[stever]

https://www.seattletimes.com/life/outdoors/washington-park-workers-are-doing-overtime-as-people-flock-outdoors-amid-covid-10/

[rbuzby]

"In the first week of August, one of her rangers counted 999 people on a single Saturday at Colchuck Lake, while other workers buried 200 piles of poop...." Yikes.

[Ski]

take a deep breath or did you really think this heat wave was going to last forever?

[Cyclopath]

[coldrain108]

with so many folks supposedly unemployed or furloughed why are the weekends still swarmed? Habit? I'm glad they all run out at the same time and to the same places. Makes it easier for me to find some solitude and garbage free hikes at other times and other locations.

[MyFootHurts]

So are 1 in 5 people who hike to Colchuck Lake unable to make the trip without pooping? Or is that several days worth of accumulation? We need more data.

[HikerJohn]

ONLY 999? Last year USFS volunteers counted nearly 2,000 on Snow Lake (Snoqualmie Pass version) on one day... This year we Mt Baker-Snoqualmie volunteers are sitting on the sidelines-- Forest management has decided they can't take the risk of putting volunteers out on the trail and then have to deal with liabilities of one of us getting COVID-19. So as a result, there are not many eyes or uniforms out in the woods right now. Went up to Summit Lake last week and counted 11 new firepits in a lake where fires are prohibited-- and collected a full large bag of garbage. Not sure why people can't behave when the officials are not watching, but it seems to be getting worse!

[80skeys]

[Ski]

[Cyclopath]

[80skeys]

[80skeys]

[Ski]

^ The reality is that there really isn't any shortage of wild, remote space within either the National Park Service or U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Lands Management administered public lands. The majority of visitors simply choose to go to the most popular destination sites, resulting in concentrations of visitors and higher user loads in some areas. But back to the subject at hand: The article concerns the seemingly unprecedented increase in visitation numbers on public lands. Unfortunately the author is all over the map, perhaps confused as to which administrative agency manages which lands. (Of course, it could simply be the case that whoever set the title for the article simply wasn't paying attention, which is often the case with "news" headlines.) Although I'm sure it looks to some here (and doubtless WTA and WHC Facebook members) like this is the onset of some sort of apocalypse, the reality is (as I tried to point out above) that this is going to be a short-lived surge in visitation which will most likely come crashing to a halt as soon as the weather changes and the monsoon season arrives in a few very short weeks. In the meantime, there are a great many people visiting the outdoors who may never have done so in the past. I do not see how that is a bad thing. If you read through the "comments" section below the article, you'll see mentioned the perceived avoidance of local public municipal parks (which may or may not be true) because of the increase in homeless encampments at local parks. It's possible - although the commenter's claims are not backed with any data, nor would there be any way to accurately quantify what, if any, impact that may have had - that there's some degree of truth to those statements. Moreover, as millions of Americans have been laid off due to the Covid-19 virus, what exactly would you have them do? Sit idle at home watching "The Simpsons" on television or playing video games? As has been mentioned here in a couple other threads, the amount of bitching and whining here that we're seeing currently is usually limited to those few months during the winter when the weather is lousy enough to keep most of us home. I'm actually a bit put off by all of the "me me me me me me" pissing and moaning because other people have chosen to visit public lands.

[80skeys]

[Ski]

okay. so suggest some constructive solutions. anybody can bitch.