Stabman, I do hope, honestly, that you get to play in woods that can sustain your style.
But let me just reflect back to you what I understand you are saying...
You enjoy camping around a campfire with your friends. But instead of localizing your impact by doing that in an established campsite with maintained fire pits, you went out into the woods on land that is not yours and established your campsite. And once there, you harvested enough wood to build a quasi permenant shelter and you established a fire ring. Now, other hikers have discovered the site and use it, adding their impact to yours and on top of that, leave behind trash. And other than your occasional hauling out of trash, your site is otherwise outside of any on-going maintenance plan so in 5 or 10 years, when you tire of hauling out other people's trash, your legacy in that place will be that you've created an unauthorized and now hammered camp site.
This is OK how?
Of course it's on land I don't own; I live in a one bedroom apartment...my "land" is a concrete balcony.
The trash other people have put there consists of the occasional alcohol container...except for whatever doofus left a large tarp that had to be cut up and packed out; that was a chore, but I did it because I consider it
my site.
As for 5-10 years, well, I've already kept going there for over 5 years; unless I move somewhere else, it's going to continue being the spot I go to.
As far as I see it, for authorization,
I authorized it, and that is really the only authorization I tend to consider valid anyway.
As for legacy going far into the future, we'll all be dead (unless my immortality plans pan out better than previous people's have), and then it will be reclaimed by nature in a very short time.
I have seen old industrial sites that consisted of buildings, roads and other infrastructure in the process of nature taking it back; it goes a lot quicker than most people think.
For some reason, people look to the past and see the pioneers of this land as mighty people--heroes almost--and marvel at the enormous, centuries old trees they tore down.
Some of those same people would consider me an environmental criminal for establishing a camp site, one that I have continued to use and maintain for years. Seems to be a disconnect.
You see, I'm not out there destroying heritage trees; all the biggest trees that have toppled out there fell due to storms and old age, including the one that fell right where my original shelter was. That was a damn big tree.
As I see it, anyone who lives in more than a one bedroom apartment and owns a car has zero moral right to judge my impact on the world. Despite my overall minimal impact being due to lack of cash more than any high-minded choice, I am still impacting the planet far less than the vast majority of North Americans.
And if it will make all the people happier, then if I move far away, I will haul out all the cinderblocks and bricks from the site...we had to carry them in there for the fire-pit in the first place, due to the extraordinary lack of rocks out there. I will even dig up the charred soil, and pack it out too (we always carry plenty of stuff normally, so it wouldn't be that bad if we left the gear due to doing a site restoration).
Hell, I'll even bring in some top-quality top-soil and plant a damn tree where the fire-pit used to be!
But that won't be happening any year soon, unless I suddenly win a huge lottery and move away. For the foreseeable future, it will remain my spot. :thumbup:
)
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