Respect My Home: A Letter to Tourists

Please respect our home. When the pandemic hit, people rediscovered the outdoors. It is easy to social distance and you always go inside feeling better than when you left. Hiking and other outdoor activities are great for a person’s health and staying healthy is one thing that is on everyone’s mind. These floods of people brought some serious problems to those of use that call these areas home.

I have lived and hiked in the Hudson Valley for the past two years and after the pandemic hit I saw a huge increase in visitorship to the forests, state parks, and other natural places of beauty in the Great State of New York. There is a lot to see and do. I understand the desire to explore it. That is why I moved my family here. It takes a lot of work to maintain those trails and there is not enough manpower to keep up with the crowds.

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Especially when tourists ignore the principle of Leave No Trace.

This means that you leave the area looking the same, if not better, than you found it.

It means you only carry in what you can carry out.

Don’t haul a grill up a mountain to cook at unsafe altitudes and then abandon it all for someone else to clean up.

Garbage found on and around trails. This shows a lack of respect for the place we call home. (Thank you Robert Farrell of Cornwall, NY for these pictures)

Clean up after your dog.

Dog poop has nutrients that aren’t what is normally found in the woods (ex. higher levels of nitrogen) and so it is not good to expose the wildlife to it. Cleaning up after your dog does NOT mean put the poop in a “biodegradable” bag and leave it on the side of the trail. It means to CARRY OUT. Remove it from the equation entirely. Those bags might be labeled as biodegradable but I know of one bag that was thrown into a compost bin 3 years ago and it is still there. They last much longer than people think and nobody wants to be hiking and step on or find a 3-year-old bag of dog poop.

Use this special waste bag or something similar to carry dog poop out without the smell.

I know I’ll get the question so if you are curious about if you have to go in the woods, here is a great article from REI about hiking for beginners. At the end, you will find great recommendations about going to the bathroom in the woods.

Our rainbow of trash we collected one day on a 1 mile stretch of trail.

Note on “Rock Graffiti”

Rock graffiti is the stacking of rocks in random areas. When you make a pile of rocks randomly on a trail, you can confuse hiker as that is usually a sign of a trail junction. Seeing a pile of rocks could confuse someone and get them lost. Stacking rocks in creeks is incredibly disruptive to the ecosystem there. If you are an adult, just don’t do it. I understand that kids like to play. Instead of stacking rocks, encourage kids to look under the rocks for bugs and place them back respectfully. Teach them about the environment. Pick up one rock and find an existing pile to add to and help rebuild. This is allows kids the freedom to play with rocks and still be respectful.

What about the park rangers?

I constantly hear comments like, “someone is paid to do that.” Yes, there are park rangers but our parks are understaffed and lack the funding to hire more people. Also, their job is supposed to be keeping people, and the environment, safe. The sad fact is that there are not enough park rangers to patrol the Catskills and the Adirondacks. They are HUGE parks and the Catskills only have 8 rangers and the Adirondacks have 50. Yosemite is a third of the size and has 330 rangers. This is a problem.

What happens here, is that the people who live here end up heading out with garbage bags and gloves to pick up after you. I’ve seen images of people filling 3 pickup trucks with over 150 pounds of garbage from a popular waterfall. When you leave you garbage, you endanger the habitat to the point that the state will have to consider closing it all together to protect it. Then, we all lose access to these naturally beautiful areas due to the actions of a few disrespectful people. So don’t be in that group that causes us to lose the places we love.

It’s the same idea as not picking a flower so that someone else can enjoy it, or maybe that isn’t a lesson that everyone grows up with.

I love that you are getting out and exploring. Come learn about our forests and towns. Discover your favorite small cafe or lunch spot after a day on the mountain but please respect our home.

That also means leaving the spray paint at home.

There is one spot by my house on a beautiful drive by the Hudson River that people love to pull off at. The view is amazing. I take my kids there. We have walked the road when it is closed due to weather. There has always been a problem with people painting inappropriate comments there but it got so bad this year that we stopped going. It is disrespectful to those of us that live here when you travel a distance to deface the natural beauty that we work to preserve as residents.

Graffiti on the side of the road at a viewpoint people use to look at the Hudson Valley

Nobody wants to bring their young kids to a spot that is marred with a hundred spray painted d***s everywhere. Graffiti art is beautiful in its own way and if I want to show my kids that kind of art, I will bring them to the city. It does not need to invade the natural areas of this world.

You might say that you just want to go for a nice hike and you will carry out what you carry in. There is one more request I have for everyone who wants to show respect while visiting.

Respecting our home means learning how to hike safely and researching the trails you want to try. If the parking lot is full when you arrive, have a backup plan instead of blocking someone in or parking dangerously on the road. Drive to another trail. You can also look online to see if there are any mentions about small parking lots or certain ones that are overcrowded. If you can’t get there early enough, then try a different one.

Many local trail-heads had to be closed because people started parking in a way that they blocked the roads. I even heard of people parking on private property! Imagine walking outside to mow the lawn only to find cars parked there and the owners nowhere in sight. That would frustrate anyone! There are so many trails and parks here, have a plan and if you find the lot to be full, move on.

Read this article from REI to learn the basics for beginning hiking.

As the number of hikers goes up, so does the number of accidents that happen on the mountain. I have heard of so many more helicopter rescues and lost hiker reports this summer than ever before. Just like with any other physical activity, there is a learning curve with hiking and ignoring that is how people get hurt.

Know your ability and recognize your inexperience. Hiking in the mountains isn’t like walking around the city. You might walk 10+ miles there and then find yourself exhausted after 2 on the mountain. Be prepared. Be smart. Get educated. Don’t take on too much the first time.

If you are going to hike with kids, check out my posts to learn about hiking with a baby and hiking with a toddler.

My son at Badman Cave in the Catskills. Even here, you find graffiti.

It all boils down to respect.

Respect yourself, both your strengths and weaknesses. This includes educating yourself so that you know what you are taking on.

Respect the world and actively work to preserve these natural spaces for the next generation and beyond. Earth has suffered enough and it is about time we started to take care of her. It starts by learning that we are all responsible for our actions.

Respect our home. We live here so that we can enjoy the natural beauty. The last thing we want is for that to be ruined because larger crowds have discovered what we already knew.

Show respect for each other. That is really what it is about. Because if we can’t respect each other and our world then what legacy are we leaving for our children?

Local boy cleaning up garbage on Storm King Mountain — Locals get stuck cleaning up garbage on Storm King Mountain – Check out this amazing family on Instagram!

Approach each other with respect and understanding.

Next time you visit a private, state, or national park and a local seems to be annoyed with you from the start, understand what we have seen. Understand the people that we have been dealing with and the literal garbage we have cleaned up. I hope you can understand that this frustration has built up from the masses of people that did not respect our home. Approach us with kindness, understanding, and respect and you will find that we will return it 100% and more.

Side Note to Locals

There is one thing that we can do as locals other than cleaning up the garbage like we have and that is educating people that you see on the trail. If someone isn’t following proper hiking edict, tell them, they might not know. Educate people about the area they are hiking in and help them to feel a deeper connection to the area. The more we work to educate people, the more respect we will see in return. I know it isn’t your job but it is amazing the difference you can make with a smile, a friendly disposition, and a little education!

I want to leave them a world that is better than when I found it or at least starting to improve. Children should grow up with hope in their hearts and a mind toward a better future. It is our job as parents to teach them respect by SHOWING them respect. Teach them to be good, kind humans by being good and kind ourselves.

So, I guess that letter is more than a letter asking people to stop trashing my home. It is a letter begging humanity to learn and to come together through mutual respect. I love that you discovered the beauty of this world. Now, let’s work to save that beauty so that generations to come can enjoy the same natural wonders.