Late in the afternoon I returned to my pack and brewed up a hot drink. I decided to contour around into the next basin where I've also seen a number of elk. Following a well worn game trail I jumped several deer before entering the next basin. Again the trails led to a nice wallow, but with the temps in the low 40s I figured there would be no wallowing today. I continued on to an area that had several small lakes below the alpine peaks and decided I'd set up camp there then try an evening hunt in this basin.
I pitched my tent on a bench just out of site of the lowest lake, but with a good view of the basin - a perfect hunting camp. Then I set out to see if I could find any elk. Again, it was extremely quiet - no bugling what so ever. I crept through the lower forests thinking that with the evening temps the air would be dropping and I'd hopefully work my way uphill into some game. Just as I'd neared the edge of the woods I heard a distant cow call. As I froze in my tracks I caught a glimpse of another cow feeding about 100 yards uphill of me. I moved a few feet behind some cover and watched as she feed. In less than a minute she picked up her head, turned, looked, turned again and trotted off. Damn, the winds had switched and I was busted. I continued to work the trees in a circle to where I thought she went, but light was fading and I had no sight of her nor was she making any sound... I soon gave in and decided it was time to get back to camp before dark and fire up the the stove for dinner.
In the morning I decided to walk to a rise not far from where I was camped to get a commanding view of the entire basin. While heading up there I first came across a flat spot in the grass that was matted down. I immediately recognized it as a tent site. I took a moment to scan the ground and began seeing bits of plastic trash here and there. Discouraged, I thought I'd continue with my hunting and pick up the trash on the way back through. From the rise I glassed the basin for 15 minutes or so, nothing. On the other side of the rise there were some nice woods that looked inviting so I decided to work them through to the next basin south. After a couple hours of walking quietly through the woods and admiring the stunning waterfall in the southern basin it began to snow. I had to get back home before too long, as my wife was going to work and I needed to be there for my 11 month old daughter.
I walked back through the old campsite and began picking up bits of trash when I saw where it was all coming from. The litter bugs had decided not to pack out any of their trash but decided to burry it instead and cover it with a large rock. the critters had dug up bits and pieces and chewed into some of it, but when I removed the rock and began uncovering all that was there my heart sank. Here I was, by myself in the most inspiring terrain stalking the great wapiti and in the end spending my final hours of hunting season packing out at least 10 lbs of garbage left by other bowhunter. Luckily I had a couple trash bags I used to keep things dry in my pack. I filled one up to the size of a large stuffed sleeping bag, double bagged it and headed back to my camp. What a disappointment. I came here because for the solitude, the natural beauty and, what I thought was little to no hunting pressure. Not only had the elk been disturbed by other hunters, but the hunters had left all their garbage. I will commend them on their "fast and light" approach, as the trash revealed they were eating freeze dried meals, energy bars and the like. They left no fire ring, nor any soup cans lying around. But if this is what modern bowhunters do, then I want no part of it!
Pack It In, Pack It OUT! LEAVE NO TRACE!
If you happen to be one of the hunters reading this, you know who you are, hunting in Idaho, shame on you. As a fellow hunter, I'm very disappointed. What happens when non hunters come across this kind of thing? Then we all suffer.
I've packed out a lot of other people's garbage too. It pisses me off. I really like it when they've tried to burn it and it's a big juicy carbon rich bunch of clumps.
We always end up taking out a little more than we take in, try to do my part. Good on you for hauling out their trash.
Beautiful scenery.
Thanks for cleaning up Idaho. I really like hunting elk there. So much that I pay the NR fees even though I could hunt much cheaper in Utah.
I will typically pul a truck load of stuff left in camps. Most of which I resale. One year they left 2 full bottles of crown in one camp!
Your actions are a GREAT example of how we should all conduct ourselves while enjoying these public places.
Always takes one or two jacka$$e$ to ruin it for the rest of us.
Good on you, most hunters leave the country cleaner than they find it. Some guys are idiots. They leave garbage on sidewalks and everywhere else they go.
And yes, totally disheartening. Happens all the time, although one would think that in this day and age it would not be like this.
I have never been able to figure out the mindset that hauls in full beer cans and water bottles but can't haul the empties out. I have a pretty good idea who these dirtbags are and have been keeping an eye out for them ever since.
My intention is not to receive praise from folks for packing out the trash. I pick up almost all garbage I found in the mountains with a few exceptions: TP, tampons & condoms... My intentions were to hopefully educate the few who may be ruining it for the rest of us!
Last year my hunting partner and I ran across a similar situation. We were 5 miles off the road in a wilderness area and came across over (50) 1lb propane cylinders stashed in the woods off a prime camp site. They were rusted up on the threads so they were there for at least a year. We packed out as many as we could, but our TZ6000's weren't big enough for all of them. I was pretty disappointed that another hunter bow or rifle wouldn't pack their trash out. I am almost positive it was a hunter too, because there were 3- elk skulls with the antlers and part of the skull plate cut off laying 15yds away. Disgusted.
Rob
Best damn Mtn Dew I ever drank.
Sportsmen do this - clean it up. Its just what we do
The unfortunate thing is that nobody ever gets charged with littering because you can't catch them doing it, until someone comes up with a way to catch litterers the issue will continue to increase as more people hit the woods. I would like to see the fines increased to a "big" number and maybe the revocation of privileges if caught littering printed on all outdoor issued licenses even though it is hard to catch them it might deter a few people.
A few years back I took my daughter fishing to a stream I use to fish when I was a young, back then the road to this area was just a semi rough mountain road, the area was beautiful and pristine. Fast forward to present time, the road was improved to let all vehicles easily access the area but still unimproved camping areas, I hadn't been to this place since the road was improved. We pulled up to the area with great anticipation as I had hyped this place up to my daughter and to my surprise all of the camping areas by the stream were completely trashed out, it was bad! I told my daughter that we will go to a different spot to camp so we went to another place that I knew of that was off of the beaten path. It was dark when we reached the spot so we parked and set up the pop up camper and crashed for the night. We awoke and stepped outside to a beautiful area full of wildflowers unfortunately after a few minutes of walking around the beautiful scenery we started seeing lots of trash below the carpet of flowers, it was so bad that we had to break out the trash bags and clean up the area before we could start setting up our outside camp area, we picked up a full 30 gallon sack of trash, not exactly the experience I wanted to share with the kiddo but we still enjoyed the area after it was cleaned up.
It just sucks that the people that clean up after themselves are the ones who in essence get run out of certain areas of the mountains, I will probably never return to that beautiful trashed out area and I am pretty sure my daughter will never take her kids there, a shame IMO.
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Unfortunately this type of person lives like this at home and feels it's the only way to live no matter where they go. Ever go to someone's house where there is garbage overflowing, house is a pig sty, etc? Well some of those people hunt/fish. Very sad, all we can do is pick up after ourselves and everyone else.
Pic is right on a closed road that is a main access to a big area- more than a few guys have to walk right by this- sick. The guy could have stepped 10' off the trail in the thick trees and buried it in the duff and other guys wouldn't have the flies from his crap landing on them- friggin idiot!
I'm sure Good Karma is coming your way brother!
Bill V
I hunt S Utah and find trash on every hike I take. I just dont get it.
Lmao! Priceless! Sad deal finding trash in our great outdoors. Thanks to all who care enough to protect the beautiful lands we cherish and are blessed to be able to hunt on!
no personal responsibility, and laziness!
