Trashing the trail

How do you picture wilderness?  Do you think of pristine old growth forests, or perhaps rock formations against magnificent vistas and a clear, azure sky?  Do you picture a landscape untouched by humans?  Do you picture... trash?

I hopped on trail in May, convinced I'd be in rugged territory, and excited to be in the wilderness.  I had heard so much about the trials and perils of the trail that I was surprised (and a little disappointed) when I started walking.  Granted, the climbs can be exhausting, the terrain uneven and occasionally dangerous, and hikers sometimes get sent home by twisted ankles, infections, or even bear attacks.  I remember the man we met who dislocated his hip and had to go home on day one.  And yet, the trail in Georgia seemed more benign than I had anticipated.  The AT was a very obvious, very clear, very worn one-foot-wide path going through the woods.  The water sources were plentiful and well marked.  The shelters, placed about every 8 miles, were clean and roomy and beautiful.  I couldn't help but feel cheated.  This wasn't hard.  This was, as my hiking partner and I liked to say, kush.   

And then there was the trash.  Sometimes I would hike along and almost be able to forget about civilization, when we'd pass a campsite or trodden patch along the side of the trail.  Scattered around the site would be tin foil, empty food packets, and bottles (that could have been recycled, by the way).  It seemed odd that someone who enjoyed being in the woods would so freely dump their garbage and wads of toilet paper in plain view.  Is this what a "wilderness experience" is really like? 

The trail itself had little trash as compared to the shelters and campsites, which were littered with it.  And whenever the trail crossed a road, I could have filled bags of it.  It seemed that the places that would have been the most convenient to pack out trash were the places that had the most.

Perhaps I was getting too worked up.  Maybe my expectations of the trail caused me to see more garbage than there really was.  I suppose the AT is really quite clean as compared to a lot of roadsides.  So I decided to do an experiment.  I decided to collect every piece of trash I found for 100 miles.  (This took me from the very end of North Carolina, through Tennessee, and up into the very southern bit of Virginia.)  I decided I wouldn't pick up toilet paper, broken glass, clothing, or items larger than my plastic grocery bags.  And still I collected bags and bags of it.   


Your daily dose.



My dad joined me near the end of my experiment, and though he thought I was strange for doing it, he helped me pick up wrappers and soda cans when we saw them.  And though he saw my garbage bag dangling from my pack as he walked, he was impressed with how little trash he saw on the trail.

"You know, sometimes I'll see something on the ground that I think is a wrapper, and then it turns out to be a flower or a leaf...  I also thought when I came out here that I wouldn't be able to find a good walking stick because I expected people to gather firewood all along the trail until it was sparse looking.  And I expected the trail to be a lot wider in places, more used.  No, this is nice.  I'm pleasantly surprised."



I find myself wishing, as I pass cell towers among the trees and hear lawn mowers in the distance, that the woods could exist without human interference.  But at least the small corridor around the AT offers a sliver of woods for those who seek it.

So now, this spoiled country girl is taking a cue from her dad.  Instead of looking for trash, maybe in the next state she'll start looking for good things in this world that we still have.
...Just don't let her see you drop that beer can on the ground.