Monday, July 30, 2012

Wilderness camping - Some people unclear on concept

Wilderness camping - that is camping in the middle of nowhere, with no electricity, no hot water, no washrooms, no garbage cans etc.   If you're going to be camping in the wilderness, the first thing you have to take into consideration is to leave the area you've been at in the same pristine condition as you found it. 

The campsite rule. You must leave the campsite in as good or better condition then you found it in. That means you do not leave your empty beer bottles or pop cans. You don't leave your candy bar wrappers or your box of cereal lying around.  Since there is no washrooms, there is nothing wrong with leaving your urine or feces in the woods. It will decompose and make compost for the forest.  HOWEVER do not leave your toilet paper or wet wipes, tampons, pads or condoms. Those can all be burned, if fires are permitted because it's not too dry, or they can be collected in a bag and thrown out later. 

It is particularly disgusting and revolting to get to a wilderness campsite and wander the woods around it to find all these little mounds of toilet paper, not one or two but 30 or 40. Please people have some consideration. Bleached toilet paper takes longer to decompose then your excrement.

If you're going to burn wood, look for dead trees. DO NOT CUT LIVE TREES. For starters wet wood just makes smoke and really doesn't burn well, secondly you're destroying a live thing. Any forest has plenty of dead trees. You can tell because it has no leaves, no needles, it's very dry and if standing if you push it a little it will just fall down. Or alternatively it's already on the ground. 

It sucks to go to places like Lac Vert, off the beaten path to find that some asshole has been there before me and left traces of his passage.

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