[pct-l] Cat Holes a la Colin Fletcher, 1968 in The CompleteWalker

[charliethorpe@att.net (Charlie Thorpe)]

on 11/4/01 11:36 PM, CMountainDave@aol.com at CMountainDave@aol.com wrote:

> I'd like to see some statistics on the burning of T.P. causing wildfires.

Hello CMountainDave -

I don't have any stats myself, but they are out there and shouldn't be hard
to find.  

Since I don't have the numbers myself and don't have the time to ask around,
perhaps one way to answer your question is to ask you to go to the LNT web
site (www.lnt.org) and check out the list of "Partners" that have joined the
LNT educational movement.  I hope that you would agree that MANY more than
just forest managers are involved.

The policy-making Board of Directors for the non-profit foundation that
coordinates the LNT message (LNT, Inc.) is made up of representatives from
the partnering organizations.  This board determines the overall direction
that the LNT educational movement takes as it tries to address widely
differing problems in widely differing ecosystems in widely differing areas
of the world that were caused by widely differing recreational populations.

The Educational Review Committee for LNT, Inc is also made up of
representatives from the many partner organizations.  These folks tend to be
a lot more practical and focus on the specific damages being done to
specific ecosystems and on specific LNT guidelines offered to help minimize
that damage.

All I really know is that the Educational Review Committee considered TP
burning as an alternative to just dropping into the cathole or to packing
the TP out.  There is plenty of evidence that just dropping is not a real
answer and too often results in pathogen-laden TP litter blowing around when
critters dig up the cathole.  Everyone realizes that packing out TP will be
distasteful to many - so distasteful, in fact, that they might be turned off
to the entire LNT message as a knee-jerk reaction.

Even with all the above, the Educational Review Committee felt that there
was enough of a problem with burning to not use it as part of the LNT
guidelines related to human waste disposal.

>...Sorry Charlie, but you seem a bit
> too obsessive about LNT to the point of dictating to us: Your way is best,
> ours has fatal flaws...

Hmmmm... definitely my bad if you come to think that I am trying to dictate
to anybody.  I went back over my recent LNT-related posts to see if I had
drifted from discussing into dictating.  I certainly don't think that my
words sounded dictatorial, but I have learned the hard way that what you
meant to write isn't always what someone else reads <g>.

Perhaps part of the misunderstanding stems from the fact that you "came in
during the middle of the discussion" as it were.  Most of the general
background leading up to the specific LNT practices (about human waste in
this case) was given much earlier in my series of LNT messages.  I didn't
post the entire series to PCT-L because I have already posted all 15 at
least twice (I think...) and we have fine easy-to-use archives on this list
now.

>... We might as well declare all wildernesses animal
> sanctuaries and just stay home. My tootpaste spits aren't about to destroy
> any ecosystem.  One has to remember that our camps make up a very minimal
> amount of the total acerage of any given wilderness and unless we turn them
> into hazardous waste sites were not about to ruin the wilderness by simply
> camping there. If these areas DO have too much impact, the answer is very
> simple: make quotas and put our user fees to use by placing portable latrines
> in place that are flown out on a regular basis...

I am sure that you know that some wilderness locations are set aside as
no-visit sanctuaries.  Fortunately, the folks managing our wild lands feel
very strongly that we have to try a lot of other options before we are
forced to stay out completely.  Rules, regulations, quotas, group size
restrictions, forced dispersion, and a host of other "administrative"
solutions to ever increasing backcountry damages have been tried over the
decades.

LNT came about because these land managers realized that these regulatory
approaches to solving the problem simply weren't working in many cases.  The
land managers have finally realized that it is going to take all of us
working together to have any hope of keeping the heavily-used parts of our
backcountry the way that we want it.  LNT is just an effort to inform all of
us outdoor recreationists how we can help.

I too have questioned parts of the LNT message over the years and, I hope,
have helped to provide some of the input used to modify some of the
recommended practices.  If I didn't believe that LNT was responsive to new
and better ideas as they surfaced, I would have walked away years ago.

You ask good questions!

Trace No Leaves,

- Charlie