Every year, the number of people who take to the wilderness to
enjoy and experience nature increases dramatically. What was
once an obscure pastime is quickly becoming one of our most
popular recreational activities.
Our wilderness areas
are rapidly filling with canoeists, backpackers, mountain bikers
and rock climbers.
This increased use brings along with it increased pressure on
the natural environment. When people visit the wilderness, they
cause damage. Whether this damage is intentional or not is a
moot point - the fact that we set up tents, light fires and walk
on vegetation has an impact on the areas that we visit.
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Twenty
or thirty years ago, camping books explained how to trench
around tent sites, cut fresh evergreen boughs for mattresses,
fashion tent poles from saplings ... our overused wilderness
areas can no longer tolerate this type of abuse. The principle
most of us are adopting is one of "no-trace" camping.
The term does not say "minimal-trace", it says
"no-trace". When we leave an area, there should be no
way that anyone can tell that we have been there.
Obviously this is an ideal - there is no possible way that we
can have no impact at all on a site. Nonetheless, there are many
things we can do to help protect the areas we stay in.
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