No, pet dogs are not allowed in Baxter State Park.

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egilbe said:
Any trails with camping restrictions are usually pretty well marked with the FPA signs. Several trails that as soon as your are past the FPA, you can find a stealth site on a brook. There is a really nice one on the Wild River trail that I remember. 40 feet the other way, is illegal.
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Those *******s marked my favorite Wild River site as a reveg area last year! Finding that out at 1am isn't a fun way to start a trip. Near the Spruce Brook FPA, I think.
 
egilbe said:
I know that place. Keep walking a little bit and you will find another one. They marked up blue brook tentsite with reveg signs, too.
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They came by while I was staying at the Wild River Trail site and the next day there was a no camping sign.
 
TJ aka Teej said:
Just want to clear something up regarding recent social media posts and photos of a hiker and her dog on Baxter Peak. Only service dogs are allowed in the Park, There is no "interview process," no "applying", no "special exception," no "legitimate reason." Either the dog is a service animal, or not. Pets are not allowed.
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I never saw the original Facebook post and I don't know what claims were made. But that being said, I thought a recent article by the Embrace Pet Insurance company was of interest in the current discussion whether they apply to that person or not, especially points one and four. https://www.embracepetinsurance.com/waterbowl/article/fake-service-dogs
 
I find it interesting to hear someone say " I always follow the rules". I'm not criticizing you, just saying it's a unique concept to me. I have in my travels broken some rules. I do not lose sleep over it to be honest. Take LNT for example, principle 4, Leave what you find. I collect natural items that I like. In Yosemite, it's clear that taking of any natural object in against the law, I have several. I also collect certain rocks I like, from anywhere I find them. Principle 5, Respect wildlife. While I certainly respect and love wildlife, I feed Grey Jays, that's a violation of that principle. Sorry but it doesn't hurt them and it's fun, so I'm doing it. I'm really not an outlaw and I don't break many laws in general. But I have camped in certain areas out west where it's illegal, to save time on long ascents, I am careful and leave little if any trace that I was there. I guess, I've always had the thought that frankly, the earth is for us to use and I don't mind using it.
 
This has turned into quite an interesting thread! I like all the different view points. I tend to evaluate rules on a case by case basis and then base my actions on a bunch of factors, mostly involving whether I'm ruining the experience of others, whether I'm degrading the environment, and whether I'm being 'unsafe' (which is highly subjective) or negatively impacting the safety of others. Usually this thought process results in a decision that's consistent with the rules and/or laws, but not always. In this case, I think this woman made a bad decision, namely because she's negatively impacting the ability of other folks to use service animals, many of whom really rely on these animals. That feels like bad karma to me.

On the other hand, I've stealth camped on a few occasions, being careful to set up and break camp at times it's extremely unlikely others will see me, and I've been quite careful about eliminating any trace of my camping. I've collected a handful of rocks from here and there. I've swam sans 'appropriate attire'. I took my kid off trail above Greenleaf hut a few weeks ago to pee, having just read the sign next to the hut about ALWAYS staying on trail to minimize impact. Look, I get it, but my kid has to pee. We stayed on the rocks and tried to avoid lichen. That was the best choice in the given situation. But it was, strictly speaking, an example of us breaking the rules. There's a lot of grey area. I basically try not to be a jerk.
 
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hikerbrian said:
This has turned into quite an interesting thread! I like all the different view points. I tend to evaluate rules on a case by case basis and then base my actions on a bunch of factors, mostly involving whether I'm ruining the experience of others, whether I'm degrading the environment, and whether I'm being 'unsafe' (which is highly subjective) or negatively impacting the safety of others. Usually this thought process results in a decision that's consistent with the rules and/or laws, but not always. In this case, I think this woman made a bad decision, namely because she's negatively impacting the ability of other folks to use service animals, many of whom really rely on these animals. That feels like bad karma to me.

On the other hand, I've stealth camped on a few occasions, being careful to set up and break camp at times it's extremely unlikely others will see me, and I've been quite careful about eliminating any trace of my camping. I've collected a handful of rocks from here and there. I've swam sans 'appropriate attire'. I took my kid off trail above Greenleaf hut a few weeks ago to pee, having just read the sign next to the hut about ALWAYS staying on trail to minimize impact. Look, I get it, but my kid has to pee. We stayed on the rocks and tried to avoid lichen. That was the best choice in the given situation. But it was, strictly speaking, an example of us breaking the rules. There's a lot of grey area. I basically try not to be a jerk.
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Good discussion.

In contract, this woman IS basically TRYING to be a jerk. And in today's culture, for some, that makes her a hero. Sad.
 
TCD said:
Good discussion.

In contract, this woman IS basically TRYING to be a jerk. And in today's culture, for some, that makes her a hero. Sad.
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I find it sad that some find it OK to rationalize the fact they are breaking rules. This is the environment we are talking about. Not some political discussion. The fore mentioned definition of what rules are has been extorted in order to apply a quick any easy excuse for breaking well defined rules for the benifit of those few in an obvious minority. Definition of what one's subset is as far as rules is within the definition of the game but not to be extended to the point of disrespect of the ones considering the whole.
 
Don't even think about letting your service dog celebrate her FKT with a beer and cigar on the summit. That's just not gonna happen. ;)
 
sierra said:
I find it interesting to hear someone say " I always follow the rules". I'm not criticizing you, just saying it's a unique concept to me. I have in my travels broken some rules. I do not lose sleep over it to be honest. Take LNT for example, principle 4, Leave what you find. I collect natural items that I like. In Yosemite, it's clear that taking of any natural object in against the law, I have several. I also collect certain rocks I like, from anywhere I find them. Principle 5, Respect wildlife. While I certainly respect and love wildlife, I feed Grey Jays, that's a violation of that principle. Sorry but it doesn't hurt them and it's fun, so I'm doing it. I'm really not an outlaw and I don't break many laws in general. But I have camped in certain areas out west where it's illegal, to save time on long ascents, I am careful and leave little if any trace that I was there. I guess, I've always had the thought that frankly, the earth is for us to use and I don't mind using it.
Click to expand...
While I also have picked up a rock or two, if in certain places, where literally millions of visitors a year each took only 1 item, there would not be much left after a while.

The "I'm just 1 person" argument is not a good one to use in a world of 7 billion people...
 
Folks with only a recent view of backcountry history don't realize how bad things were in backcountry in the sixties and far worse the late seventies. I didn't make it up to the whites until I was in high school in the late seventies but knew many folks older than I who were active in the sixties and seventies. The LNT efforts really didn't kick in until the early eighties (Waterman's Forest and Crag has a few chapters on the mobs and responses). It was pretty standard that most backcountry shelters had dumps (AKA goats). Many did not have privies or if they were there were not anything a normal person would use. It was common to burn trash in a fire pit. Every flat spot along a river or a stream within a reasonable walking distance of a trailhead would have a campsite with a fire pit and human browse line extending out into the woods behind it meaning small understory trees would get hacked down for firewood. Even after 40 years a bit of walking off trail in these areas like Thoreau Falls, Desolation Shelter, many of the old shelters sites like the ones in the Great Gulf and Dry River exhibit compacted eroded soils 30 plus years later. Chimney Pond at BSP had a large dump and the entire campground was mostly bare of any understory. Standard gear for a Chimney Pond stay was a tarp to go over the front of the lean to as there was zero privacy as the entire site was trampled and anything burnable had been cut or hacked off the few trees that remained. Similar issues were at all the popular BSP campsites. Usage rules and LNT were not put in place and the "tragedy of the commons" approach had inevitably been proved out again. Thus sprung up the rules as without them things would not have changed. BSP was going to make it simple, close down remote sites and restrict the number of folks in the park even further. They elected as an experiment to allow Chimney Pond to remain open but intensely managed and the policy worked to the point where many of the lean tos are now intensely private only accessible via narrow trails in the dense understory that has regenerated. There are still long term scars if you know where to look but the experience there now is far more in keeping with wilderness than when I first stepped into the site back in the early eighties. Similar regeneration has come to much of the whites even though management is far less intensive. Luckily the current boom seems to be more dayhiking and goal specific backpacking to established sites so the woods aren't getting hit as hard as they were during the boom.

The big problem I expect with many folks is that the vast majority of those entering the backcountry are new at it. They need rules and guidelines to establish what is and isn't acceptable. Eventually the minority of folks who continue to recreate in the woods will think they have figured out the whys behind the rules and guidelines and get to the point where they think they can rationalize why their breaking of the rules is acceptable. Unfortunately I expect only a tiny fraction of those folks are really at that point. Talk to any F&G or WMNF employee and they will tell you their primary goal is education and the rule book and citation pad is not used very often. Some folks need the extra education inherent with a citation but generally they are reserved for the totally clueless.

Folks are always asking me where they can find stealth sites along the AT in the whites and inherently if they truly are stealth sites I shouldn't be able to rattle as many of them off as I routinely observe while hiking. NOLS did a study at one point regarding the impact of very intensely managed LNT camping in remote backcountry areas and came to the conclusion that despite their best efforts they could find impacts to a site years after it had been used just a few times. They ended up recommending that it was better to concentrate the use in specific areas that could best withstand it and minimize impact using LNT versus dispersed camping with the exception of very remote areas and single use sites selected for best potential for minimal impact.
 
skiguy said:
I find it sad that some find it OK to rationalize the fact they are breaking rules. This is the environment we are talking about. Not some political discussion. The fore mentioned definition of what rules are has been extorted in order to apply a quick any easy excuse for breaking well defined rules for the benifit of those few in an obvious minority. Definition of what one's subset is as far as rules is within the definition of the game but not to be extended to the point of disrespect of the ones considering the whole.
Click to expand...

I'm not sure I understand all of this, but my feeling is rules and laws were made by people just like me, not any smarter or dumber; said people and their rules are not infallible.

Furthermore (without getting into the philosophical and personal weeds too far), I've broken with some pretty major traditions in my life, traditions that were made to sound like rules growing up. (Not dissimilar to LNT principles, really, in their well-meaning nature.) Having broken well away from these traditions has made me a better person. I'm not sorry for having set up my own criteria for decision-making and child-rearing, for having performed my own assessments, and for having altered the way I live my life accordingly. The world is a slightly better place because of it. I wish more people would give serious thought to the 'rules' they follow in their lives. There are some pretty obvious historical examples of rule-following that resulted in a lot of needless pain and suffering. Critical thought could have prevented these tragedies.

Anyway, bringing this back to the present, midway up Greenleaf trail when my 8 year old announced he had to pee, after my requisite eye-rolling and 'Do you REALLY need to pee?' questions, I thought through the options and landed on the one I chose. I definitely don't lose sleep over it. If there was a better option, I'd love the hear it.

Tom Rankin, your point is well-made and important. In the middle of Glacier NP, 2 days' hike from anywhere, the handful of pebbles I pocketed from the bottom of an alpine lake most certainly have not been missed. If every single visitor to that spot did the same thing, I'm certain the geological erosion of the surrounding cliffs would more than replenish them.
 
hmmmm, all good thoughts!!!! BUT, if you take some of these rules to the limit, you would be in trouble for not returning the dirt and pebbles your boots inadvertently pick up while on the trail that you might shake off your boots at the trailhead!!!! (My front car mats are full of stuff I should return to the hills!!!!) THEN, you should hike back up to return the dirt, then, when you get back to the parking area, repeat!!!

:)
 
Becca M said:
hmmmm, all good thoughts!!!! BUT, if you take some of these rules to the limit, you would be in trouble for not returning the dirt and pebbles your boots inadvertently pick up while on the trail that you might shake off your boots at the trailhead!!!! (My front car mats are full of stuff I should return to the hills!!!!) THEN, you should hike back up to return the dirt, then, when you get back to the parking area, repeat!!!

:)
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Ha!!!! Truth. Peakbagger, thanks for your historical perspective, it is very useful. I'm about one decade behind you in every respect, if my math is right, so I 'missed out' on the most epic destruction you've described. I find it comforting that you don't see the current boom in hiking to be as bad as that from 40 years ago. Maybe we're learning something! Speaking for myself, the few times I've stealth camped have been among my least-proud moments in the mountains. The only redeeming point I'd make about those experiences is that I did learn something. Maybe that's why I'm fairly tolerant of others doing stupid things out of ignorance. Stones, glass houses, and all that. Maybe I'll start a thread on 'mistakes'. Boy have I got a few!
 
With regard to BSP's rules, in my view what it boils down to is that visitors to the Park are like guests in someone's home. If you don't like the rules, rather than breaking or bending them because you rationalize that you are special (or whatever), just don't go there.

I said the same thing after the Scott Jurek AT brouhaha two years ago.
 
peakbagger said:
Folks with only a recent view of backcountry history don't realize how bad things were in backcountry in the sixties and far worse the late seventies. I didn't make it up to the whites until I was in high school in the late seventies but knew many folks older than I who were active in the sixties and seventies. The LNT efforts really didn't kick in until the early eighties (Waterman's Forest and Crag has a few chapters on the mobs and responses). It was pretty standard that most backcountry shelters had dumps (AKA goats). Many did not have privies or if they were there were not anything a normal person would use. It was common to burn trash in a fire pit. Every flat spot along a river or a stream within a reasonable walking distance of a trailhead would have a campsite with a fire pit and human browse line extending out into the woods behind it meaning small understory trees would get hacked down for firewood. Even after 40 years a bit of walking off trail in these areas like Thoreau Falls, Desolation Shelter, many of the old shelters sites like the ones in the Great Gulf and Dry River exhibit compacted eroded soils 30 plus years later. Chimney Pond at BSP had a large dump and the entire campground was mostly bare of any understory. Standard gear for a Chimney Pond stay was a tarp to go over the front of the lean to as there was zero privacy as the entire site was trampled and anything burnable had been cut or hacked off the few trees that remained. Similar issues were at all the popular BSP campsites. Usage rules and LNT were not put in place and the "tragedy of the commons" approach had inevitably been proved out again. Thus sprung up the rules as without them things would not have changed. BSP was going to make it simple, close down remote sites and restrict the number of folks in the park even further. They elected as an experiment to allow Chimney Pond to remain open but intensely managed and the policy worked to the point where many of the lean tos are now intensely private only accessible via narrow trails in the dense understory that has regenerated. There are still long term scars if you know where to look but the experience there now is far more in keeping with wilderness than when I first stepped into the site back in the early eighties. Similar regeneration has come to much of the whites even though management is far less intensive. Luckily the current boom seems to be more dayhiking and goal specific backpacking to established sites so the woods aren't getting hit as hard as they were during the boom.

The big problem I expect with many folks is that the vast majority of those entering the backcountry are new at it. They need rules and guidelines to establish what is and isn't acceptable. Eventually the minority of folks who continue to recreate in the woods will think they have figured out the whys behind the rules and guidelines and get to the point where they think they can rationalize why their breaking of the rules is acceptable. Unfortunately I expect only a tiny fraction of those folks are really at that point. Talk to any F&G or WMNF employee and they will tell you their primary goal is education and the rule book and citation pad is not used very often. Some folks need the extra education inherent with a citation but generally they are reserved for the totally clueless.

Folks are always asking me where they can find stealth sites along the AT in the whites and inherently if they truly are stealth sites I shouldn't be able to rattle as many of them off as I routinely observe while hiking. NOLS did a study at one point regarding the impact of very intensely managed LNT camping in remote backcountry areas and came to the conclusion that despite their best efforts they could find impacts to a site years after it had been used just a few times. They ended up recommending that it was better to concentrate the use in specific areas that could best withstand it and minimize impact using LNT versus dispersed camping with the exception of very remote areas and single use sites selected for best potential for minimal impact.
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Well said. I started hiking and camping in The Whites in the 60's and have seen the evolvement you speak of. Maybe that's why I am a rule follower then. You might also call me a bit paranoid of what might happen when I read about rationalization. I don't buy the so called philosophical arguments of thinking for oneself when it comes to the rules in WMNF. If everyone did that we would be right back in the 60's. So I leave the stones on the ground and I camp where I am allowed. I try to remember that I won't be around forever and there will be plenty of others after me that should be able to enjoy what I have had also.
 
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Stinkyfeet said:
With regard to BSP's rules, in my view what it boils down to is that visitors to the Park are like guests in someone's home. If you don't like the rules, rather than breaking or bending them because you rationalize that you are special (or whatever), just don't go there.

I said the same thing after the Scott Jurek AT brouhaha two years ago.
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Totally agree....and I would say that about any other outdoor area that has rules. I have hiked and climbed on every continent except Antarctica. If I had decided not to follow the rules in many of the places I have been I would not have been permitted to be there in the first place. I guess I look at being in the outdoors as a privilege and not a right. A little humility and respect goes a long way.
 
Tom Rankin said:
While I also have picked up a rock or two, if in certain places, where literally millions of visitors a year each took only 1 item, there would not be much left after a while.

The "I'm just 1 person" argument is not a good one to use in a world of 7 billion people...
Click to expand...

How long is "A while" as far as I can tell, the mountains are still there and still full of rocks.
 
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