[Slugman]

One question about Lake Isabel: I have been to many, many lakes that have no motorized access, and none of them, not one, was strewn with garbage. What is it about this lake, and the people who go there, that makes them such complete pigs? Did these "people" really drag all this trash up to the lake on foot and then just leave it there? Who are all these despicable criminals and why aren't they being hunted down like dogs and put in jail? Aren't there any fingerprints on any of this trash? As a society, why do we turn a blind eye to people so uncaring about others that we allow them to sabotage a beautiful lake for no other reason than laziness? I suggest we get CSI up there to do fingerprinting and DNA analysis to find out who these people are, then charge them with a crime for each and every piece of trash. Put a few of these jerks away for a few years each, and maybe their evil kind will think twice (or even once!) about trashing our natural resources.

[Backpacker Joe]

Goodness. Once again you're over reaction and going overboard Sluggo. Its a combination of things. It seems to me you're trying to insinuate without coming right out and saying it that the seaplanes are responsible for this. You couldn't be more wrong. I've been to plenty of lakes without seaplane access that are or have been dumping grounds. Phillipa lake off the North Fork for example. I spent six hours cleaning that ONE camp site and then the forest service sent rangers in to pack it all out. Isabel has had relatively easy access on foot from a certain, shall we say lower income aspect of our society for years. Let's face it that area of the state has gotten hammered by the locals for years. Guns, beer, glass you name it. Isabel is indicative of that Gold Bar area. Certainly it was worse there because it was a meeting place. A destination so to speak. It wasn't float planers that built the cabin that the white trash assholes lived in and tossed all their garbage from for years. Isabel is/was a sad case, but there are more than just Isabel around like that.

[Hulksmash]

I've packed trash out of other lakes as well. This lake however...is by far the worse i have seen. I agree with BPJ much of it is locals trashing there own backyard. It's also close in yet that easy to get to, due to the lack of any trail maintenance. The tail has been abandoned since some time in the 60's. As was pointed out earlier..there was a cabin up there. The occupants packed nothing out. Much of the cabin related trash was cleaned up previously..but stuff continued to accumulate. Much of the newer trash is in the form abandoned inflatable rafts. I think what happens with this is.....Some one manages to pack a raft in, but realizes packing it out is too much for them. It gets left there, in the elements and they quickly become unusable.

[Klapton]

[Tom]

[Hulksmash]

[Quark]

the trash was from the "hiker" part of the lake. This was mentioned in one of the 2 threads. The seaplane folks usually camp at the far end of the lake - there was NO GARBAGE over there. The hiker campsite is badly over-used - eroded, grimy, trees hacked to death for firewood. That's where are the junk was found - the seaplane people hauled out hiker garbage - not seaplane garbage. On their own dime. They deserve respect. As with any user group - hikers included - there are good ones and bad ones. I've seen plenty of disgusting hiker slag left around the mountains and lakes. The sooner the "we're better than you are" mentality goes away, the better it will be for everyone. Hiker sh## stinks, too, and there's plenty of it out there.

[treeswarper]

Also, a lot of us "lower income" people clean up trash. Can't blame it all on that either. Geesh. We just don't make a big thing about it or get on TV. More than a few of us here have a theory on road trash. Besides the underage kids having to get rid of the evidence, there's the fancy car/SUV people who can't have any trash in their rigs so out the window it goes. I can see the same happening in the backcountry. Not wanting to get the new expensive pack dirty. See? Every "income" level takes part.

[Hulksmash]

There is one part of Sluggo's question that needs some focus...

[GeoHiker]

The problem at Isabel and other easy to reach lakes is once the garbage starts to accumulate others say what the heck nobody cares my little bit isn't going to make any difference. How people can just dump a load of garbage on the ground and walk away is beyond me. I agree they should be fined big time or better yet made to spend a day cleaning up garbage on the road side or in camping areas. The job box was a magnet and how the Forest Service let that remain should be a crime. Aren't there permits and paperwork for the power plant study, so it shouldn't have been too hard finding out the company responsible. Why didn't someone go in after the permit was over and verify? It shouldn't have taken 15 years to get that box removed! What was cleaned up at Isabel was just a drop in the bucket to what used to be when the cabin was there. I never did find out who cleaned up that disaster. From what I heard through the grape vine the FS sent a crew in. It would have taken helicopters or float planes and some serious work to clean that place up. The cabin was completely gone not a board left or a speck of garbage. Not even sign they burned up the cabin materials. I always thought it was odd that the large cleared out spot that held the cabin never turned into a camping area. Some one years ago set 4 posts in the ground for a shelter, but it was never finished. There's been some strange happenings at Isabel over the years. I got that creepy feeling the other day walking through the woods near the cabin site. Maybe it's the dark dreary woods, but I'm sure I saw some ghosts slipping through the trees.

Girls picking up garbage at the old cabin site.

[Backpacker Joe]

[GeoHiker]

Hey, this serious white trash dirt bag takes offense to that BPJ!.... It's all walks of life, but I can understand what you are saying treeswarper and you're not so far off. I think it starts at a young age. Kids see their parents throw stuff out the window and continue the tradition. You would think with all the environmental stuff going on in schools that the kids would be more aware, but I see families camping that would put the dirt bags to shame. Memorial weekend was a perfect example. I think I'm turning into a garbage Nazi. The CSI bit has crossed my mind along with others to catch these slobs! I camped for a week over Memorial Weekend by Lake Wenatchee and was once again totally disgusted by what I saw at several of the dispersed camping spots. The group next to me looked to be a nice family, $50,000 SUV, new camping gear etc. etc. I knew the parents had no responsibility when I saw the dad race up and down the road with the kids hanging out every window and all the screaming going on. Sunday afternoon I drove in and they were just leaving. I wish I had taken his license plate number. They left 3 almost full garbage bags of crap hanging on a tree. 1 half bag on the ground. Fire pit was full of half burnt garbage, bottles and cans. Spilled food all over the ground, napkins, tissue paper, wrappers etc etc. They cleaned about a dozen trout and had cut the heads off and left them on the ground about 30 ft. away. When I saw this I said, "ok, what kind of mess did they leave in the woods" Yep, they were too lazy to walk 300 ft. to the bathroom. TP strung all over the bushes in little piles everywhere. They had a baby, so there were several nasty diapers left to perfume the air. Up the road were more bags of garbage left at 4 camping spots out of 6. Not the trashed out mess of the first spot, but obvious stuff all over the ground. SUV, middle class families from what I could tell. It's like these people think there are little gnomes that come out at night and pick up the garbage? No, the animals tear open the bags and in 2 days time it's spread all over the woods. The big party camping spots above the lake that really only get used over Memorial Day or long weekends I figured were going to be a disaster, but were absolutely spotless. The groups camping there were on the closer side of SWTDB scale, so you just never know. I came back to the same area Monday 6 days later and was able to grab the same primo spot. I was in shock at how trashed it was. I just stood there with my mouth open. Who ever had camped there over the weekend left it littered in garbage. I had cut 2 large firewood rounds to use as tables. One was in the fire pit and had been burning no doubt since the day before. It looked like someone (FS maybe) had dumped water on it that day. I spent about half hour picking up garbage, glass and food debris. They had cooked eggs and thrown the shells in the bushes, peelings, onions etc etc. Rocky was like a kid in a candy store scrounging up all the junk, so he was happy. I had to constantly be watching him and worry he would get into something nasty and get sick though. It was a family as I found and picked up dozens of those little peanut butter snack wrappers along with mostly kids stuff. Empty juice containers, chip bags, etc etc. Another pet peeve, smokers. Cig butts EVERYWHERE! How lazy is that, throw the #$%^ things in the fire pit. Some one had an axe and there were fresh hacked marks on another 3-4 trees. The firepit was a jumbled up assortment of burnt crap,food, bottles and cans. When I went down to the bathroom later the inside was piled high with 6-8 full bags of stinky garbage, so maybe these people did have garbage bags and only left the little stuff? I could tell it was their garbage because I found the rubber raft box and instructions back at the campsite. BTW the rubber raft was torn and left in the bathroom. I did find a Shell debit slip in one paper bag at the campsite, so it wouldn't be too hard to track the scums down. I would have bet there was something in all those garbage bags too, but I wasn't about to tear into them. I'd like to haul all the garbage to their house and dump in on their porch and lawn. I almost did that a couple years ago when I found a prescription envelope in the fire pit in the same area that was trashed. I've bitched about that episode several times in previous posts. They live in Everett. Far too many areas are being closed to camping because of this. I'm tired of seeing signs plastered all over the place. They mean nothing to the ones that don't care, so all they do is add to unsightliness. Maybe it's time we took back the woods!....the FS doesn't seem to care.

[Backpacker Joe]

Sorry, people capable of trashing a place like that are turbo white trash!

[drakonis]

wow geo, thats totally un%*&^ing real. i think its time to take back the campgrounds. bpj..tell em to pick up there trash. i think that thing under your arm might keep them from trying to mouth off to ya. lol.

[Dayhike Mike]