Ridgerunner One

May 4, 2022 / jim fetig / 3 Comments

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Shenandoah National Park, April 29 – 30, 2022 — The first ridgeunner who comes aboard each season inherits the park radio call sign, “Ridgerunner One.” The second follows as “Ridgerunner Two.” This year “Ridgerunner One” is John Cram from Seattle.

Each season, the first stroll we take is from Compton Gap to the north boundary kiosk where we check to see if the permit box is full. Along the way we stop at the Indian Run Maintenance Hut for which the ridgerunners have a key. They check it each time they pass for signs of damage or other issues. They also do the same for the AT-adjacent rental cabins and maintenance huts in the park.

In John’s case this year, some glitches led to a late start and a short first patrol from the north boundary to Panorama at Thornton Gap. At least we covered the whole north district.

Along the way we cover all the items that are part of the ridgerunner’s weekly report which includes a hiker count, blowdowns, the amount of trash picked up and other things. They learn quickly that TP tulips are as prolific as other invasive plants. They apply their folding saws and clippers to remove minor trail obstructions.

They also report campsites less than 60 ft. from the trail and remove illegal fire rings. No fires are allowed in the backcountry other than in fire pits established by the park itself. Note the trash that didn’t burn.

No ridgerunner has ever been more zealous about demolishing fire rings than Lauralee “Blissful” Bliss. I want her to know that, like a momma bear teaching its cubs, I’ve taught her enthusiasm to every ridgerunner I’ve trained since. Your legacy lives on!

There’s never a shortage of blowdowns. Last year they were mostly red oak and ash. This year, the ash are dominating so far. Ridgerunners photograph each one, record the GPS coordinates, and enter the data into an smart phone app that compiles their weekly reports. The poles and hat are for scale since ridgerunners and hikers are notorious for improperly estimating the size of downed trees.

On the way over North Marshall, we noticed the no camping sign had been vandalized. The reason why was on top where a large new campsite had been established. “Honest officer, I didn’t see any ‘no camping’ sign.”

The wild flame azalea and mountain laurel are budding on the south side of Compton Peak. The full bloom photo is from May 21st last year, so we’re about three weeks away from some spectacular flowers.

The view from North Marshall clearly shows “green up” as spring slowly creeps up the mountainsides.

We spent Saturday evening at Gravel Spring Hut. About half the crowd was thru hiking. Almost everyone was sporting a bear canister. That’s a huge victory and a credit to the amount of bear education the AT Conservancy, the U.S. Forest Service and National Park Service have been doing.

Cram friend

Serendipity is one of my favorite words. John walks in and to his total surprise meets his old friend Cheryl. They originally met in North Woodstock, NH at the Notch Hostel when he was hiking southbound on the AT. Without doubt he was surprised to see her on his first overnight as a Ridgerunner. AT trail magic doesn’t get better than that.

Our fortunes changed on Sunday. We made it almost all the way to the Elk Wallow wayside before the cold rain began pelting our Goretex. The store is open, but the grill is closed until Memorial Day. So, we settled for ham sandwiches and a dry spot under the breezeway.

The bright side is for insiders. Chugging up the extra long Neighbor Mountain traverse out of Elk Wallow is much easier without a greasy burger and fries combo riding high in your gut. Serendipity? Maybe.

The rain soon morphed into fog and the afternoon into lazy foggy climbs.

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The day ended around six o’clock with a gimme blowdown at Thornton Gap. I know the backstory behind the cut that didn’t count, but I’ll never tell.

Up next. Gravel Spring privy on Friday and an encore appearance by a very special guest star. Stay tuned.

Until then…

Sisu

The End is Near

October 24, 2021October 24, 2021 / jim fetig / 2 Comments

Shennandoah National Park and Annapolis Rock Maryland, October 22 – 23, 2021 — It’s that time again. In the park the end of the trail crew season is in sight. We have one more trip next month. In Maryland time expires for the last ridgerunner standing.

In the mean time, the AT section on the south side of Compton Peak, for which I have been responsible and now shared by Caroline, needs a lot of work before the ground freezes. A recent high intensity storm literally wiped out some of the erosion control structures.

A Virginia Conservation Corps crew rebuilt the upper two thirds, but the lower third, which is sandy like Saudi Arabia, was completely silted up. If we don’t get it done before the ground freezes, mother nature herself will rebuild it over the winter. We may not appreciate her work come spring.

Meanwhile, the Hoodlums divided into two parties. One was dispatched to Jeremy’s Run, a serpentine blowdown factory featuring a number of wet-feet stream crossings.

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Jeremy’s Run is located in a federally designated wilderness area meaning only traditional tools may be used. Photo by Ruth Stornetta via Facebook.

The other group continued to work on the rebuild of the AT on the north side of Compton Peak. I’m told we have surpassed 700 hours of volunteer labor on this project so far this year. Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, we’ll git ‘er finished in November.

The Hoodlums at Compton split their labor. One group continued to repair and replace waterbars and check dams at the bottom of the mountain. This trail is one of the most popular in the park featuring a nice viewpoint and a unique columnar basalt formation at the summit. It’s also the first time hikers can be on the AT from the north (Front Royal) entry station.

The work party I joined was assigned to finish the stone staircase near the top of the mountain, so that’s the bulk of the story we’re telling today.

The first thing you do is find a large rock, one that will stay put and heavy enough to resist bears checking for lunch underneath.

Step two is to dig a hole to put it in. We use pick handles to measure the size of both rock and hole.

Then you have to get the rock to where you want it to be. The rocks are hard to move because they are too big for people to pick them up, the terrain is lumpy with other rocks, and they are awkward.

Watch the fingers and toes!

Then you have to set it and test for wobble. We broke off the piece that stuck out.

In the interim, the hikers keep coming. It was a picture perfect day and the park was jammed.

The number of hikers passing through can hinder progress. We give them priority except when we’re doing something that could be a safety problem for them.

Rinse and repeat to create more steps.

We finished early enough that Caroline and I could clear three blowdowns on the AT between Compton parking and the north park boundary. This was the most magnificent of them all.

This large ash likely fell during a wind storm Thursday before last. There are many reasons you don’t want to near one of these trees when they come down. This is not the first time a branch has been driven so deeply into the trail tread that we couldn’t get it out. Had to cut it off.

Done.

A day earlier I helped the ridgerunner decommission the Annapolis Rock caretaker site for the winter. Thanks to REI for donating the tent.

When leaves begin to fall so does the caretaker tent at Annapolis Rock. The autumn continues, but the ridgerunner season ends. It’s the saddest day of the year for me.

To date we’ve had more than 30 ridgerunners since I became responsible for the program. They are special people who join a long line of others who have selflessly helped protect and preserve the AT which, in and of itself, is a national treasure. But there’s a lot more. In our area alone, it runs through three national parks, one state forest, five state parks and a couple of wildlife conservation areas.

Sisu

The Ridgerunners are at Full Strength

June 8, 2021 / jim fetig / 8 Comments

Brandon can drive with his eyes closed.

On the Appalachian Trail in Southern Pennsylvania and Northern Maryland, May 29 – June 6 2021 — Memorial Day weekend broke windy, cold and wet, the trifecta of misery for those who tramp around the woods with their house on their back.

Nobody likes to walk in the rain when the temperatures are hovering around 40 and the wind is popping. It is a recipe for hypothermia at worst and guaranteed discomfort at best.

Branden and Kaela shuttled me to Pennsylvania’s Pine Grove Furnace State Park. The park is the northern boundary of the 240 AT miles that the Potomac Appalachian Tail Club maintains. There I would meet Darrel Decker and we would hike southbound to the Mason-Dixon Line where his responsibilities terminate.

After leaving Darrel, I planned to hike solo another 20 miles to my car at Washington Monument State Park in Maryland. From there, after a zero day, I’d return to rendezvous at Raven Rock Shelter with Kaela who would be hiking in from the Mason-Dixon Line at Pen-Mar Park. We would then hike south to where my car was stashed. The net AT mileage for me would be about 80.

This is the official halfway sign between Georgia and Maine. When I reached this point in 2014 I recall my emotions deflating as I realized that after months of punishing effort I was only half done. By then I understood the enormity of repeating the challenge. Pulling up my socks and getting my head in order for another long march was not a small challenge. In that single moment, I understood why so many people give up and quit.

Darrel is a repeat customer. He was a ridgerunner in the Michaux State Forest for the club in 2009, 10 and 11. That experience and time between service is rare and valuable. He will be able to tell us what’s changed since he was last here. One thing he noticed right away is the expanded sprawl of tent sites associated with the shelters.

Veteran ridgerunners know how to find and haul trash. He found a bunch.

The rain was mostly light and intermittent. The tread conditions were good though wet rocks are always slippery.

Damp camp at Burch Run. I like the patter of rain on my tent fly until it’s time to pack up a wet tent.

Lunch break at a campsite. Needless to say we found plenty of trash, especially in the fire pit. It amazes me that people think that foil among other things is combustible. Truth is that they don’t think. They just do.

Recording a blowdown on the smart phone app we use for reporting. Not all of them are conveniently located next to a road.

Quick stop to clean up the Rocky Mountain Shelters. The sun was welcome; the cool weather even more so.

Spent the might drying out on a tent pad at Quarry Gap. One young hiker was reminded of the Hansel and Gretel story. This place was too good to be true, he reasoned. Would the witch eat him? I told him I thought he was safe because I heard that the Inkeeper had a freezer full of hikers left over from last year.

Tumbling Run. Snoring or non-snoring. Strictly “enforced.”

The mountain laurel are ready to pop.

Welcome trail magic at Old Forge picnic area courtesy of a former thru hiker. I scarfed two hot dogs, a Gatorade and a bag of chips.

After our mid-morning snack we marched on to the Deer Lick Shelters and then to Pen-Mar where I continued northward and Darrel reversed course.

Once across the border into Maryland, adjacent to the AT there is an municipal park known as a graffiti hot spot. Not Banksy is spreading up and down the AT which is spitting distance away. Maintainers will remove this with a product called Elephant Snot which essentially is jellied acetic acid formulated to eat spray paint.

I rarely get to hike solo. Hiking with someone tends to focus attention on conversation and away from nature. Hiking alone tunes the senses to your surroundings. Also, as someone who maintains trails, I pay a lot of attention to the tread, weeding and developing problems.

This year I’ve noticed hikers by-passing even the smallest inconvenient rocks, rises and roots. They are creating social trail by-passes in the process. It matters because erosion can develop and what is supposed to be a narrow pathway can become a dirt autobahn in no time. We have ways of deterring social trail development with stacked rip rap or brush. Just another job to put on the task list.

Of course the cicadas are out in force. I can attest that the world’s largest orgy is LOUD! Of note, some areas are chock full of them while others have none at all. Can’t come up with any correlation as to why.

After four days with Darrel and one by myself, I welcomed a zero day with Sophie the shedding lap cat. Zero stands for zero miles hiked, by the way.

Here we are, off the grid, hiking to Raven Rock from Wolfsville Rd. The waving fiddleheads were soothing in the rare absence of cacophonous cicada pick up lines blaring from the branches overhead.

No, that’s not an IV line. It’s a water purification system.

Kaela struggled into Raven Rock hauling 30 lbs. of trash gift wrapped in a cheap green plastic camping tarp she found. She was daunted by the prospect of dragging that mess another 30 miles. She earned her ridgerunner challenge coin with this effort. I was reminded of my own travails as a Georgia ridgerunner where similar trash hauls happened.

This scenario is exactly why I like to hike with new ridgerunners. Call it OJT, spring training or what you will, the old guy knows a few tricks like the one where you take the trash to the nearest road and cache it to be picked up later. The spring was on the way to the road, so when we went to get water, the green tarp and its contents came along for the ride. I picked it up two days later and the dumpster is its new destiny.

Occasionally a little adventure. We cautioned a couple of very tired and reluctant thru hikers to relocate their tent which was pitched next to three dead trees. With high wind gusts in the overnight forecast, we were in no mood to medevac people in the middle of the night. We shared our concerns with the Maryland Park Service which can fell the potential widowmakers.

We ate dinner with four lovely ladies from the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club who are hiking the AT in sections. Their accents, smacking of cheesy grits and buttermilk biscuits, reminded me of friends it turned out we share in common. After momma nature turned out the lights, they built a fire and talked well into the night. When I got up at six thirty, they had already beaten feet. You go girls!

People like to camp at an interesting rock formation about a half mile south of Raven Rock. In Maryland dispersed camping is illegal so we have to “clean it up.”

Three years ago Kiki Dehondt and I tossed about a million rocks into crevasses between boulders thinking we could eliminate the fire rings. (Kiki and his fiance will appear in this space soon.)

We were right and wrong. Now the campers build fires without the benefit of a fire ring. We bagged the ashes and scattered them in the woods before covering the area with leaf litter.

1960s vintage bike.

Water and snack break.

When we reached the Cowall shelter, I noticed Kaela was really hungry. Since my car was a quarter of a mile away and knowing the town of Smithburg was just down hill from there, I offered to buy Kaela , whose trail name is Pizza, an eponymous lunch. We couldn’t find an open pizza place so we refueled at a Mennonite grocery and deli. After hiker food, it was glorious.

Next I dropped Kaela to finish her patrol; then headed to Devil’s Race Course to snatch to cached trash and on to home.

In training we tell the ridgerunners that they are about to meet the dark side of the trail. That side has many forms from the often bureaucratic to the rarely malevolent. In addition to help search for a missing hiker who ultimately turned up in a Gettysburg bar, Darrel and I encountered a hiker who said he’d been bitten by an aggressive dog at the Pine Knob shelter in Maryland. He said he would report the bite to the National Park Service AT incident line: 866-677-6677. Later Kaela and I found the dog. It was not friendly and the owner was unconcerned about it. We moved on and notified the the right folks.

Protecting food from bears is important. A bear conditioned to human food becomes a safety problem and sometimes must be put down. “A fed bear is a dead bear,” the saying goes.

I’ve previously written about bear canisters and Kevlar sacks. I noticed the Georgia ladies were using Ursacks. The one depicted is properly tied to a tree. The problem is that bears can always crush your food and sometimes they can get in.

Fortunately every shelter in the PATC section has a bear pole, bear box or cables to help hikers protect their food.

The forest is a magical place. You never know what you’ll find be they witches, beasts or fairies.

Sisu

The secret lives of ridgerunners

July 19, 2019July 19, 2019 / jim fetig / 5 Comments

Blackburn Trail Center

Blackburn Trail Center, Round Hill, VA, July 18, 2019 — Once a month in June and July we bring our Appalachian Trail ridgerunners to Blackburn for a little R&R and a short business meeting. Outside guests from the Conservancy, NPS and our trail club are often invited. In August they travel to the Scott Farm training center outside Carlisle, PA where they rejoin their mid-Atlantic peers for an official seasonal debrief and a personal comparing of notes.

Our MO is pretty standard. We show up Thursday afternoon for some social time, prepare a meal and have some beer. Friday morning we do cook-your-own pancakes with a 9 o’clock hard start for our meeting which varies between 90 minutes and three hours. Lunch is leftovers if there are any.

Ridgerunners are usually fairly stoic people. They are selected for their maturity, judgment, commitment and intelligence. But what are they really like when they let their hair down and no one else is looking? Here’s a snapshot of the dinner hour last night.

Food prep was pretty standard. The main course was grilled burgers. Catherine, our PATC intern, was our slicer and dicer for the fixin’s.

Seems like gender neutral nail painting is a thing with hikers this year. I appears to have started with hikers painting their black toenails to cover up the grossness of it all.

Next thing I know, they’re all doing it.

Checking for purity?

Stylin’.

That was hard work.

Ok. Everybody outside to cook. We were joined by Gary Seizer, host of the podcast “Stories from the Trail.” He recorded an episode after dinner that will air in two to three weeks.

What’s this? The food was yummy.

A good time was had by all.

Sisu

An Ugly Start to the Summer

May 26, 2019May 27, 2019 / jim fetig / 7 Comments

Bucky

Appalachian Trail, Maryland and Northern Virginia, May 20-24, 2019 — Usually the trail is an undramatic place. Hikers come and go. Some even dig cat holes to go in.

This week opened uneventfully and hopeful of good times to come. I met the short-season Maryland ridgerunner at the Greenbriar State Park visitor center where the rangers with whom we work have their offices. Bucky was issued his radio, parking permit, apartment key and other such stuff.

Bucky’s room. Packs explode when you open them.

We met Mary, his ridgerunner partner, at the apartment. We drove around pointing out landmarks and key areas. Then we adjourned to Dan’s Tap House for juicy gourmet burgers before bounding up the mountain to Annapolis Rock where Bucky will spend his first shift as caretaker. Mary will be patrolling in Maryland.

The sundown faded toward black as Bucky and I arrived at Annapolis Rock. As the last of the sunset peepers were sliding down the hill towards home, we stowed our gear and made the rounds. We found only one camper, a thru hiker. He actually properly hung his food bag on the bear pole. Score! After securing the sagging tarp over the picnic table, we called it a day and dove head first into our respective dream worlds.

We woke to the thunderous snoring of Jake brakes and the throbbing pulse of commerce rushing along I-70. The interstate is invisible from the view point, tucked in behind a low ridge. When the wind is quiet, its presence is as undeniable as is the drag strip across the valley.

With the crack of dawn piercing the tent walls, we raked the sand out of our eyes and adjourned to the ridgerunner office/picnic table for breakfast. Two packs of instant oatmeal and a Jet Boil coffee later, it was time to inspect the rock.

Following orientation, we hiked to the Pogo campsite about two miles up the trail. First we stopped at the Black Rock overlook and scoured the area for trash.

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The desecration of Black Rock and other places is a pastime for local high school kids. I’m certain Shawna wasn’t present when the perp misogynistically memorialized his conquest.

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The good news is that it didn’t last long. Mary followed up the next day with a bottle of Elephant Snot and a scrub brush. Bingo. Like it never happened.

We also checked out Fox Gap where a Civil War skirmish was fought. New graffiti topped the old.

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Once again, Mary and her trusty Elephant Snot to the rescue. (Learn more about Elephant Snot here.) All in a day’s work for a ridgerunner, right?

Now it’s time to interrupt this friendly story for a brief trip to the dark side.

This hiking season has already been marred by a tragic event. One hiker was murdered and another maimed and nearly killed when someone who was deranged stabbed them. Click here for details: (How safe is the Appalachian Trail).

The AT attracts 3 million visitors annually. They represent a cross section of society with all that entails. Normally hikers are pretty mellow, but this tragedy elevated concern within the hiking community, especially for unbalanced and misogynistic behavior which was reportedly exhibited by the accused killer.

Earlier in the day, a hiker complained to us about another hiker variously called “Yogi Beer,” “Renegade,” or “Air Quotes.” Bad actors often change their trail names to avoid authorities. Judging from reports of his behavior, Yogi Beer appears to be a raging alcoholic and possibly bipolar. He had been aggressively harassing women.

With this in mind, Bucky and I were enjoying the brilliant weather while hiking to the trailhead — Bucky to pick up a bale of wood chips for the Annapolis Rock composting privies and me to my car so I could meet the Northern Virginia ridgerunner for his orientation hike the next day.

Three hikers stopped us to complain about a guy called, you guessed it: Yogi Beer. They had first-hand knowledge. One of them had been concerned enough to snap Yogi Beer’s photo. We immediately filed an incident report and shared the photo with law enforcement rangers, trail officials and the other ridgerunners. (Details not shared here to protect the innocent because some of it may be hearsay.) With that, we thought we were done with the dark side.

In the interest of chronology, let’s put the dark side on hold for a minute because we’re not done. It will be right back after a bit more of our friendly story.

Witt

Each of our ridgerunners is an expert backpacker. Occasionally a resume stands out. Witt has thru-hiked the triple crown – Appalachian Trail, Continental Divide Trail and Pacific Crest Trail. He also as held the FKT (fastest known time) for the Arizona Trail and is the FKT holder in Maine’s 100-mile Wilderness. ( Info on the National Scenic Trails System)

Unfortunately for Witt, ridgerunners are more commonly evaluated by the number of contacts they make and the amount of trash they pick up. That’s slow going for a guy who’s used to moving in the fast lane.

Along the way we noticed an unusual arrow made of sticks pointing to a path in the woods.

Somebody wants us to follow the yellow brick road, right? Naturally we did.

About 100 yards in we discovered a sign for a hiker hostel. Unfortunately it’s on National Park Service land, about 20 feet inside the boundary according to the marked trees. We informed the folks who deal with these issues. The owner only has to move it off park service property and it’s good. Commercial ads/promotion isn’t allowed on federal land.

Stacking rocks has been a thing for awhile. Cairns and rock art are inconsistent with Leave No Trace principles. In short: Leave only foot prints (not rock stacks, painted rocks or graffiti) and take only photos (not flowers, feathers and antlers). Leave those for others to see.

Boom. The rocks were widely scattered.

We hiked 12 miles. The trash collected was moderate. Best highlight: We opened the tool cache at David Lessor shelter. We immediately noticed a field mouse. A second later a juvenile Black Snake became obvious. We left mother nature to her business. If they could get in, they could get out.

Now we’ll return to the dark side. When we left we were dealing with Yogi Beer.

Turns out Witt and I may have passed a hiker who turned up in an incident report for threats and sexual harassment. His photo was familiar. Not long after learning that, a report came in about an abusive hiker at a nearby hostel.

Believe me. This volume is highly unusual. Unfortunately, there’s more!

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So, there I was at home in my favorite chair, quietly sipping coffee while reading the New York Times early Saturday morning. The phone rings. It’s Mary at the Ed Garvey shelter in Maryland.

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She’s found a mess. The guy in the tent won’t get up. He doesn’t appear to be under the influence. She wants to educate him to pack out his trash, not to mention properly hanging his food and not to make the mess in the first place.

Raw chicken is in the mix. This could attract animals including bears. Then we’re dealing with a different problem.

Since the camper rolled over and would not get up, she moved a distance away to observe, radioed the Maryland Park Service and waited for the ranger. Before the ranger could arrive, the guy packed up and left. She cleaned up the area.

Enough already? Damn right!

Of note. Sexual harassment on the trail isn’t a universal experience, but its frequency is way too high. Sometimes it’s subtle as when one of our women ridgerunners quipped that all she needed was another septuagenarian man-splaining how she should hike. Other times males go out of their way to tell women they don’t belong on the trail alone or they aren’t strong enough to hike long distances. Sometimes it’s much more sexually suggestive or worse as when someone attempted to rape a hiker I know.

This is shameful. Men need to step up and stop this behavior. We need to own it and step in when we see or hear it.

Incident Reporting: http://appalachiantrail.org/home/explore-the-trail/report-an-incident?fbclid=IwAR2dlPHezWWPQy17qyRHUBqR21UWz-GyyrA7xtHD9FgXgZmrtxGLhZ7l73U

Sisu

Oh! The things we see.

July 9, 2016 / jim fetig / 7 Comments

Pine Grove Furnace State Park, PA to Harpers Ferry, WV, June 30 – July 6,, 2016 — My annual hikes with our ridgerunners have begun. This year my muffin top needs shrinking so I decided to walk all 240 miles of the PATC section in hopes of burning some of it off. I’d like to do it nonstop, but schedules, theirs and mine, dictate otherwise.

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After dropping my car at the Harpers Ferry National Park long term parking, Robin Hobbs schlepped me up to meet Mitch Mitchell at the store where hikers traditionally eat a half gallon of ice cream to celebrate reaching the halfway point which is just down the trail. From here the math for them changes from counting up the miles to counting them down.

Prospective ridgerunners think the job is about hiking. Readers of this blog know from last year in Georgia and other missives that the opposite is true. It mostly about picking up trash, coaching hikers in Leave No Trace outdoor ethics, counting and interacting with hikers. The miles per day are generally slow and short.

This trip was no different, but here’s fair warning. I’m going to let you in on some ridgerunner reality show secrets and it’s gonna get gross…

We were also out over the July 4th holiday weekend, meaning more people in general, more nubes, and the laggard thru hiker party crowd which is not known for its trail decorum. In fact, they openly admit to yellow blazing (hitch hiking) and to using booze and drugs in excess.

The rule of thumb is that if a hiker isn’t at Harpers Ferry by the Fourth of July, they need to “flip” to Maine and hike south or risk winter weather shutting them out of Mt. Katahdin in October. These folks are walking on the bleeding edge of that axiom.

Selfie at the official half way marker.

Our start was leisurely enough. We got about a half gallon (by volume) worth of trash out of the fire pit at Toms Run shelter and pressed on. Before the day’s end Mitch’s pack reminded me of a colonial tinker plying his trade along the rutted byways that traced the very region we were trekking.

As we moved along, trash of all kinds accumulated.

I don’t know what it is with me and finding pots and pans. Since hiking with Hal and Lauralee last year, I’ve found enough to open my own store.

Any more trash and he won’t have a place to put it. It’s the second pair of new (cheap) boots I’ve found this year alone.

Taking inventory before feeding the friendly dumpster at New Caledonia State Park, PA. We’re not showing you the snack bar just out of the photo. I packed out some of their tasty treats for dinner for that night.

Homeless camp on state park property. It was a family that appeared to have left in a hurry. Some toys and a pink blanket were in one of the tents along with clothing. The food in the cooler was rotten. The park rangers cleaned it up. Too big for us to haul out on our backs.

After spending the night at Birch Run shelter with a noisy crowd of hikers, we press on.

Ridgerunners see a lot of gross stuff on the trail including unburied human waste, used feminine hygiene products, wipes and toilet paper (Charmin blossoms) and the like. We fish it out of privies, pick it up and pack it out or bury it as appropriate. What comes next is a first for me. Why I was surprised, I don’t know.

You’d think after more than 1,000 miles on the trail, hikers would learn a thing or three, especially about hygiene. Maybe not. We found the young woman who owns this food dish improperly camped too close to a stream and illegally camped in the vicinity of a PATC rental cabin. I’d met her previously while hiking with Denise the week prior in Virginia. The embedded dirt on her skin reminded me of a character made up to be in a movie about peasants in the middle ages. My stinky gym socks smell better. Small wonder hikers get sick on the trail.

There were fewer flies on this pile of human scat I buried than on our hiker’s food plate. These videos will go into every presentation I will ever give from now forward on backpacking.

Approaching Deer Lick shelter, we bumped into a PATC trail crew hiking out their tools. They were nice enough to invite us to dinner with the North Chapter group, so we grabbed some of their tools and Chris Ferme’s chainsaw and tagged along for some chicken pot pie, green salad and fresh backed blueberry and lemon pie for dessert. Yum! Chris hauled us back to the trail in time to reach Deer Lick before dark. The next day we hiked over their handiwork. Nice job guys!

The following morning Mitch dropped off to participate in a PATC North Chapter hiker feed back at Pine Grove Furnace. I pushed on to Raven Rock shelter in Maryland to rendezvous with Robin.

People love to steal this sign. I was lucky it was there this trip.

Removed a small blowdown obstructing the trail using a folding saw.

Evidence of the party crowd. Scattered the sticks.

The last of the rhododendron blooms.

Bear activity has been unusually high this season. The good news is that most hikers have found religion when it comes to bears and are hanging their food and toiletries rather than sleeping with them. Yogi and Boo Boo have been working overtime. Bears have entered shelters and stolen packs in search of food and destroyed tents. Shenandoah has closed a section to camping and bear sightings in the PATC’s 240 mile section have been frequent.

While at Raven Rock shelter, MD, Robin and I hiked down to the old Devil’s Race Course shelter location (now torn down) and dismantled the fire ring. That will help make it less inviting for high school drinking parties that caused the new shelter to be built up a steep hill from there.

Now, it didn’t happen by accident that I timed my hike to be at Annapolis Rock for July Fourth ’cause guess what? You can see fireworks from that lofty perch. Unfortunately the rain was falling in buckets with heavy fog. We saw zip, but the campground was nearly full in spite of the forecast.

The clouds were clearing the next morning when I set off for Crampton Gap after a quick photo op with Robin. It was Kyle’s day off (the other Maryland ridgerunner), but I’ve been out with him before and we intercepted him along the way. He’ll be there through Oct. 31, so we’ve got plenty of time.

The AT foot bridge over I-70.

The original Washington Monument outside Boonsboro, MD. My camera lens was foggy with sweat!

C&O Canal lock # 33 just outside Harpers Ferry. I’m standing on the tow path.

Back to Virginia and Shenandoah soon. Sisu

Karma Comes to the Back Country

May 10, 2015May 10, 2015 / jim fetig / 12 Comments

Gene from Brooklyn gets a “Trail Karma” award for picking up other people’s trash.

Appalachian Trail, Sunday May 10, 2015 — People are loving our national hiking trails to death. The Appalachian Trail (AT) alone is estimated to see up to three million visitors per year.

Looking at it one way, that’s enough boots on the ground to bruise the rocks rather than the rocks having the opposite effect on the hikers’ feet. It’s sort of like hammer vs. nail in role reversal isn’t it?

The collective environmental impact generated by all these people is enormous. They generate human waste, leave trash, trample vegetation, erode trails and mark their passage in many other unwelcome ways. There are many means to mitigate this impact, but before we talk about that, here’s the back story.

Most people experience our national parks and forests in what is known as front country. Front country is civilized, distinguished by infrastructure such as roads, picnic tables, flush toilets, trash cans, concessions and parking.

You know about more about front country than you may think. That’s where Yogi, Boo boo and Mr. Ranger did their Jellystone schtick. You get the idea.

The back country is a very different animal. In contrast to front country, about the only evidence of civilization are the marked hiking trails. The AT’s primitive shelters and privies are a notable exception. Otherwise it’s supposed to be a “wilderness” experience. (Not to be confused with designated wilderness areas. That’s a separate matter.)

Most people never see the back country and hardly realize it’s even there. The primary reason may be that a lot of muscle power is usually required to get into the back country. In other words, you have to sweat.

Been to the mall lately? Observations suggest that fewer and fewer Americans are up for back country excursions. Supersize soft drinks aside, nevertheless there’s no shortage of back country hikers.

The problem comes when people show up in the back country and don’t know how to limit their impact. Within my experience, they fall into two primary groups.

One group fancies themselves as romantic throwbacks applying their survival skills and living off the land in ways promoted by Jack London, the Boy Scout Handbooks prior to the 1970s, or the Bear Grylls TV series today.

If everyone behaved this way in the back country, it wouldn’t be long before they’d turn paradise into a denuded moonscape. When you spy someone with a axe, hatchet, machete or (the very heavy) Bear Grylls brand gear on a national hiking trail, you might be looking at one of these folks.

Machete damage. Green trees don't burn by the way.

Machete damage. Green wood doesn’t burn by the way.

The other group is simply clueless. Finding no back country trash cans, they just drop their garbage where they stand because they don’t come prepared to carry it out. They befoul water sources with human waste. They trample vegetation. Overall, their practices put the back country environment at risk.

Ignorant people leave their trash in fire pits. It doesn’t burn completely.

Unburnt trash.

When the backpacking craze developed as boomers came of age in the late 1960s, it threatened to overwhelm the environment. Minimal impact techniques emerged as ways to mitigate the damage generated by the hiking hoards of that era.***

In time, minimum impact morphed into the Leave No Trace ethic. Leave No Trace is based on seven principles designed to help not only to minimize human impact, but also to maintain the highest quality wilderness experience possible.

Principles were developed for both the front and back country. Much more at: https://lnt.org/ These are the back country principles:

Plan Ahead and Prepare: Poorly prepared people, when presented with unexpected situations, often resort to high-impact solutions that degrade the outdoors or put themselves at risk. Proper planning leads to less impact.
Travel and Camp on Durable Surfaces: Damage to land occurs when surface vegetation or communities of organisms are trampled beyond repair. The resulting barren area leads to unusable trails, campsites and soil erosion.
Dispose of Waste Properly: Though most trash and litter in the backcountry is not significant in terms of the long term ecological health of an area, it does rank high as a problem in the minds of many backcountry visitors. Trash and litter are primarily social impacts which can greatly detract from the naturalness of an area.^[5] Further, backcountry users create body waste and waste water which requires proper disposal according to Leave No Trace.
Leave What You Find: Leave No Trace directs people to minimize site alterations, such as digging tent trenches, hammering nails into trees, permanently clearing an area of rocks or twigs, and removing items.
Minimize Campfire Impacts: Because the naturalness of many areas has been degraded by overuse of fires, Leave No Trace teaches to seek alternatives to fires or use low-impact fires.
Respect Wildlife: Minimizing impact on wildlife and ecosystems.
Be Considerate of Other Visitors: Following hiking etiquette and maintaining quiet allows visitors to go through the wilderness with minimal impact on other users. (Wikipedia)

Leave No Trace plastic tag at bottom right. (Click on any photo to enlarge.)

Fortunately most hikers are aware of Leave No Trace. It’s promoted everywhere. Unfortunately these principles are practiced selectively and conveniently. In other words, hikers reason their one insignificant transgression won’t have any harmful effect.

The reality is the opposite. The impact of small Leave No Trace lapses grows exponentially when “everybody” does it.

Now back to the reason for this story.

Too many younger hikers were not following Leave No Trace ethics, yet hikers 18-24 make up the majority of AT thru hikers. More challenging, the traditional messages and delivery means were not working with this group.

Trail Karma awards and promotional stickers.

Enter Trail Karma as a new outreach program: http://www.trailkarma.com. It is a website targeting younger hikers. The Trail Karma awards component of this program allows ridgerunners and trail ambassadors to reward good behavior on the trail when it happens in real time.

The Trail Karma Award is a nice AT medallion with a serial number on the back. Hikers can register the award on the Trail Karma website and even pass it along when another good turn is observed.

The idea is to reinforce the positive. I thought the two Trail Karma Awards I was able to present during my time in Georgia had a positive impact, both on the hikers who received them and those who observed the presentation.

Yesterday’s mail brought a CARE package of new Trail Karma awards and promotional stickers. I can’t wait to find good behavior to reward.

***The trails weren’t pristine before the boomers showed up. In the earlier era, hikers and campers built lean-tos, cut pine bows to make beds, chopped tent stakes every night, disposed of food cans willy nilly and practiced a multitude of other sins. Their smaller numbers helped limit the damage which was was eventually cleared up.

A fork in the road

Yogi said, "When you come to a fork in the road, take it." So I'm following the white blazes.

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Karma Comes to the Back Country