Thanks for posting this, Robert. It continues to be a problem, but not an unsolvable one. The main difference between a national park and national forest on this front is simple law enforcement, and agency presence on the ground. Even an open-borders park has a fraction of vandalism, shooting and dumping that you can find on any given day in any given national forest.

In the case of the Mount Hood NF, the good news is that the brunt of the bad behavior is focused in just a few areas -- and mostly in the Clackamas. I don't expect the USFS to get their act together anytime soon on this, but the counties (Multnomah and Clackamas) have done a lot to step up law enforcement, even as county budgets are under stress. 

Thinking outside the box a bit, I'm a proponent of mandatory national service for young people, following high school: 2-4 years, your pick of civil or military service. I'd love to see the "guard station" concept resurrected, and staffed with young people -- at an age when they can also absorb a connection with the natural world, too.

It wouldn't take much to do -- probably a fraction of what we spend in our foreign police actions in a given year -- plus, we seem to be in an economic moment where young people don't have a lot of options coming out of school, so would welcome the opportunity to gain experience and better way to earn money than pumping coffee or flipping burgers.

Okay, end of rant -- but I did want to post some similar images from a short exploration of the area around the Collawash Bridge last month. First, the yahoos have found the bridge, itself (a wonderful, and soon-to-be historic structure) and established a place underneath to deposit trash and spray the bridge with graffiti (a new phenomenon -- there was none as recently as three years ago):

Meanwhile, down in the old camp area (and I'd love to know the history of it -- spotted a phone insulator oon one of the trees), it was actually pretty clean, save for trash in a few gigantic fire pits. But there were a few traces of yahoos to be found, if you looked -- for example, many trees had the gratuitous hatchet marks that only a yahoo would leave behind:

There seems to be a credo somewhere in the yahoo manual that all firewood must be cut from green, standing trees using a hatchet or axe... because there's always the charred, green, 6-foot lot laying in the fire pit, too.

And yes, there was a toilet in this camp, too -- this time, a handy-dandy paint bucket topped with a toilet seat:

Held together with -- wait for it -- duct tape, of course! Terrific design.

I took this next photo from exactly the same spot, pointed in the other direction -- I suppose to illustrate the excellent view the yahoos had from their crude toilet, but also to illustrate why it's important to get ahead of this problem -- the impact is very real and do we have a lot at stake:

Tom

The Forest Service was in large measure created as a response to lawlessness in the woods. We are particularly afflicted by the proximity of Portland.

People go to the woods to get away from restrictions. The FS has failed to maintain order in the woods in part because they have withdrawn to urban offices and are only slightly present in the woods. I agree that the Guard Station system would be a good network to bring back. But I have noticed that when the young seasonal staff are put up at Ripplebrook, they can't wait to get out of there and back to Portland. In the past, it wasn't so easy to run back to town for comfort.

Unfortunately the great leaders of the FS are long gone and would not rise in todays agency anyway.

Flooding the Portland Senator and Congressmen with complaints might boost some increased security.

Donovan, on your last point, it struck me that both Reps. Defazio and Walden were featured in the paper yesterday on the topic of timber payments to counties. Both stated the goal as "jobs" in counties dominated by federal lands, so one way to lobby the delegation might be to suggest that a job within the USFS (or Sheriff's office) doing law enforcement is a good way to add employment in rural communities like Estacada or Dufur -- given that the program (in the past) has basically been a direct payment to counties.

A fairly compelling argument is to promote recreation (hiking, fishing, camping, riding, hunting, etc.), since that's the obvious negative impact of lawlessness. I think I'll send off something tonight!

Tom

Donovan, you are exactly right.  Those that are dedicated to the district, and in the field, are those of us that are the most powerless.  Those in charge sit behind a desk many, many miles from here.  Something funny happened to our national perspective after WWII, with increased factory production, mechanization, communication - and the entry into the atomic age.  DUCK and cover.  Maybe too many lives were shattered by that horrible war, I don't know, but something changed.

You know, I was just thinking how wonderful it would be to have the GS system back in place.  What a tragedy that it was abandoned, much like our nation's streetcar system.  "Modern" in 1950, in hindsight, was actually quite short sighted and destructive.  Yes, an official presence in the woods is exactly what is needed.  Not police or arrests, just someone in charge out there, keeping an eye on things.  How much would it cost?  You could fund it with the cost of just 1 fighter jet.....

The camps close to town however, need some sort of regulation I'm sorry to say.  It's just a gigantic pile of poop and paper.  Imagine the fecal bacteria.

The only way for things to change in our democracy is if The People actually stand up and fight for what they believe in.  This sort of chutzpah is getting harder to find in the real, tangible world away from computers and ME-Phones.

Part of the 46 camps problem is driven by the managed campground fees. If several families converge in five rigs for a weekend, the site and extra car fees can really add up.

The managed campgrounds do have some rules also that some party people find limiting.

The "remember the TP but forget the shovel syndrome" I do not understand. It might be an aboriginal offering or something primal perhaps but we are supposedly an evolved species. Some strains my be late to evolve I guess. There may be folks who leave piles in their yards in town as well, but I doubt that as well. Drugs and alcohol can impair judgment. Digging a hole inebriated could be very difficult. Perhaps that's it.

Now in China, I understand it is expected to forget the shovel. The buses pull off the road and the passengers go over the hill or behind the house. So maybe we are being prudish or "culturally insensitive".

But I think it fair to say that we also have cultural values in general that also are legitimate. We have also reduced disease and pestilence -- with a shovel.