Letter: Public wreaks havoc in Alpine County
Some of the trash found in Alpine County. Photo/Provided
To the community,
So sad to have to contact you all under these circumstances, but I felt it important to share with you my most recent experience in Alpine County. On Mother’s Day, we rode our horses into the Carson River Hot Springs from the north on a little used trail as we have done for almost 20 years. Used by hikers, mountain bikes and horses for many years this area is closed to motor vehicle use, but unfortunately vehicles have begun to push from this direction, widening the trail and damaging vegetation. This was only the warm up to what we would find at Markleeville’s big attraction on the Carson River.
The pictures I took speak for themselves, but everybody at the local, state and federal level should be embarrassed by the level of resource destruction, trash and filth that has been visited upon this beautiful place. Live trees are being hacked to pieces for firewood, great piles of trash and broken glass are everywhere, and shooters have left thousands of spent shells littering the ground. Worse, the trash and tire tracks are now beginning to climb the once pristine northern slopes of the canyon, with broken glass and spent casing littering the hillside. We have many more photos and video if you are interested in seeing the extent of the damage. Better yet, drive there and see firsthand what people are capable of.
It is out hope that someone, one or more of you, will make it their mission to restore and protect this special place. Clearly, the unfettered access by thousands of off road users is not working. While most are probably responsible, those who are not need to held accountable. Not only does this precious resource need to be cleaned up, but also protected for generations to come.
Respectfully submitted,
Bob and Tita Anderson, South Lake Tahoe
There are a lot of places like this in Tahoe these days. Go out to burnside lake and the thousands of dumps left within 30ft of the water. On a single rock on top to keep the left over TP from blowing away. No one has the respect to dig 6 inches down. Another really bad one is out the crystal mine rd behind jobs sister. There are 10ft to 15ft deep holes everywhere from hippie kids trying to find crystals and sell them online. It’s also a huge place for south lake residents to go and shoot. Shells are hardly ever picked up. Looks just like the photos above.
bob and tita. you are absolutely right and thanks for bringing it up. the east fork carson is a federally designated “wild and scenic” river and is truly magical if you ever get a chance to canoe or raft the wilderness section. i hope you made your concerns known to the BLM who manages this land. they will listen and shut the area down to OHV users if needed.
Bob & Tita, Thanks for airing your concerns. I agree with those who have already posted above. If you haven’t already done so, please contact BLM, Carson Toiyabe Ranger District or Alpine County Sheriffs Dept. There is also a local Alpine trails association that may be able to help.
Thank you for your letter. We agree, and refuse to go back to Burnside Lake after the disgusting trash and human waste we saw last time (and we did contact the USFS). We find trash from shooting and campsites throughout many areas in Alpine County. It’s sad how little respect people can have for such a beautiful place.
And the finger pointers (who have not posted yet) say that we need to let motorized vehicles into all these wild areas. NOT!!!!! Once an area gets opened up to idiots on ATV and other vehicles its a death sentence to the resource. Its been proven over and over. The pictures dont lie. If these users dont want to be labeled as pigs they need to clean up after themselves and put pressure on their own kind to do the same. I dont have much faith that they will change. If people are back there and see vehicles in the area take info or pictures of their liscense plates and turn over the info to the Forest Service or BLM. Take pictures of tire prints, garbage that is incriminating (like magazines with address on them), look for carvings on trees that look fresh. Any evidence is helpfull to law enforcement. And be careful because these people usually are over weaponised(gun worshipers).
If you can haul it in, you can haul it out.
We routinely bring extra garbage bags to pack other peoples stuff away when hiking well used trails.
Another very disturbing issue remains the doggie doo bags that people insist on using, but then toss them in the woods. I have forest service land within 400 feet of my house that people are doing this to while accessing the river. Idiots! Dog manure will degrade in days if just left alone…in plastic it may be there for years.
This is what happens when people with a lack of respect in the first place go to areas and act like they do in their own towns and when they get to rural areas they think no-one is looking so anything goes. Bad and disrespectful human behavior and no accountability is epidemic all across the country and no amount of laws and closing areas off to the respectful people who use public lands for punishment for the few bad apples will change the bad behavior as they will find somewhere else to do the same. The problem is a cultural rot across this country that comes from many causes and from the top down. Comes from a lack of many things, like not being taught by adults and parents what is right and wrong anymore and lack of respect for laws in the first place and no common sense is added. This isn’t new and it isn’t going away without regaining what has been lost in this country.
Nature Bats Last says….finger-pointers? lol Looks like you started off pointing fingers. You don’t like recreational vehicles so it MUST be them. Two-legged humans on foot could not be responsible. (rolls eyes) Blame game. Whoever doing it is doing it and I imagine it’s all types of different folks arriving by different means. Some people who ride ATV’s, etc. are some of the most environmentally conscious people I know.
If you read the above article there is evidence of vehicle tire tracks at the scene. I guess the people on foot or on horses left them..yah, thats it, the hikers brought in tires to make tracks to hide that they hiked in with bags of trash and their big guns and saws, just to make the OHV people look bad. LMAO
Nature, sorry but in this case you are not completely right. I am positive that hikers and horseback riders also left much of that trash. Otherwise how can you explain trash left on almost every hiking trail(ones that it is impossible for off road vehicles to go on) I know of. Your logic is being overshadowed by your bias. Many people are just pigs, be it, hikers, bikers, horse back riders or Off road vehicles.
‘Your logic is being overshadowed by your bias.’
Ironic.
Rainparader- It’s going to take everyone to stop the “earth- raping” that’s happening on our public lands and we are all in this together. I’ve seen lots of cut fencing and broken-gates in the decades I’ve been walking the woods- but I don’t believe it has ever been any group other than ‘Off-Road Vehicle’ users that do this.
Thanks Bob & Tita, for looking out for beautiful Alpine County.
If your knee-jerk reaction to this is “close the area to OHV use,” then check your bias. Boaters are well known to party at this place and trash it too.
If, instead, your knee-jerk reaction is that more outreach and education is needed, then support http://treadlightly.org/ and encourage land managers and OHV clubs to work together to promote responsible land use.
But if you still think that closures are the answer, then look at these “Hot Spots” identified by the Leave No Trace organization, and decide if non-motorized users should also be banned from public land: https://lnt.org/get-involved/hot-spots
Justice nailed it…the top guys in this country from both sides dont follow laws…how do you expect the next generation to act. Plus city folks suck…look at their home towns and freeways. Nature….i feel for u bro…u have some serious hate issues. Spread the love man.
Thank you for all of your comments on this important issue. This is not about horses or hikers or bikers or off-roaders, it’s about a handful of people disconnected form the world around them. We had an immediate and concerned response from the Humboldt-Toiyabe Carson Ranger District which has struggled with this problem for years here and elsewhere. Their attempts to control vehicle traffic with boulders and gates are immediately undone as these people tear them out with winches on their vehicles. The USFS does the best they can but with a limited staff it is going to take the public, all of us, to demand change in the behavior of the small number of people responsible. The immediate need to is to clean this place up, and then to help the land managers craft a management plan that allows public use and access, but eliminates this kind of outlaw behavior. After 60+ years of caring for this land we were blessed with, it was time to say Stop! to those with no respect for what they’ve been given, or their fellow human beings.
Rain: nature is the biggest finger pointer of fingers on here. It’s so boringly predictable, A L W A Y S.
Yes, Duke it is ironic that Nature is a little bias in this regard.
No, the irony is using questionable logic before questioning the logic of others. Irony is less amusing then you have to explain it.
To Same Other Places (first comment): please do not call this destruction from “hippie kids”; being an old hippie kid who has picked up more trash throughout the Sierras over the last 40 years (just ask my buddy Bob), I take offense to that accusation. Hippies worshipped the natural world and you never even saw a cigarette butt along a hiking trail back then; this is about a different generation not being taught that we are part of this natural ecosystem – they do not feel that inherent connection to the earth. I pick up used Pampers along a river below my home…where did they learn
Kits, copying is a form of flattery, thanks man, im so glad to know that you get my point. Maybe there is hope for you and your buds, but I wont hold my breath…
duke i question your logic, LMFAO
Imitation is the greatest form of flattery. I’m not imitating you, nor “copying” you.
relo just pulled the ‘i know you are but what am i’ card and thought it was clever.
Oh you’re so right tuna I used the wrong word. Hippies died in the 60’s… Now we have fake gypsy kids who dig holes everywhere for a $5 rock. I think you missed the point. I called them hippies because if you have ever been in the local rock shop or THC that’s deffenetly the look they are going for. I call them as I see them.
Nope didn’tt think I was clever, I just was having a laugh at how you are always so snarky. Hopefully you are not this way in your day to day communications otherwise I would guess you would have few friends. I do have one request from you would it be possible for you to post one nice comment on something anything. Instead of the one line not clever at all put downs you seem to do. I don’t know if you realise this, but those comments make you appear as a troll and very immature.
Adopt a trashed spot and clean it up, today! That’s what we are going to do. We can all make a positive difference.
Duke, relo is just a bottomfeeder trying to bait someone. Dont fall for it. Maybe he/she needs to follow its own advice. Na, finger pointers just wanna blame everyone else for shortcomings.
Question to bob and tita, did they pick up any of the trash they saw, or how about any of the poop that their horses left on the trail? or did you just take pictures and complain and ask others to clean it up?
ipanic: yup. horse ‘poop’ and flies it attracts. horse people are sort of like cigarette people: litter with impunity cuz they have more rights than others…
Pointing out relo’s flawed logic (after they took on others) and pointing out their childish comebacks is immature?
If I say that the above comment about horse owners having more rights than others is silly, is that immature and trollish? Even if i point out that no one has the right to litter and horse dung is a lot different than a toxic butt.
Uhhh huhuhuhu i said butt.
even the duke is off his game today. CRV butts