Are you fed up with slob campers ?

The worst is when you come across used contraceptives and broken alcohol bottles. Blech!! Just as bad are the can rings that people leave laying around, that animals get stuck in...now that needs to STOP.
 
Two quick comments:

Bears are more problematic in campgrounds and developed areas than in the natural outdoors.

Camgrounds are really cheap motels, but without the walls. I avoid always.

For my own safety and privacy, I always camp far enough away from roads and trails that I cannot be seen by passerby hikers or vehicles.
 
I rarely have problems with in the campgrounds that I camp at. We have spoken to a few groups ourselves before and they have always quieted down. I did have one ODD experience where a guy was watching Lonesome Dove REALLY LOUD in his cabin - but after I mentioned it to him - he turned it down - and brought us food the next day.

I often bring a lot of students with me twice a year. A few times the ranger has reminded us about quiet time (the stories around the camp fire can get a little silly with 20 students or so) and I usually call 'lights out' at these times. When we apologized the Ranger said 'No problem! We have not had complaints - just wanted to make sure everyone had a good time!"

When we hike - we do 'geocaching' and we firmly do 'Cache-in - Trash Out'. A few of the kids bring trash bags with them and we do trail maintenance. We have never had a full trash bag - and we cover about 30 miles in the weekend with the students.

I have seen a few trashed sites - but I just grab a bag - clean it - leave it out for the rangers - and inform them. I have never seen anyone use an axe or be silly.

Maybe I am lucky.

TF
 
Talfuchre said:
I often bring a lot of students with me twice a year. A few times the ranger has reminded us about quiet time (the stories around the camp fire can get a little silly with 20 students or so) and I usually call 'lights out' at these times. When we apologized the Ranger said 'No problem! We have not had complaints - just wanted to make sure everyone had a good time!"

When we hike - we do 'geocaching' and we firmly do 'Cache-in - Trash Out'. A few of the kids bring trash bags with them and we do trail maintenance. We have never had a full trash bag - and we cover about 30 miles in the weekend with the students.
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Look into separate group campgrounds if you're traveling with school or scout groups. Most/many parks have them available, but you may need to reserve in advance. They are generally located away from the regular campground, are normally less-used, and often in more private locations.

:thumbup:
 
Thank you for the responses everyone. Great feed back and food for thought. :thumbup:
 
Bob W said:
Look into separate group campgrounds if you're traveling with school or scout groups. Most/many parks have them available, but you may need to reserve in advance. They are generally located away from the regular campground, are normally less-used, and often in more private locations.

:thumbup:
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Bob - Thanks! I forgot to mention this. We often use the 'group camping' areas that are indeed segregated. Works great for us and other campers.

TF
 
Get a Dog and train him for Backpacking. That is the best way to sleep in the outdoors, with your wife on one side and your best friend on the other watching over the both of you and your gear as you sleep. We have a 120lb Dane mix that is our second of such dogs. Train them to stay on a human sent trail and to ignor curiouse animal smells. Start them young and keep them in the woods regularly. My dog Hank carries 35lbs of gear on his own back, does not need a leash, and rarely if ever gets distracted. We hike in the wilderness areas of Arkansas and have a good population of black bears. We do not use trails anymore but preferr to navigate our own ways in and out. When we met, my wife's idea of camping was just like everyone has described. The idea of going out in the real outdoors was scary to her and I had to put up with all the complaints I have heard here for several years. However, now she is a full convert. Now she agrees with me when I use to say that camping in a public park was like paying to live in homless comumity for a weekend. She has even told me she would love to do a girls only trip into the wilderness area of Flatside some day. I would not be there to watch over her but you can bet she would never do it with out Hank. He is a guy but some how he got invited! The dog was the real key though and so worth the effort of training, I am sure that there are others here that have done the same. It's like watching one of your kids do good in sports, you can't help but feel proud to see you dog doing a great job and being so much help. The very best part about all of this is, we never run into other people. We might see someone where we park our truck but that is it. If we ever do come across anyone they are only out there for one of two reasons, enjoying the outdoors or they are doing something illegal. Either way, we would avoid even being noticed. Truth be told the real danger in the woods is not bears or snakes or anyother wild animial, it's people.
 
That's the nature of the beast when you camp on a campground where there are other people sharing the same area. To me, it's pretty similar to going to the movies at the theater. 80-85% of the people are quiet and respectful to others while you have a handful of idiots who constantly talk, teens making stupid noises to impress girls they're with, or parents who bring crying children to rated R movies.

My worse campground experience was when these two kids would not stop whining and screaming at the top of their lungs for their mom when we were trying to sleep. The kid was like, "MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!! I'm SCARRRRRREDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD COME OVER HEREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!! And the mom said, "No you come to me". And they would just go back and forth like that for the next 20 mins. And once I finally fell asleep, I got woken up by them chattering again at 1-2am in the morning, this time the kid and dad talking. After tossing and turning until 3-4am I finally went back to sleep, just to get woken up by the same family at 7am with the kids running around right near my tent screaming and laughing. I have never woken up feeling so sh*tty in my life.

It was unbelievable how the parents could show so little consideration for the people around them. The whole time their kids were whining the parents would giggle as if they're the cutest things in the world. But as I said that's the nature of the beast. When you're camping with 6-8 other groups of people who are all in close vicinity that's what happens.
 
I nearly got into a fight with trash throwing out trash on my last canoe trip. Me and three friends went on an overnight trip at the start of summer. It was a nice trip until the very end. We made the mistake of parking at the second boat ramp in town rather than the first. Of course there's a lot of people in the river the couple of miles between the two ramps.
We started finding chunks of styrofoam floating in the water which we picked up and placed in the canoe. It was about 4in thick and crumbled from age, so I thought it might have been something that got washed into the river. Nope. After picking up several large pieces we came up on a boatload of rednecks trailing an obese teenager who was trying to float on top of a contantly breaking styrofoam board. I'm not sure where they got this foam, it looked like something pulled out of a dump. They looked at us and the big pile of thier trash filling our canoes and said nothing. No "Sorry about that" or "Thanks for grabbing those." My friend thought he heard one of them say mutter something about "tree huggers." I just kept my head down and paddled, trying hard not to say something. They wouldn't have listened to anything I would say and likely would have just wanted a fight.
Later, as we were loading up the canoes I saw the rest of that kid's foam board float by.
I can't stand people that treat the world like a trash can.
 
FullyTorque said:
After picking up several large pieces we came up on a boatload of rednecks trailing an obese teenager who was trying to float on top of a contantly breaking styrofoam board. I'm not sure where they got this foam, it looked like something pulled out of a dump. They looked at us and the big pile of thier trash filling our canoes and said nothing. No "Sorry about that" or "Thanks for grabbing those." My friend thought he heard one of them say mutter something about "tree huggers." I just kept my head down and paddled, trying hard not to say something. They wouldn't have listened to anything I would say and likely would have just wanted a fight. Later, as we were loading up the canoes I saw the rest of that kid's foam board float by.
I can't stand people that treat the world like a trash can.
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You were wise not to get into an altercation over something like this. People who litter are, by definition, short-sighted and inconsiderate (not in every respect, of course, just in that one), and if you point it out to them where no one is around for them to feel public shame and under pressure to be contrite, they will mostly likely get defensive, indignant and possibly aggressive. When two parties are annoyed by one another and exchange harsh words, far removed from witnessing eyes of others, things can quickly escalate into violence. There's no sense in risking an altercation with someone who is being a slob deliberately. Such people will always write you off as a do-gooder and busy-body. All you can do is grit your teeth, do the right thing, pick up after them, let them see you doing it if possible, and hope that the sight of that makes them feel a pang of conscience so that they will be less likely to be so inconsiderate in the future.

Just to help you see how commonplace this sort of behavior is, look at smokers on the street. So many of them (by no means all) will casually and insouciantly throw their cigarette butts on the street. Now imagine telling the person that they are being inconsiderate and that this stuff doesn't just dematerialize and looks unsightly until it's cleaned up or washed into the sewers. What do you think they will do? If others are around, they might get a little flustered and move off in embarrassment, but they are more likely to tell you to shove it, rationalize the littering as inconsequential. Littering, for some people, is an ingrained habit to which they give almost no thought. Sad to say.

Hope this helps and thank you for picking up after them that day,
- Martin
 
PineMartyn said:
Just to help you see how commonplace this sort of behavior is, look at smokers on the street. So many of them (by no means all) will casually and insouciantly throw their cigarette butts on the street.
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I have NEVER met a smoker who DIDN'T do this disgusting habit. Kudos to you smokers if you don't, it irritates me to no end.
 
sodak said:
I have NEVER met a smoker who DIDN'T do this disgusting habit. Kudos to you smokers if you don't, it irritates me to no end.
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Crap. I was a smoker for years and I always assumed the filters were biodegradable cotton, but they are not. Oops. :(
Apologies for past misdeeds.
 
Even though we haven't done a lot of camping (yet) I've been teaching my sons to leave sites cleaner and more sustainable than we find them - pick up the junk, cover the swept-clean dirt so they don't turn to complete soup when the rain returns. The usual culprits are broken bottles, cans, and bottle caps...seems every time we go on a hike I return with a bag of glass and pocket full of caps. My oldest got to be the hero a few weeks ago when we stumbled on a smoldering fire pit in a super-dry MT campsite, speaking of poor etiquette. Good thing he was hydrated...
 
I live in a small garden apt building with doctors offices downstairs, and a back porch. Naturally, patients or caregivers will often wait outside on the porch (during the day when we aren't there anyway).

But why when they smoke do they just drop the butts to burn out on the porch instead of flipping them into the roadbed? We even have a dumpster in the parking lot, if they field strip their smokes.
 
Tip for smokers: Field Stripping: When you're done with a cigarette, twist and mash the filter between the thumb and forefinger. This will cause the last bit of burning tobacco to fall to the ground. Step on that to put it out. Check the filter and make sure there isn't any ash or smoldering bits (If you can roll it up in you fingers and don't feel heat, it's safe) Now you can throw the filter into a trash can or put it in your pocket (this will stink up your pocket though). Just be sure that there is no ash or heat left in the cigarette carcass if you throw it in a trash can, otherwise you could start a fire.

This is what I did when I smoked and what I do now on the rare occasions when I smoke.
 
I've been convinced by a buddy of mine to go camping at the local camp grounds in the Mass/RI area. They are state run parks that don't allow drinking, I went twice with him because this is the only place he would go. The campground had some nice sites and decent trails for what it was. One night I had kids screaming and yelling all day and night never talked to by the rangers. The next night we are sitting quietly by the fire and the ranger comes over and searches our cooler and makes us dump out out beer, we are all over 21 - rules are rules I guess but I don't understand why I can't have a couple beers when I'm not bothering anyone and keeping a clean site. Especially in that area where there really isn't much to do during the day. I'm not fan of camping around this area, and I lot of people that go camping there seem to think of it more as a party outdoors.there is a ton of noise during the day. The one nice thing was a big lake to go fishing at minutes from your campsite.

When I go up north to NH and Maine I never really have any problems, sites are pretty isolated and clean an the people are prett quiet. Sometimes you get one group which is a little noisy, someone playing some music during the day that you can hear, I've had someone ask me to turn my music down which wasn't a problem I just didn't realize they could hear it. During the summer it's pretty packed but a lot of people are out during the day doing whatever so it's not very populated.and during he offseasons they are pretty deserted because nobody wants to deal with the cold nights.

I've come to conclusion that a good campground can make all the difference, when sites are more isolated ou don't really have to deal with the other campers. And I love going in the fall or early spring because I'm basically there by myself. A bad group can definatly put a damper on your trip though. I don't mind socializing with neighbors especially when someone catches a ton of fish and wants to share or sometimes offering food I prepared to other groups if I make a big stew or something nice. The one thing I hate is when people trash a site, if you can't clean up after yourself when you're done you have no business going in the first place. The whole point is to enjoy he peace and tranquility of being outdoors and enjoying the mostly untouched surroundings. Why people feel as though they don't have I play there part in keeping it clean befuddles me. Sometimes you get people who improve campsites and sometimes you get people who ruin them.

As far as smoking goes, I'm a smoker myself and when I smoke while camping I simply flick the ash into the firepit and squeeze the tip getting rid of anything which is hot so basically only the filter remains and throw the filter in the trash or in my pocket. I hate walking through a campsite or trail with filters covering he ground. I usually pick up any that others have dropped.
 
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and us "gun people" WONDER why other people don't want guns all over the place? A bunch of jerks should have a gun? They don't need guns to be real problems. We, however, need guns to put a stop to them, if they get out of hand, like a lot of them do, sooner or later, someplace.
 
bonee said:
and us "gun people" WONDER why other people don't want guns all over the place? A bunch of jerks should have a gun? They don't need guns to be real problems. We, however, need guns to put a stop to them, if they get out of hand, like a lot of them do, sooner or later, someplace.
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I'm not a gun person by any means, I don't own one. But sometimes when you're at a campground and you have a group of loudmouths partying it up they would probably listen to you more and be less disrespectful, or like a previous poster said who had stuff thrown at his site and flat tires, if you approached them with a gun on your hip haha. Not to mention for those who like to go out into he woods and camp by themselves, a gun of any sorts would be very useful in protecting you and your family as well as in the unfortunate case where someone got lost or injured in the woods a gun would be a valuable tool in a survival situation.

It completely baffles me how ignorant some people could be just because you simply asked them to quiet down, and to the previous poster who ended up being harassed I'm sure it was very stressful wondering whether they should confront them or avoid confrontation for fear of personal safety and especially the safety of their family. People are but jobs, especially punks in large groups. I bet the person of that group who probably instigated and encouraged a lot of the harassment and trouble would of acted a lot different if they were by them self and not in a large group.
 
that type would LOVE to beat you to death, if they thought that they could get away with it. Once, I approached a bridge over a good sized creek, in rural midwestern USA. a car was parked on the bridge. I came there to sight in a .45 that I had just smithed, so i put out the cardboard target box, sat with my back against the tire, printed some groupls, got it zeroed, and presto, when I got ready to leave, that car wasn't on the bridge any more. Bunch of drunks, etc. i later heard that somebody without a gun had gotten grabbed thru his open window. I'd have pinned his arm and reversed as fast as the car would go and turned him loose to pinwheel a bit. And if the others wanted some, they could have discussed it with Sam Colt and John Browning. If I walked over to a group to discuss their being a holes, no WAY I'd let the gun show. I'd just ccw and shoot the ones who tried something, and put the others under citizen's arrest. I don't want them being "warned" and HAVING guns themeselves the next time they attack somebody.
 
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