From time to time I have camped near COR on nearby BLM lands, and these wild campsites have, up to now, been pretty tidy and cared for. Last week, after a spate of nasty weather, I rolled in to find several sites pretty trashed, quite a shock and disappointment. Of course climbers are not the only visitors to the area but we are by far the majority. Is this really what it's come to, then? Maybe people blew out of the area in a hurry because of the rough weather... I don't know, but I do know we all can do better than what I found. Let's show some more care for the longterm benefit of all, and so these options don't start receiving some unwanted attention from the powers that be. It wouldn't be the first public lands camping that got shut down due to abuse.
Could you please elaborate on what you found at the "trashed" BLM sites? I camped just above Smokey Mountain RV park over the weekend of October 4 and, other than for the bad road, all was in good order.
Free BLM camping's a remarkable asset. After spending last year traveling on the cheap in Italy, where "wild camping" is no longer allowed, I really came to appreciate the privilege of informal road-side camping here in Idaho.
Sure. Beer bottles, fuel canisters, cigarette filters and various other smoking debris, food items (which aren't, I suppose, that big a deal, but do attract critters that should not become dependent on human food), and paper trash that was sort of a mish-mash of bagging and hard to identify other paper-based waste. Kind of a drag.
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