Written by Mary Schmidt Odell —
I am NOT your mother and I shouldn’t have to clean up after you. Take your trash home.
Members of the Sierra Freepackers Unit of BCHC (Backcountry Horsemen of California) spent Friday, June 3 to Sunday, June 5 at the Snow Play Area just north of Fish Camp, working and playing. Backcountry Horsemen are a non-profit equestrian group dedicated to keeping trails open for everyone. We teach and follow “Leave No Trace” ethics and volunteer for different public agencies on a variety of trail work projects.
Members arrived Friday, set up camp and started their 3rd annual trash clean-up of the Snow Play parking lot and surrounding area. In the camp area were piles of trash left behind by campers from the Memorial Day Weekend. UGH! So, clean-up started before camp set up.
After the area was cleared of trash and camp set up the six members present on Friday rode their horses out the end of parking lot to the trail leading into Yosemite where trail and trash conditions where noted for Saturday’s work.
On Saturday five more members arrived for the big clean up. The group worked for about 2 ½ hours bagging and removing approximately 12-14 large bags of trash including broken sleds, cardboard, Charmin Flowers (ie. used toilet paper), broken glass, styrofoam pieces, and micro-trash of all sorts.
After lunch the group rode the trail out around the meadow and down on to the Pack Station Trails that head down a set of switch backs and cross back and forth across Big Creek. A potluck dinner followed the ride and continuing trash pick-up as we came across it.
On Sunday morning camp was packed up and members returned home. We as a group want to remind everyone to practice “Leave No Trace” ethics: leave places cleaner than when you found them, and take care of our forests and surrounding areas.
Pictured are: Linda Sadler, Chris Dockendorf, Emma Graham, Diana Pierce, Denise Robinson, Patricia Vallentyne, Mary Odell, Sharon Seslowe, Laurie Wagoner, John Wagoner and Millie the dog.
Come join us — the public is welcome to these meetings. See our web site with calendar of event at http://sierrafreepackers.com
