[pct-l] TP ???

Halfmile halfmile at pctmap.net
Sat Jan 24 22:57:11 CST 2009


I'm not sure what "pretty well disintegrated" means or what would
happen if you buried 100 pieces of TP in your back yard year after
year and consider that most of the PCT gets less rain than your back
yard in Oregon.

Packing out TP is a basic part of Leave No Trace hiking etiquette that
all hikers should follow. In many areas it it required. Here are a few
links that discuss this, I am sure many more could be found.

http://www.lnt.org/programs/principles.php

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/sequoia//maps/brochures/leave_no_trace.pdf

http://www.nps.gov/yose/planyourvisit/wildregs.htm

http://www.nps.gov/archive/crla/brochures/backcountry.htm

What is exceptionally bad are the hikers that leave a pile of unburied
TP, I guess as a warning, like the trace wire David discusses. I can't
believe anyone would actually do this, but I have seen it many times
along the PCT.

Another option that has been discussed quite a bit over on
backpackinglight.com is not using any TP at all. I can't say that I
have tried that approach, I always just pack mine out in a little zip
lock bag.

Keep the PCT pristine.

-Halfmile



On Sat, Jan 24, 2009 at 7:41 PM,  <sue.kettles at comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> Please don't jump all over me, because I really would like to know.  In 20 years of backpacking, I have never had that happen... digging a hole and finding something.  Guess I'm just lucky.  When I did a trial bury of TP in my back yard, in the fall, by spring, it was pretty well disintegrated. (I do live in Oregon - so it rains alot here)  It is a tree source after all... and if its not perfumed and colored, whats the big deal burying it the right depth if in the right terrain??  I don't want to be ignorant, but I don't want to do something that is maybe, at this moment, the new "right way".   Like people picking up their dog crap in plastic bags and putting it in the garbage can?  How is that supposed to help the environment when it will take much longer to decompose in a landfill in that plastic baggy.  Someone with knowlege,...please,  I'd love to understand.
>
>
>
> HJ
>



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