint our vehicles from bumper to bumper to advertise that message. And it's okay to install huge wooden and plastic signs at the trailheads, as often observed here in Colorado.

The environmental impact of a banana peel or some sunflower shells pale in comparison to the effects of an automobile's exhaust, and exhaust is what's doing the most damage to our way of life. (The planet, of course, has been through much worse than mankind and shall rebound from us nicely, in its own sweet time.) Is this physical litter ugly? Sure. But as more people flock to the woods and deserts and mountains for an escape from our overstocked cities, we're going to see more of it. LNT is fighting a losing battle, I'm afraid. (I suppose I'm glad they're fighting it; it can't hurt, but I won't be donating to them.)

There's some serious irony in the aforementioned, that if you want to commit suicide in a pain-free manner, you can simply park your car in your garage and go to sleep in it while it's running! And yet we humans won't curtail our driving habits, for we set the world up this way.

Leaving no trace is a good and basic thing of course, but it's really nothing more than a fine example of the ol' NIMBY attitude: Not In My BackYard. Until we look at the BIG picture, we're going to continue falling into deeper and deeper trouble. But be sure not to slip on those banana peels!

[Pedaling Fool]

Sunflower seed shells okay - orange or banana peels NO. These peels would have to be aggressively composted to break down and even then it takes a long time.

Aggressively composted....What's that mean? Just because something takes a long time to decompose means nothing about its positive/negative effects on the environment. Those things don't last long in my yard...You want to talk about things the that last long...egg shells, wood, thick cardboard, carrots....

P.S. I'm guessing by aggressively composted, you probably mean composting with high heat, but most composting in nature doesn't happen this way. There is nothing special to composting vs. regular decomposition, despite what many avid composters will tell you.

[nsherry61]

Can we please just all try not to leave anything along the trail that the people behind you have to look at, that includes sunflower seed shells, bannana peals, orange peals, TP, etc. If it's biodegradable, and you want to leave it behind, make sure to hide it really well. It is almost as ugly seeing sunflower seeds spit out along the trail as it is to see toilet paper blooms. They are both biodegradable litter with human fluids or other waste smeared on them and they are gross. Keep them hidden and well away from where anyone will find them PLEASE!

[Cosmo]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLu...v=rO7V3UayreE#

Cosmo

[Old Hiker]

With all due respect and please disregard my basic nasty, cynical nature:
Those of us who know this already do this.
Those few who do not will be open-minded and start.
The rest will not care and will continue to do as they want.

[Pedaling Fool]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?list=PLu...v=rO7V3UayreE#

Cosmo

The video in part 2 showed the girl packing out TP Do people pack out TP when using a privy (according to LNT)? I don't see the rationale of it being ok to leave TP in a privy, but not in a cathole.


P.S. That's as far as I got (part 2) in the series, will try really hard, later, to watch all of them...

[4eyedbuzzard]

I find the LNT concept quite interesting in the sense that the trail itself leaves, or simply is, quite a big trace by its very existence. Plant growth is constantly trimmed, trees are cut down, rocks uprooted and piled up, bridges and plank walks are built, water bars built, shelters and privies built, signs erected, fire rings established, etc.

It's all a man made thing.

Now, when it comes to littering, I agree completely with the pack it in - pack it out philosophy. And that includes knowing how to cover one's excrement, or packing it out in alpine areas where mandated.

But the AT and most other hiking trails just aren't pristine wilderness. By their very nature, they never were planned to be. They are improved trail systems for human recreational use. We impact the areas they go thru by our very presence, even if all we leave is footprints. The degree to which lug soles, pole tips, etc., leave a trace is just part of the compromise we make to not bushwhack through the woods to go on a hike and get a little closer to nature or the illusion of wilderness.

[Cosmo]

I find the LNT concept quite interesting in the sense that the trail itself leaves, or simply is, quite a big trace by its very existence. Plant growth is constantly trimmed, trees are cut down, rocks uprooted and piled up, bridges and plank walks are built, water bars built, shelters and privies built, signs erected, fire rings established, etc.

It's all a man made thing.

Now, when it comes to littering, I agree completely with the pack it in - pack it out philosophy. And that includes knowing how to cover one's excrement, or packing it out in alpine areas where mandated.

But the AT and most other hiking trails just aren't pristine wilderness. By their very nature, they never were planned to be. They are improved trail systems for human recreational use. We impact the areas they go thru by our very presence, even if all we leave is footprints. The degree to which lug soles, pole tips, etc., leave a trace is just part of the compromise we make to not bushwhack through the woods to go on a hike and get a little closer to nature or the illusion of wilderness.

Here's the thing. When we make a trail, we do so (as you say above) to limit impacts to the resource (instead of 2000 hikers making their own way north from Springer, we concentrate their impacts onto a single treadway--theoretically, at least, routed and constructed in a way that reduces the physical damage to the minimum--and stays on public lands). In terms of LNT, the real impacts are not from hiking on the treadway, they come when people stop and enjoy a view, camp or discharge waste. If everyone creates their own campsite, privy or trail to a viewpoint--without regard to sustainable surfaces and slopes, water sources or other fragile environments, then the impacts widen and become more severe with repeated use. Very few of us, myself included, can exist in the backcountry w/o modifying the natural setting. When thousands (or even 10's) of us do it without regard to protecting and preserving an area, then it just turns into a mess that stops looking like nature. Practicing good LNT methods reduces individual impacts which in turn (if performed by the majority of users) reduces the total amount of resource destruction.

Anyone who has hiked and camped on the AT in GA in March and April can't help but be aware of what happens when large numbers of people without good LNT practices use (and overuse) the same campsites day after day. Frankly, I'm not sure it's recoverable there, but why make it worse? These techniques are not that hard to learn or perform. For more of my own thoughts see http://appalachiantrials.com/why-lea...trace-matters/

Cosmo

[Pedaling Fool]

Anyone who has hiked and camped on the AT in GA in March and April can't help but be aware of what happens when large numbers of people without good LNT practices use (and overuse) the same campsites day after day. Frankly, I'm not sure it's recoverable there, but why make it worse? These techniques are not that hard to learn or perform. For more of my own thoughts see http://appalachiantrials.com/why-lea...trace-matters/

Cosmo

You're not sure if it's recoverable? Of course it's recoverable, what exactly wouldn't be recoverable?

[BirdBrain]

You're not sure if it's recoverable? Of course it's recoverable, what exactly wouldn't be recoverable?

Is debating the possibility of what could happen as important as the reality of what is happening?

@ Cosmo. You have to be very careful in your wording. We major on the minors and minor on the majors here. Those that try to make a serious point are labeled as melodramatic by those that think they are making witty and/or pithy posts. The more verbose you are, the more likely someone will find a word or phrase that can be used to distract from the valid points you are making.

"If My Grandmother Had Wheels She’d Be A Trolley Car." Yes it is possible to recover from the damage being done. However, there are so many "ifs" in the conditional logic that my grandmother has a greater chance of becoming a trolley car than the damage being done has of being corrected. The condition will remain as long as people comfort themselves with thoughts that even the most damaged areas are not suffering permanent damage. There is no hope of the nose of the camel getting under the tent when a camel and tent are not allowed in the same universe.

There. That should provide enough words to comfort those that wish to remain the problem.

[Pedaling Fool]

Is debating the possibility of what could happen as important as the reality of what is happening?

@ Cosmo. You have to be very careful in your wording. We major on the minors and minor on the majors here. Those that try to make a serious point are labeled as melodramatic by those that think they are making witty and/or pithy posts. The more verbose you are, the more likely someone will find a word or phrase that can be used to distract from the valid points you are making.

"If My Grandmother Had Wheels She’d Be A Trolley Car." Yes it is possible to recover from the damage being done. However, there are so many "ifs" in the conditional logic that my grandmother has a greater chance of becoming a trolley car than the damage being done has of being corrected. The condition will remain as long as people comfort themselves with thoughts that even the most damaged areas are not suffering permanent damage. There is no hope of the nose of the camel getting under the tent when a camel and tent are not allowed in the same universe.

There. That should provide enough words to comfort those that wish to remain the problem.

No, it's just a simple fact that the impact to the camping sites are marginal in the big picture. Probably the biggest impact would be the privies, because of the extreme concentration of human waste. How much of an impact I don't know, but that would be an interesting question to answer.

We focus way too much on aesthetics; that is what much of LNT is all about, it's silly. Aesthetics does not equal natural.

BTW, I totally agree with the bulk of LNT, meaning simply to pack in and pack out. However, it gets silly when people start making this a contest on who can have less "impact" and start doing stupid things, like in part 2 of the video and pack out TP. You can make an argument that your waste is far more destructive than your TP, which is basically very much similar to leaves on the ground.

[4eyedbuzzard]

...
Anyone who has hiked and camped on the AT in GA in March and April can't help but be aware of what happens when large numbers of people without good LNT practices use (and overuse) the same campsites day after day. Frankly, I'm not sure it's recoverable there, but why make it worse...

If you reroute a section of trail today, within a few years you likely wouldn't be able to tell a trail ever existed there. Structures would take a little more time to be consumed, but even they will fall to the forest. Nature recovers from minor things like trails extremely quickly. Eventually, it will even recover from humans.

[Lnj]

If you reroute a section of trail today, within a few years you likely wouldn't be able to tell a trail ever existed there. Structures would take a little more time to be consumed, but even they will fall to the forest. Nature recovers from minor things like trails extremely quickly. Eventually, it will even recover from humans.

This is a true statement.

[perdidochas]

Sunflower seeds all over the trail for miles annoys me as well.

Orange peels on the trail are the same way. These things may not bother you, but just like any food trash they habituate bears to the trail. To me they are an eye sore.

Sunflower seed hulls and orange peels are different things. I would have no problem seeing the first and I doubt it would attract bears. The second is food trash, and would attract bears.