Leave No Trace

It's a framework, not a rulebook, and it has an owner. The Park Service is explicit that the seven principles are "not...rules, but instead a framework to help us minimize our impacts in any situation," and that they are "managed by the Leave No Trace organization, which does consistent research to update the curriculum and provides educational programs across the United States" -- the fine print on every poster reads "Leave No Trace 7 Principles (c) 1999 by the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics." The Forest Service teaches the same seven under its own no-trace ethic. So when a ranger says "follow Leave No Trace," they are handing you a way of thinking, not a citation. The forest's own rules are the citation, and they are a separate document.

For a trip off a forest road, the principle that actually changes your behavior is the second one, and it inverts what backpackers are taught. A backpacker spreads out to avoid making a scar. You, arriving in a vehicle, cannot avoid making a scar -- so your job is to reuse somebody else's. Mt. Hood says it plainly: "Please choose an existing dispersed site rather than create a new one to reduce impacts on natural resources," and the Intermountain Region adds "Please use existing fire rings if present to minimize the scarring of new rocks, soil, and plants." That ugly flattened pullout with the blackened ring is not a failure of the wilderness -- it is the durable surface. Park on it, camp on it, burn in it, and leave the untouched meadow forty feet away untouched. It is also, not coincidentally, what a designated dispersed site is, and what our maps are pointing you at. The rest is housekeeping: "Pack it in, pack it out. Inspect your campsite and rest areas for trash or spilled foods," carry dishwater away from the creek rather than rinsing in it, bury solid waste in a cathole and "take your toilet paper with you to dispose of in a proper waste container," and don't "build structures, furniture, or dig trenches" -- your grandfather's drainage ditch around the tent is now a scar that outlives the trip.

Here's the catch: the numbers are not national, and the ones you memorized are the ethic's, not the law's. As the ethic is written, you camp "at least 200 feet from lakes and streams" and dig catholes "6 to 8 inches deep, at least 200 feet from water, camp and trails." As the forests actually write it, Mt. Hood and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie both say camp "at least 100 feet" from the water and dig "a hole 6 inches deep at least 100 feet away from any water source"; Fishlake and the wider Intermountain Region say 200 feet; the Shawnee doesn't give a camping distance at all and instead says dispersed camping is "not permitted within view of any water source" and that you may "drive no more than 150 feet off any forest roadway." Fishlake also wants you "at least 1 mile away from existing campgrounds." Stay limits scatter the same way -- 14 consecutive days and 28 total per calendar year on Mt. Hood and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie, "up to 16 days" then "move at least 5 road miles" on Fishlake, "two weeks at a time" on the Shawnee. Use 200 feet as your habit, because it satisfies every forest above, and then read the forest's own page for the number that can actually be enforced against you. "Visit in small groups when possible," says the ethic; "Your group must be under 75 people," says Mt. Hood. Those are answering different questions.

And here's the second catch, the one worth knowing: two of the seven stopped being voluntary a long time ago. "Dispose of waste properly" is 36 CFR 261.11, which prohibits "Possessing or leaving refuse, debris, or litter in an exposed or unsanitary condition," "Placing in or near a stream, lake, or other water any substance which does or may pollute," and "Failing to dispose of all garbage, including any paper, can, bottle, sewage, waste water or material, or rubbish." "Leave what you find" is 36 CFR 261.9, which prohibits "Damaging any natural feature or other property of the United States" and -- read this one twice before you pocket the arrowhead -- "Removing any prehistoric, historic, or archaeological resource, structure, site, artifact, property." Your bag of trash and that pretty point by the fire ring are legal questions. Whether you played music at eleven at night is not; that one is just you, and the ethic's answer is to "let nature's sounds prevail."

Two ways people get it wrong. The first is treating it as backpacker theater and skipping it because they drove in -- when in fact the vehicle is exactly why the site-reuse rule exists. The second is the fire, which is where good intentions do the most damage. Campfires are generally allowed while dispersed camping "unless there are fire restrictions in effect due to high fire danger conditions" -- a fire ban overrides everything -- and the wood rule is that you gather "dead and down wood" and "do not cut live trees or break branches from standing trees," standing dead snags included, since those are somebody's house. Keep it small: "Only use sticks from the ground that can be broken by hand." Then apply the single most useful sentence the Forest Service has ever published on the subject, from Mt. Hood: "If your campfire is too hot to touch with bare hands, it's too hot for you to leave!" Not smokeless. Not probably fine. Cool to the touch, with your actual hand.