This past Thursday, Johnny Sullivan and I enjoyed an excellent night session at Nine Corners Lake. The temperatures were perfect, the bugs were non-existent and the psych level was extremely high. We climbed well into the darkness, tallying up numerous repeat sends and even a few new ones. After about three hours of bouldering, we made our way to the first campsite by the lake to catch out break before the hike out. It was at this location; a typically pristine setting on the lake where our excitement for the evening session was destroyed by the amount of garbage that had been left behind by the previous weekends camping groups.
I had seen a large group at this campsite last weekend and was so disgusted with how much they had destroyed the area that I put a personal call into the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation office in hopes that they would sent some staff up there to issue some citations or fines and discourage any future occurrences like this. From what I saw Thursday night, no NYSDEC staff visited the lake and the result was a trashed campsite right by the water’s edge.
Saturday morning I took it upon myself to hike up to Nine Corners at 5:30 am to extract all of the garbage so it's disgusting sight wouldn’t ruin more hikers and climbers experience of the place. It sickened me even more that I had a full garbage bag before I even made it up to the lake! All said and done, I filled (6) trash bags and the total weight was just over 100 lbs.
Not cool man...not cool at all!!
Let’s all please carry out what we carry in and keep our outdoors clean and pristine!!!
The MOST DESCUSTING MEDIA UPDATE YET:
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Pack fully loaded for trash extraction |
Wow that is truly appalling. Thanks for the dedication to clean it all up!! Ill be sure to bring a garbage bag with me the next time i go out just in case there is a similar scene!
ReplyDeleteYeah this is always a shame to see...unfortunately it happens a handful of times each year. I am not looking forward to the condition of the campsites after the 4th of July weekend, hopefully NYSDEC will make a trip up there and catch some people in the act of littering and issue some fines, that should deter people from doing this all the time.
DeleteI was in the group that was camping further in when you came through. Just want to say I really appreciate you taking the time and effort, the trash at that site was unreal and we were planning to pack it out ourselves when we left. Wish it wouldn't happen again, but being such a short hike in it's a popular spot. Again, thanks, it's great to see people making a difference.
ReplyDeleteI agree, the easy approach does make this situation more likely to occur in the future as well. You guys had a VERY clean campsite and a gorgeous weekend; weatherwise. I hope you enjoyed it up there!
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