I spent the weekend in the mountains doing a mix of on and off trail hiking. I didn't get to spend my usual time working on a project, but I do have the following thoughts:
1. I found a lot of trash in the mountains. My experience is that most of the trash is in the parking lot and first 100 meters or so of the trailhead. The second highest density of trash is at the end of the trail. That was true for both trails we hiked.
2. The most ridiculous trash I found (and collected) was Colgate single-use toothbrushes. These are small... maybe 8 cm or so. They have small bristles with a little dab of toothpaste in the center of the bristles. You wet it and can brush your teeth once and then the product is useless. Then you apparently throw it on the ground? I found one of these at the end of the trail where people had camped. I found another one when we were off-trail exploring a high valley and loosely following a game trail. It was pretty chewed up so it appears that an animal was attracted by the minty scent and tried to eat it. Two thumbs down. I can't figure out why it's a thing. It's this weird Venn diagram overlap where someone is pack-weight conscious enough to not want a regular toothbrush, but not hiking savvy enough to bring a child's toothbrush or break one in half. And they already sell small toothpaste tubes. Why would someone buy a bunch of these for a camping trip?
3. Most of trash was foil granola bar wrappers. Seems like 50% of the time it was the tops that they tear off and the other 50% it's the whole wrapper. I also found a stick of gum, a gel pouch, various lids, and two of the heavy-duty camp spoons that you're able to use time and again. They were at different bush camps so two groups left behind decent spoons.
In other news, I did spend some time last week working on generation 3 of my documentation setup. I'm going to go with the 45 degree angle for sure. Hopefully I can get out on Friday and give it a good trial run.
1. I found a lot of trash in the mountains. My experience is that most of the trash is in the parking lot and first 100 meters or so of the trailhead. The second highest density of trash is at the end of the trail. That was true for both trails we hiked.
2. The most ridiculous trash I found (and collected) was Colgate single-use toothbrushes. These are small... maybe 8 cm or so. They have small bristles with a little dab of toothpaste in the center of the bristles. You wet it and can brush your teeth once and then the product is useless. Then you apparently throw it on the ground? I found one of these at the end of the trail where people had camped. I found another one when we were off-trail exploring a high valley and loosely following a game trail. It was pretty chewed up so it appears that an animal was attracted by the minty scent and tried to eat it. Two thumbs down. I can't figure out why it's a thing. It's this weird Venn diagram overlap where someone is pack-weight conscious enough to not want a regular toothbrush, but not hiking savvy enough to bring a child's toothbrush or break one in half. And they already sell small toothpaste tubes. Why would someone buy a bunch of these for a camping trip?
3. Most of trash was foil granola bar wrappers. Seems like 50% of the time it was the tops that they tear off and the other 50% it's the whole wrapper. I also found a stick of gum, a gel pouch, various lids, and two of the heavy-duty camp spoons that you're able to use time and again. They were at different bush camps so two groups left behind decent spoons.
In other news, I did spend some time last week working on generation 3 of my documentation setup. I'm going to go with the 45 degree angle for sure. Hopefully I can get out on Friday and give it a good trial run.
Comments