The Day I Almost Stopped Picking Up Litter

I'm learning the hard way that the stewardship gap is a perpetual problem.

Two silly dogs playing in a secret pocket of sage high in the gorgeous Mt. Haggin Wildlife Management Area. I found someone’s Buff in these bushes.

There is a campsite that I love that sits in a little-known spot in Mt. Haggin Wildlife Management Area near my home. It’s impossible to see, hard to find, and on a two-track that looks like it could lead nowhere.

It does lead somewhere.

That place is a stunning campsite with an established fire ring under two old-growth Douglas firs that abuts the headwaters of the Clark Fork River. Red cliff spires reach into the skies, and if you know where to look, you can follow a trail miles down a rarely trekked creek, where endless rose hips and thimbleberries grow. I’ll be honest, I haven’t even camped there. I don’t really need to; I live 20 minutes away. But I often park there, throw sticks for my dogs, and hike from that very picturesque spot.

Last week, I popped over for a quick hike, and this beautiful little oasis was desecrated by mounds of toilet paper, wipes, and even dirty underwear that was now spread out over the small stretch of pristine grass surrounding the campsite. I was so disgusted and overwhelmed that I became flooded with anger. What alarmed me even further was the sheer state of helplessness I felt against the tide of disrespect that these people left in their shitty wake. Last year, another person parked an impossibly old RV in a nearby spot, littered the place with trash, gas cans, and children’s toys. They stayed well beyond the 16-day limit ascribed to all campers, letting tires go flat and cans go empty beyond the confines of the camper.

I long ago made a promise to myself to pick up the trash that others left behind, but instead of a sense of superiority, I’m beginning to feel like maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe it’s a Sisyphean effort. On another hike near this same spot, I pulled part of a side-by-side bumper off the trail. I am often amazed at the places where I find beer cans, some likely decades old, when following skinny game trails high into the mountains. I’ve found countless plastic water bottles, a chihuahua-sized dog jacket, a blaze orange buff, beer cans (obviously), and even a few rusted-out firearms. Granted, a few of these things were clearly lost, not left, but the human imprint is one that lasts, even in landscapes that can make you feel singular in a moment of visitation.

I can’t help but think the people who camped in this particular spot knew they were doing something wrong when littering a clean dispersed site with the most disgusting trash one can leave. It feels impossible to me. You need to have a modicum of familiarity just to get back into this particular public lands haunt. There are no advertisements, and it’s only open 6 months per year.

And anyway, how can you wade through the levels of camping-adjacent material without running across one mention of litter? People generally do not like litter, even in the most concrete of places. I recall being about six years old in the early nineties, riding my banana seat bike back home after school, when my accidentally open backpack let fly a folder of papers. As I stepped off my bike to try to collect all the papers blowing in the wind, the neighborhood kids called me a litterer! They yelled it at me, they didn’t help my panicked attempt to collect everything, I burst into tears on the sidewalk, with the called-name shame attached to my being like a scarlet letter. Litterer! Never!

We knew the word then, and we know it now.

Litter is not a new concept. Nor is it a new problem. At this point, I’m not sure that the stewardship gap — the gap between those who steward and those who mire — is even an issue of education. There are simply people who intentionally care, and people who intentionally do not.

The scariest thing I’ve felt, though, is that sense of learned helplessness. I will admit the following: the last time I hiked, I didn’t pick up an ancient beer can. I walked past some side-by-side headlight refuse. I was — I’m sorry to admit this — too grossed out to pick up the bathroom trash. These things stayed a part of the landscape. My own shame has been sitting in my gut for days. I don’t like it. I refuse to become it.

There are permanent signs of human scarring all around this particular spot. If you know what you’re looking at, you will see the mounds of rock not as a natural shift in landscape but as mining tailings. If you read the signs, you will know that miners lived and died tragically, right here, that this waterway was absolutely destroyed for the profit of very few, and that groups of modern stewards put the pieces back together. There are chimneys still standing from original homesteads and buildings. There are strange pieces of steel that were likely part of something pulled by horses. If you look even deeper, you will find more signs of Indigenous humanity that stretch back thousands of years.

Some of these things tell stories. Others left permanent scars. But much of what I find and pack out is simply small and impermanent, neither story nor scar.

Do I wish I could hand the occupants a trash bag and watch as they cleaned up their own mess? I do. Did I feel angry that they took up my emotional safe space with this disgusting predicament, then felt I couldn’t bring myself to do what they should have done? I’m upset with myself for it. I really am. But it is impermanent, and there is a high likelihood that I will go back today and it will once again be pristine, if not by my own hand then someone else’s. I can also promise myself not to let this be a defeating moment, but one of acceptance.

I must accept the things I cannot change, but I have to accept responsibility for what I can. My new normal, in addition to educating where I can, is to acknowledge that people have always left things behind, but I don’t have to.

That’s what I’m thinking about today. Here’s to a litter-free week for all of us <3