Leaving No Trace in the Deschutes Wilderness

Floating on a River
So my ladyfriend and 13 of my closest friends (was supposed to be 15, but we had to last minute cancellations) rafted the "lower" Deschutes river recently.  It was an amazing trip and the pictures bear this story out, but one really important thing presented itself as a challenge.  Leaving No Trace.

Many of you may already be familiar with the Leave No Trace ethic.  At its heart it is a wilderness ethic that aims to educate people on how to make use

of wilderness areas without leaving the telltale marks that humankind is known for.  Have you ever been camping, and spilled a can of beer soda?  Have you ever foraged for firewood that you didn't bring?  Have you ever dug a "cat hole" to do your...um...business?  These are all things that - when multiplied by a factor consistent with our rising population numbers in the United States, creates a significant issue.

The Deschutes releases thousands of permits for river use each year and the Prineville BLM estimates that 50,000 people use the river each summer (the peak season).  The Deschutes is over 250 miles long, but if we just use the places where use concentration is highest (Harpham Flats to Sandy Beach takeout) which is 13 miles - the damage that could occur if just on-in-ten of the 50,000 people that use the river dig a cat-hole is staggering.

Ewww Pooooo
According to a recent study on the topic (yes, I looked it up), the average American's stool mass is 225 g - or about half a pound of poo.  If 1/10 of the 50,000 visitors left a cat hole with poo in it this would amount to 2500 pounds of poo - OVER A TON OF POO.  Now, a ton of poo wouldn't be that much of an issue if it were spread over a large area, but river use limits the area over which the application happens, we are really only talking about the Riparian area.  So if we take the 26 total riparian miles (13 miles of river X2 opposing banks) we see that this means ~96 pounds of poo per bank mile.  Gross.

Back on topic!
Anyway, enough poo talk, Leave No Trace aims to help us use our wild places responsibly while protecting it for use by others.  More on the specifics of Leave No Trace in another Blog; what I really want to talk about is some of the challenges that we faced on the Deschutes trip.

As we camped at the put in, talking excitedly about rapid names, and which campsites we wanted to stay at on the river, we drank beer.  It was hot - even as the sun set - and the beer was cold coming out of coolers that not only had ice, but DRY ICE (solid CO2 - much colder than solid water), so it was ice cold and refreshing.  There were several kinds of chips, salsa, pretzels, and even some homemade strawberry shortcake.

At the put in, before you launch your raft trip, is the perfect time to indulge because anything you eat now, can be bulky or heavy, anything you eat on the trip has to be expertly packed into dry boxes and coolers meaning that there are limitations to what you can take.  So we indulged..

When we awoke, slightly hung over and very excited to get the boats rigged and get underway; there were a number of things that struck me in regards to the Leave No Trace Ethic.

1.  We had left food out all night.  While it was contained and not strewn all over the place, this afforded wildlife an opportunity to eat foods that weren't meant for them.  They easily could have made a mess, that would have been counter to the leave no trace ethic.  This was a little bit disheartening to me as I simply didn't think of it.

2.  Our tents, most of which were set up in the dark, were haphazardly placed - some flattening vegetation (sage mostly).  This is anther "no no".

3.  Our beverage containers were everywhere, and the campground doesn't have recycling.  In order to really adhere to leave no trace, these containers are going to have to come with us on the river - which they did.

Before we launched, before we even rigged the boats, I coordinated a cleanup of our campsite that included making sure the sage plants that were trampled during out stay were re-erected (sage is actually very resilient), we also handed out some Leave No Trace materials to other campers, most of whom were in RVs and oblivious to the impact they were having.

I guess this post is meant mostly as a reminder that the idea of conservation is one that is not yet fully integrated into our way of life.  It is still something that has a completely mechanical and rote application process.  It doesn't just happen, no matter how good your intentions.  It is and additional layer of work.  It takes coordination, education, and follow through. 

 I distinction remember thinking that this was totally worth it as we shoved off into the river and looked back toward our primitive campsite and saw...desert.