Backcountry Campers Need to Tread Lightly

by Evelyn Boswell

6/97 BOZEMAN -- People can't help but disturb the backcountry when they camp.

"Once you get people trampling over an area and you compact the soil, it might be considered a sacrificed area," according to Vicki Steele, a Montana State University-Bozeman student who is analyzing backcountry camping.

Campers can minimize the impact they make, however. For one thing, they can confine their camp activities to one small core area instead of spreading out, creating satellite camp sites and inadvertently creating social paths between the camp sites and points of interest, Steele said.

During her seven years as a ranger in the Rocky Mountain National Park of northwest Colorado, Steele said she noticed that a typical core area seems to be as big as a tent and about five feet beyond that on all sides. It generally has no vegetation.

Steele has been studying backcountry camping since January 1996, because Rocky Mountain National Park officials want to determine the state of their 226 backcountry sites. She has analyzed eight years of data from more than 150,000 campers. Park managers will use the results to help write a wilderness management plan for the park.

Her main finding so far is that, "Once you establish a camp site, it's best to leave it rather than rehabilitate the area or move it somewhere else," Steele said. Campers tend to return to a site even though officials try to move it elsewhere.

Steele said she's noticed that the longest-lasting camping sites have good soil cover. Good soil is a sign that the trees there should stay alive and free from damage. The camp sites also have no fire scars, black rocks or broken tree branches. Damaged trees and fire scars indicate that people have been chopping down trees for firewood. Long-lasting camp sites don't contain a lot of litter, human feces or other signs of impact.

"You don't want things to get overly damaged," Steele commented.

Campers who are concerned about their impact on the backcountry should ask rangers how to dispose of toilet paper and other litter, Steele continued. In some areas, burning would be best. In other places, rangers want campers to pack it out.

"It depends on the environment and the site," she explained. According to Steele, human waste is a huge problem and she recommended that campers learn how to deal with it by reading "How to S... in the Woods: an Environmentally Sound Approach to a Lost Art" by Kathleen Meyer.

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