The Naughty List

It’s been a tough year for our national parks.  Funding and staffing are both under attack, and that’s in the face of increased visitor traffic. It’s enough to make you wish that somebody was paying attention—somebody like Santa, who always knows if you’ve been bad or good.

Since Santa seems to be pretty busy trying to save the polar ice cap that supports his workshop—one that gives useful employment to thousands of elves—I’ve decided to do something really nice for him.  I’ve compiled a list of those who have been naughty and nice, saving him the trouble.

Let’s start with the naughty ones:

Politicians who seem to want to privatize our parks, so that they can make money and generate revenue.  Nope, that’s why we pay taxes, so that we can have nice things as a country. Our national parks deserve protection, not exploitation.

Those knuckleheaded tourists in Yellowstone who just don’t seem to get it and keep getting close to the wildlife. They are called wild animals for a reason. These are presumably the same people who need a warning label on a hammer that says, “Don’t hit your thumb with this hammer, or it could hurt.” Sadly, not all of these knuckleheads get what is coming to them, because the animal have more common sense than the people.

And speaking of graffiti, let’s leave your name off anything but a to-go coffee cup. (And that cup goes into the paper products recycling bin.) The rest of the world comes to the parks to see pure natural beauty, and you think it’s a good idea to write something stupid where we all see it? I hope you get caught and spend weeks cleaning up after other idiots.  And get banned from the parks.

Those who take their OHVs into the wilderness, where they are banned. Or who fly drones in the wilderness. Read your permit. It says no motors. That includes dirt bikes, chain saws, drones and snowmobiles. Nobody wants to hear that.  And those motors keep you from hearing things like a woodpecker attacking an old pine, an osprey crying out as it soars, or a ranger sneaking up on you to give you a hefty fine.

Trash, why do people think they can leave trash behind in our parks? (We actually had one guy leave a bag of trash by his trashed campsite in the wilderness this last year. The bag itself had his name and shipping address on it. These people are extremely dim bulbs.) And yeah, as a volunteer, I pack out a lot of trash on every trip. So do many hikers who are not volunteers. It makes you wonder how bad things would be if we weren’t doing that.

The worst trash of all is TP and worse. About 10,000 years ago people figured out that the basics of civilization included some way of dealing with human waste that kept it away from the rest of us. But somehow, people in the backcountry think it’s okay to leave it where it lies. And they always seem to do it near a campsite, as if nobody else would ever camp there again. Well, they may be right about that—except that, yes, volunteers clean that up too.