Trash or Useful?

[Blue Jay]

Please don't leave anything at the shelters. Here in Pa., my maintainers are "under orders" to remove anything (ANYTHING) that's been abandoned, whether it's useful or not. Food, equipment, beer...it all goes out as trash (well, maybe the beer gets used before the trip out....)

That's odd, going through PA last year I found more good stuff than ever before, including beer. At one shelter I found a can of beans that was the best nonhomemade I've ever had and at another one an LED Headlamp (that was most likely inadvertant). I also did not find any shelter "trashed". Your maintainers are great.

[SunnyWalker]

When I was section hiking it was always fun to go to each shelter and "shop". I did not stay any shelter though.

[Blissful]

Best bet is when you pick up the new, throw out the old unless you get a taker right then and there. Some hostels are also overflowing with needless junk in hiker boxes too. And I wouldn't take stuff that is partially used anyway. Or in ziploc bags.

[Blissful]

When I was section hiking it was always fun to go to each shelter and "shop". I did not stay any shelter though.

The only shopping I saw was stuff the mice left from books. Empty fuel canisters or ones that had three drops in them. And at Darlington shelter, four shoes of different sizes and styles. Not pretty.

[shelterbuilder]

That's odd, going through PA last year I found more good stuff than ever before, including beer. At one shelter I found a can of beans that was the best nonhomemade I've ever had and at another one an LED Headlamp (that was most likely inadvertant). I also did not find any shelter "trashed". Your maintainers are great.

Like everythng else, "left stuff" tends to run in cycles. Sometimes, it'll be months before somebody leaves something, and other times, it seems like week after week.

Once, we found 4 surplus Army mummy bags (cold weather, down/feather filled) that had (presumably) been left by a juvenile detention camp that was using the AT as an "overnight punishment" for misbehavior at the camp. (...bad use of a good outdoor resource, IMHO) Yep - the bags disappeared...so did the detention camp, eventually!

[Skyline]

Like everythng else, "left stuff" tends to run in cycles. Sometimes, it'll be months before somebody leaves something, and other times, it seems like week after week.

Once, we found 4 surplus Army mummy bags (cold weather, down/feather filled) that had (presumably) been left by a juvenile detention camp that was using the AT as an "overnight punishment" for misbehavior at the camp. (...bad use of a good outdoor resource, IMHO) Yep - the bags disappeared...so did the detention camp, eventually!

Unwanted stuff left behind at shelters, allegedly for other hikers to take as a generous "gift," is self-perpetuating. Kinda like graffiti or litter in urban areas—it just spreads. You see some junk lying around a shelter that belongs to nobody, and wanted by practically nobody, and it's like a permission slip to unburden yourself of weight you don't want to carry any longer.

'Tis far better to burden oneself for a few more miles and dispose of it properly. Because a volunteer maintainer will have to carry it all out if you don't.

Maintainers who visit their shelters often can sometimes get a handle on things by removing temptation before it piles up, and then the next hikers don't add to the rummage because there isn't any. That may account for why "it'll be months before somebody leaves something, and other times, it seems like week after week."