Thread: Does a bear shit in the woods

Welcome to the new outdoors!

I'm sure there are places in the North Island that are just as bad as we have down here in this region but what gets me about the mess down here is it's not just out in hills, its right in town as well. Walk around the river track in Arrowtown and take two steps off to the side... shit everywhere. Just about every walking track in the basin is similar and some places are just shocking.

As an example, the well-publicised walk to the top of Ben Lomond up behind the Skyline has finally been recognised as a problem area and toliets are being arranged at the saddle. Whereas the track might have seen a handful of walkers per day a few years ago, prior to the Covid lockdown it was estimated around 650 people per day were walking that track and it seemed half of them wanted to take a dump somewhere along the way. Watching the line of people walking up the ridge was reminiscent of the photos you see of the queues to stand on the top of Everset. The mess was abysmal.

While you can understand how places like that might get abused due to the numbers of trampers, I'm now finding piles of shit in the more remote places we hunt too. It appears "getting off the beaten track" and adventure racing or adventure race training runs are the "in thing" and these people are typically in a hurry. Piles of goat shit are being replaced with piles of human shit and it pisses me off royally. Like you, Shortmag, I'd love to educate them.

FFS people, dig a hole and bury it. And don't leave piles of toilet paper laying around. It takes a few seconds to kick a hole in the ground beforehand and less to cover it afterwards.