Letter to a Camper

[Tom Rankin]

Dear Slob, I mean, Camper:

Just a few points of lean-to etiquette:

1) If you pack it in, pack it out. This is especially easy now that you have an EMPTY beer can. It weighs 12 oz. less than it did before. You can crush it down to almost 0 size. This is ESPECIALLY true of plastic bags of garbage that you threw in the outhouse! Do you throw garbage bags in your toilet at home!? To top it off, you were at the Rider Hollow (in the Catskills) lean-to, which is all of .5 miles from the road. You carried all that stuff up there, (and it's hardly up at all), and you couldn't carry an almost weightless bag of trash back to the car?

2) Green branches don't burn well. Not to mention that it is illegal to cut down living trees!

3) American Flags that you leave around the lean-to will eventually fall off the wall, or be chewed by animals, and become garbage. Refer to point #1.

4) Nylon wrapping tape serves no useful purpose in a lean-to. Again, refer to point #1. Unless of course, you were going to use it to flag an off trail route. In which case, once again, refer to point #1.

Rant off....

 

[Little Rickie]

Great post! I bet their mothers still clean up after them.

 

[DougPaul]

Somehow, I rather doubt that the camper in question reads this forum...

Doug

 

[Tom Rankin]

Somehow, I rather doubt that the camper in question reads this forum...

Doug

I doubt it as well, it was partly a rant and partly to remind people to 'pack it in - pack it out'.

 

[eddie]

Tom, they can't read the rules either.

 

[Paradox]

Dear Slob, I mean, Camper:

Just a few points of lean-to etiquette:

1) If you pack it in, pack it out. This is especially easy now that you have an EMPTY beer can. It weighs 12 oz. less than it did before. You can crush it down to almost 0 size. This is ESPECIALLY true of plastic bags of garbage that you threw in the outhouse! Do you throw garbage bags in your toilet at home!? To top it off, you were at the Rider Hollow (in the Catskills) lean-to, which is all of .5 miles from the road. You carried all that stuff up there, (and it's hardly up at all), and you couldn't carry an almost weightless bag of trash back to the car?

2) Green branches don't burn well. Not to mention that it is illegal to cut down living trees!

3) American Flags that you leave around the lean-to will eventually fall off the wall, or be chewed by animals, and become garbage. Refer to point #1.

4) Nylon wrapping tape serves no useful purpose in a lean-to. Again, refer to point #1. Unless of course, you were going to use it to flag an off trail route. In which case, once again, refer to point #1.

Rant off....

Was there a Dale Earnhart flag as well?

 

[Bigfoot]

Instead of using the lean-to they should consider a "seasonal" you can just throw your trash in the truck beside you.

 

[hikes-with-him]

From the sounds of it...a hotel might have been better...at least they have trash cans there!!!

Sure doesn't sound like they were there for nature!!

 

[jniehof]

You can crush it down to almost 0 size.

Preferably on your forehead.

Are the Catskill outhouses manually composted like most of the AMC ones? Anybody who throws trash into one of those ought to spend a day helping the caretaker. Blech.

 

[Tom Rankin]

Are the Catskill outhouses manually composted like most of the AMC ones? Anybody who throws trash into one of those ought to spend a day helping the caretaker. Blech.

Yes, they eventually fill up and then the the hole is covered and the outhouse relocated.

 

[BorealChickadee]

Yes, they eventually fill up and then the the hole is covered and the outhouse relocated.

I have questioned my sanity after spending free weekends moving a large box coated with dung. Heavy and filthy. Never set up your tent in an area with a slight depression and no trees.