EISPIRATEN

you were hiking by yourself on trail miles away from trailhead
you happen across a group of young men who are trashing the forest
they are spray painting rocks and carving trees and breaking bottles.

how would you handle the situation

oh and no cell service available

I would draw my sword

Ask them if they've seen the bear that just ate your hiking partner.

SoCalJP74 wrote:I would draw my sword

I don't think a drawing of a sword would help.

Seriously, I think that you'd have to assess your personal safety first. Trust your gut: are they a danger or can you talk to them? If I felt safe, I might approach them and ask something like, "so how do you think people feel about what you're doing?" (the idea being that an open ended question is less threatening than a "what you're doing is wrong" statement) If, however, my gut was saying "get the heck out of Dodge, NOW," I'd try to as unobtrusively as possible slip away and simply report the incident and any identifying features of the indivuals that I may have noticed.

I think the last thing you'd want to do is provoke a confrontation with a group of vandals alone in the back country. That would be a good way to get a visit from SAR and the county coroner's office.

If I couldnt document it, then I suppose it would fall into how damaging I feel about it...which is a heck of a lot of damage for me, the couple of times I have felt very angered I didnt even confront them. One case was a family finishing changing a diaper and throwing it&whatever in the W SG river(upsteam of most people ), the other case was a group hauling back stuff from the East Fork....couple bags were tilted over and styrofoam stuff falling onto the trail, reaction of group was less to carry...at the time it the enviormental damage seemed so insormountable, like what is one less trash in a trashed area?

Graffiti seems to get to me though...havent seen it yet in action. I did run across a few youngsters in Eaton canyon below Slide Falls and did question them about grafitti. They seemed to be caught off guard and were insistent that the purpose of their trip was jumping and dope. Thought they were telling the truth and moved on.

What it amounts to for me is that there are places that would be absolutely visited by many people if known, but because of possible damage there is no way Im saying where they are. I wouldnt be surprised if some of the no trespassing signs are directly related to this. I know of one location where the owner told me exactly that.

I'd be seriously pissed. Just gotta be sure no one ever finds the bodies.

Maybe we can put in summit registers our "kill count" instead of our "hill count" (hill count: the number of summits that people are doing on a particular list). Of course people will start wondering why all the hikers are carrying ice axes in August...

Hmm, maybe I'll just carry start carrying bear spray. Once they're down, ...

Really touchy situation. I've just walked by. If they look mature, and aren't in a group, you could talk to them without much of an issue.

Anything else and I hope you're good at defending yourself. Any tool on your person could be used against you in court if they get uppity and agressive, and you could be accused of "provoking" them, even if that's not the truth.

Too damn touchy of a situation, I say. I would love to give someone a good whack with a walking stick, but you can't do anything anymore nowadays. It's all going to hell I guess.

And the diapers in the river... it really makes me sad when I see that. I don't spend much time down where there are more folks, but when I do, it's really depressing.

So, generally I do/would do nothing.

friendowl,

You did the right thing. Based on the multitude of things they were doing, it doesn't seem likely they would have been persuaded to cease and desist. No matter how temperate your inquiry as to just what they thought they were doing, you would probably have provoked them to threaten you, or worse. Damned shame, but it wasn't worth risking your safety.

If possible take pictures or video to document the crime.
Get a license plate for prosecution, all covertly.
Careful, use proper threat assessment.
Let Federal prosecutors do the rest.

This is probably the best reason to carry bear spray. Use generously

My dad always said his discipline was because he cared, and as we all know, "sharing is caring."

Share liberally.