Trail Guardians

[Willys Yella Jeep]

Hey there,

When I was younger my father always insisted that we pick up trash and clear pathways wherever we traveled. Now that I am much older, I have instilled that practice in my children and grandchildren. You don't really need an event to improve trails, campsites, etc. Just pack out what you pack in and whatever you find along the way. We live in Colorado and love every minute of it.

Willy

 

[Downs]

We do what we can but we only have so much space. We stayed at a lakeside site one time. Pretty nice spot other than the 10 tons of garbage around. We cleaned out the firepit and restacked the fire ring repositioned the log benches and hauled out 2 full size garbage bags of beer cans and other assorted trash. One of the dogs had to ride in my wife's lap to make room for it. That helped but there was still a lot of trash left there. We gathered up what we could get to and piled it in one spot. I'd hope someone picked it up later but I doubt it. It's probably trashed just as bad as before we left it.

 

[M Rose]

Hey there,

When I was younger my father always insisted that we pick up trash and clear pathways wherever we traveled. Now that I am much older, I have instilled that practice in my children and grandchildren. You don't really need an event to improve trails, campsites, etc. Just pack out what you pack in and whatever you find along the way. We live in Colorado and love every minute of it.

Willy

The point of the TGP is more than just practicing “Leave No Trace” and “Tread Lightly”. It’s about setting up community involvement in a volunteer capacity to help out the NPS, NFS, State Parks, BLM and other agencies in areas that are being over run and/or neglected. Every volunteer man hour that is reported is used to get more funds for more Rangers, park upgrades, and other forestry projects.

If you don’t want to be part of the TGP, fine, no one is twisting your arm, but please stop in at one of your local forest Ranger stations and pick up a volunteer log and fill out the log each time you collect trash… it really does help our tax dollars go where we would like to see it used the most, as well as helps keep trails open for future generations.

I have seen it work first hand out here. I am starting to see some of the smaller camp grounds get new tables (which have been needed for about 20 years), new fire pits, and even trail systems reopened. Sometimes these TGP events are helping put these resources into the wild.

I know of two projects that have been going on for 3 years here that finally got completed because of volunteers coming in and doing work that the NFS just didn’t have the time to do. Now we have almost 400 miles of new trails, and we installed 250 picnic tables/fire rings.

So the TGP is more than just picking up trash in the woods, which we should all be doing our part there.

Please visit Protect the Outdoors - Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics for more information on “Leave No Trace”.

And take the time take the “Tread Lightly 101” class.