We are staying in a campground just outside the Gila National Monument, in the Gila National Wilderness or Forest, or both, but we aren't sure. The reason we are curious is that this campground is sort of strange. For one, there are no fees for camping. A huge campground with no fees?
Sounds great, but you get what you don't pay for. For one thing, there are no trash cans.
Anywhere.
That's right--in the Gilas (all three--Monument, Wilderness, Forest) around here there is not a single trash can.
So this afternoon I innocently took our garbage to the Gila National Monument visitor's center (where we spent $20 yesterday and where we supported the parks services by buying an additional $140 worth of Christmas/Hanukkah gifts before we left) to ask where we could put it. Found out we are supposed to "pack it out."
"You packed it in!" I was cheerfully/patronizingly told. Huh? Take it back to Washington with us in April?
Well, I also packed in a lot of food that now requires a toilet. Am I to wait until I return to Washington to dispose of that too?
"Budget cuts." The most tiring of explanations.
Sorry but I don't find that reason compelling.
Parks/monuments/forests/whatever are for people. People who come there to camp/hike/sightsee need only a few basics--water, toilets, trash cans. We aren't asking to have our sheets turned down at night with little chocolates on them, or even showers, or even flush toilets. But the basic necessities of water, toilets, and garbage disposal are needed not only because those things go along with having guests/people, but because they are necessary for sanitation and safety. And to preserve the natural areas.
The idea that people will come for several days, camp, hike, see the ruins, buy things in the gift store, etc., and then carry their trash home with them is naive and foolish. Only some will. The rest will cope with their dilemma in unintended ways--dumping trash in the pit toilets, trying to burn stuff that shouldn't be burned, throwing it out of their car windows, or just being careless with it on public lands.
When you look carefully around in our "free" campground, it is obvious that it is not in the condition one would hope for on a public land. There is a lot of trash strewn around.
These photos are from within 20 feet of where we are camping:
Plus, and this is a fully expected reaction to the lack of trash receptacles, people basically cope with their trash dilemma by creating incinerators. In the fire bowls here are cans, bottles, aluminum foil, pieces of plastic. In addition, there are several places where there are ash piles, indicative of people burning in areas where they probably shouldn't.
The first photo is at our campsite--the others are at the one adjacent.
See the cans in this photo?
See the burned plastic residue?
To save money by not having trash services is penny wise and pound foolish.
Why not charge a fee for this and for some of the other campgrounds around here? Many National Whatevers campgrounds we have been in have an honor system, and from what we observe a lot of people pay--in fact it appears most do. At the Cibola Red Canyon campground we were camped right next to the pay station, and we saw many people stopping there to deposit money.
Or use the honor system money for trash collection.
The campgrounds in the Cibola and Llncoln National Forests in New Mexico have provided bear-proof trash receptacles (and as described later, even different administrative areas in the Gilas do, weirdly enough). What is so different about this place? Why is it run in such an inhospitable manner?
On our drive into the area we saw bright yellow PACK IT IN PACK IT OUT signs. I thought "good!" But now I find that this important value for wilderness hiking and backpacking is being hijacked to justify allowing trash and garbage to collect on these beautiful lands.
It is one thing to educate people that when they are hiking or hunting that they and they alone can bring out their trash and garbage because no one can travel 5 miles into the back country to empty a trash can for them. That is a reasonable expectation, and from what we see in our hiking experience (300+ miles in 2012 alone) people are very good about that.
But to try to use this important value to justify no garbage receptacles anywhere is wrong.
Besides, signs do little to affect many people's behaviors. The fire damage we have seen (and it is extensive here) was apparently caused by turkey hunters who ignored the "no fires" signs. Millions of dollars of damage created by allowing hunters (who, sadly, are often responsible for forest fires) to hunt, yet we can't dispose of our potato peels? Is trash collection really more expensive than the extensive damage done by some hunters?
Signs only affect a small percentage of the population--for the rest one has to make responsible behavior easy and/or provide consequences for irresponsible behavior with close monitoring. That's human nature, for good or for not.
It is also Bear Country. Signs in other places exhort you to dispose of garbage in bear safe containers because to do otherwise "kills" bears. Bears that get into garbage are the ones that most often have to be killed because they then hang around areas where there are people.
And this is the only area we have seen, and we have seen a lot of National, State, County, and private areas, that does not provide for the safe and sanitary disposal of trash and garbage.
What are we to do? It is one thing to request that people carry out as much as they can, and people who live nearby can do that. But we can't. We are stuck, and we didn't find out about this until we came here. There is nothing about this policy in the Monument's or National forest's brochures (of course not, it would look so bad).
One employee suggested driving out our garbage to the nearest gas station, something we have contemplated as we tried to solve our problem. But that feels so wrong, as it clearly did to the employee. The owner of that gas station pays taxes to support the Gilas, but to expect her or him to also provide free trash service for the Gilas feels bad. We don't want to do that. We have paid, between Vicky and me, 100 years of taxes, plus fees, plus support to many New Mexico merchants. Can't we have a place for our banana peels for all of that? Is that really asking too much?
So two thumbs down for the Gilas for this part of their job. It is too bad because the area is beautiful and deserves to be run as well as the other National Forest/Parks/Monuments we have seen. And so many parts here are run well that it is a shame that this important piece is not.
Addendum:
The day after I finished this blog entry/diatribe, we ran into a group of people at the Alum Canyon trailhead. They had been camping there for several days (ran into them earlier so had chatted with them). A guy approached me and said he'd give me $5 if I would take out their bag of garbage. That is how desperate people will get. They shouldn't have to offer to pay strangers to do something like this for them.
They had dutifully packed out everything they had packed in, but now found themselves in the same dilemma we have faced--what to do with what they had responsibly done with their garbage.
The woman said something about wondering why there were no bear containers.
And by the way, what did we do with our garbage? We did something similar to what they did. We got someone to haul it away for us, possibly someone who shouldn't have, but understood our problem. We then burned all we could, and will haul the rest out to put in a container at some business where we will be sure to make purchases, so it will seem right.
Another addendum: Right up the road, about 15-20 miles away were two national forest campgrounds. One of them called Cherry Creek. BOTH had bear-proof trash cans, easily observable from the road.
These campgrounds happened to be in a different "district" or something. This makes little sense to me. Basically the same area of the country but because of administrative reasons there are radially different policies?
Get bear proof trash cans at all national campgrounds. Please.
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