Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Leave no Trace?

OK,OK, but not everyone does everything they do on purpose. I, for example {ahem} consider myself a thoroughly dedicated leave-no-tracer. This year, however... well ... um.... ya see... When I left Trail Crest headed down, my wagbag was firmly seated in the outside pocket of my pack and quite full. When I got to Trail Camp ... well... it just was nowhere to be found. And, dedicated though I am, I'm not quite dedicated enough to go back up the switchbacks in search of my lost wagbag...

My penance is clear: next time I find a wagbag in the wilderness, I pick it up and hike it out. But I probably would anyway... Sigh.

It's a simple thing to keep all the WAG bags off the mountain. Do what Yosemite does with bear cans. $75 deposit and you get your money back when you return the can. $75 for a WAG bag (mandatory with a permit) and you get your $75 back when you return a WAG bag used or not.

BSquared,

Did you loose your bag on Sep. 23? Then don't worry, we carried it down on Sept. 24.

Thanks Justhike.

Last time I was up there I picked up wrappers left and right. As for the tissue, it is possible that it is women. I have a separate zip lock for the peepee tissue. If you don't want to drip dry then zip lock it. I don't understand people. I love the idea about charging a deposit. I think even $50 would be good. Fifty per person would add up. They can even charge more for the permits. $25 per permit and $50 deposit on wag bags. I know I would pay it.

SoCal-when people drop there trash I pick it up and take it to them and say I think you dropped this. They always have a shamed look on there faces

Alas, it was almost two months earlier, but I'll accept the karma.

I would love this thread to live on a while. I think it's very important.

I wrote on another thread that on my trip in September, I did not see any wag bags and only a couple of GU tops. In October, I found several wag bags and my friend said there were over twenty on the other side of some rocks near the top of the switchbacks! Even with a lot less people on the trail in October, there was a lot more trash. I pick up everything, my trash, other peoples trash, but I must admit, I haven't picked up other peoples wag bags.

I think a nominal fee for "walk ins", say $10.00 would be okay. Whitney is a pretty cheap date when you consider camping is only $10.00 and you're eating mostly from your camp.

And if a ranger catches a person leaving their wag bag doody behind, the fine should reflect the contempt we have for them.

I will repeat.....to the idiots, selfish pigs, lazy bass turds who think it's okay to leave your crap behind.....It's NOT. The rangers are not your "mommies" or your servants. Grow up and take responsibility for your feces.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

Finding trail trash (especially used wag bags) is usually the latter. But once it was the former. This summer near our camp at the top of Thunderbolt Pass my son reached into a crack between two rocks and pulled out an 8 ounce can of salmon.

We enjoyed the salmon immensely AND carried out the empty can.

$50 would be OK too. It has to be enough to make it worth while to bring the crap down. If you are the type that doesn't mind paying parking tickets and want to leave your bag up there then whoever brings it down would get your $50. If someone brings down 4 WAGS they'd get the $200 that had been put in the kitty.

The main point is though that the $ amount would have to be high enough to make people pay attention.

It would not be an added expense to any climber that followed good protocol.

I like the idea, but there would be logistic problems.

For example, my wife and I come off the mountain, sometimes late or we want to hang around and enjoy a cheeseburger for awhile, and then head north to Bishop or Independence or someplace.

Visitor Center might be closed by the time we get back down to Lone Pine, so then what? Save our turds in the car for a week or two until we pass by on the way back? Lose the $100 ($50 * 2) even though we were responsible citizens? Either option not particularly appealing.

And, I can only imagine the enthusiasm of the rangers at the visitor center at being handed all day a constant stream of reeking, bloated, ready-to-explode, semi-sealed wag bags from returning hikers!

Like I said though, I like the idea, so I am confident that these logistical challenges can be surmounted.

I guess there will a lot of pick your poison with just about any solution to the problem but the two least attractive are a toilet on the peak and WAG bag desertion.

Imagine if they were bar coded and you could scan them and put them into a vending type machine. Kind of like a coinstar type setup. Could put the machine at any trail head - solar powered of course. ...............................DUG

There you go. If they raised the permit price for at least one season they would have enough money to buy a scanner. The deposits would go on a credit card and when you where done and scanned your wag bag and the bottom your card would be credited the $50 back.. Hey this could work....

I also like the sentiment but I don't think it's really a viable solution. Aside from the logistics (an automated turd scanner that dispenses cash or credits your visa card?) I suspect a lot of people would just stop using their wag bags as it would be like crapping on a $50 dollar bill.

Whose bottom is being scanned?

"Automated Turd Scanner" will be the name of my new band. We do big band hits from the 40's................................DUG

that is so bizarre... I was there on Sept 26th and there was an empty 8oz, round can of salmon sitting right next to the two foot high cairn that resides on the boulder that marks TBolt pass.

I had passed another hiker earlier in the am that had lost sunglasses on the slope below Polemonium, and having found them , I placed them below the cairn as well, knowing he would be passing by on his way out the next day.

This is great I posted this July 2008 and it is still a topic of conversation. This proves the point for a solution to this problem! THank you everyone for your comments. Did I mention this summer I packed out another 5 or so lbs

People hiking in such a beautiful place should tolerate using a wag bag for a day. Even the marines are using it in Afghanistan:

http://unholylandnews.blogspot.com/2009/08/death-and-taxes-plus-wag-bags.html


If nobody cared, we would have to put up with what people living in a Third World country have to put up with day in, day out.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aErNiP_V4RLc

Iam positive the people that look and post here did not do this we just all need to take an extra bag each trip to preserve our mountain .Thank you packing out you are a Champion and yopu know who you are !!!