We pull down a side road off Mt. Herman Rd. in the Pike National Forest just west of Monument, my hometown.
It's our first camping trip of the early summer. The sun is nearing the horizon.
The first campsite we see is a complete disaster. There's a galaxy of trash: shotgun shells, broken glass, plastic wrappers, beer cans, and more shotgun shells. A wooden pallet shot to pieces.
We park and wander down the hill on foot. My Saturn may or may not be able to make it down. It will be even dicier on making it back up. On a walk populated by woods and trash, we make it to road's end, marked by an abandoned lawnmower and a single sneaker.
But the valley below is an incredible sight, with massive balanced chunks of pink granite. In between us and the giant rocks is a landfill's worth of debris: TVs, computer monitors, bottles, cans, all of it dotted with bulletholes.
We decide against pitching our tent at the end of the road and retrace our steps. One campsite looks acceptable, below imposing rock formations, less trash than the others, but still more than a little. Unfortunately, there is a fox carcass in the fire ring, presumably shot dead by recent campers. We can't stay there.
Backtracking further, we see a pair of side-by-side sites, with a relatively light assortment of trash. The light is dying, so we bite the figurative bullet. I jog back to my car, drive down the steep hill, and settle on the site with the least broken glass. There's still a lot of it.
We build a fire and cook bratwurst. The trees and the garbage fade into the night.
The next morning, the sun rises, and it's all still there. We decide we have the entire day to find a better site for night two. We can't stay here. There are thousands of shards of plastic and glass, a shot-apart toy truck behind a fallen tree.
The Saturn just barely climbs the hill out in low gear.
We park a quarter-mile down the hill and explore another campsite. There's a much lighter sprinkling of shotgun shells and broken glass. The view is amazing.
We walk the main road a half-mile to a turnoff and wander down another rutted side road. I'm even less sure the Saturn would make it down this one, but the first few camping spots look a bit less trashed at first glance.
The end of the road, however, is marked by a half-dozen or so bowling pins, painted red, hanging from tree limbs and pockmarked with shotgun scars. It's a little unsettling. I wander off of the road to try and tear them down, but fail -- they're secured with tightly wound coathangers.
We meander back up to the car and ultimately settle on that spot, then fill a trash bag with broken glass and spent ammo.
An hour later, the view overwhelms everything else. Clouds and sky above, evergreen forest and pink granite below, a sense of smallness prevails. The setting sun casts a purple hue on the landscape.
It is an incredible moment, one I'll never forget.
The only drawback? The silence is punctuated by gunfire well into the night. Then it stops. After several hours -- at about 3am -- it starts again. I rouse in the tent. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
The 2nd Amendment may bestow the right to bear arms, but nowhere in the Constitution is the right to trash public lands. Nor is there any mention of the right to be an asshole.
It's high time to reclaim the forest from them.
Update (July 8, 2014): Amazingly, the U.S. Forest Service announced a shooting ban on Mt. Herman today: http://gazette.com/forest-service-bans.../article/1522624
Update (Aug. 1, 2014): Friends of Monument Preserve has been organizing cleanups on Mt. Herman.
It's our first camping trip of the early summer. The sun is nearing the horizon.
The first campsite we see is a complete disaster. There's a galaxy of trash: shotgun shells, broken glass, plastic wrappers, beer cans, and more shotgun shells. A wooden pallet shot to pieces.
We park and wander down the hill on foot. My Saturn may or may not be able to make it down. It will be even dicier on making it back up. On a walk populated by woods and trash, we make it to road's end, marked by an abandoned lawnmower and a single sneaker.
But the valley below is an incredible sight, with massive balanced chunks of pink granite. In between us and the giant rocks is a landfill's worth of debris: TVs, computer monitors, bottles, cans, all of it dotted with bulletholes.
We decide against pitching our tent at the end of the road and retrace our steps. One campsite looks acceptable, below imposing rock formations, less trash than the others, but still more than a little. Unfortunately, there is a fox carcass in the fire ring, presumably shot dead by recent campers. We can't stay there.
Backtracking further, we see a pair of side-by-side sites, with a relatively light assortment of trash. The light is dying, so we bite the figurative bullet. I jog back to my car, drive down the steep hill, and settle on the site with the least broken glass. There's still a lot of it.
We build a fire and cook bratwurst. The trees and the garbage fade into the night.
The next morning, the sun rises, and it's all still there. We decide we have the entire day to find a better site for night two. We can't stay here. There are thousands of shards of plastic and glass, a shot-apart toy truck behind a fallen tree.
The Saturn just barely climbs the hill out in low gear.
We park a quarter-mile down the hill and explore another campsite. There's a much lighter sprinkling of shotgun shells and broken glass. The view is amazing.
We walk the main road a half-mile to a turnoff and wander down another rutted side road. I'm even less sure the Saturn would make it down this one, but the first few camping spots look a bit less trashed at first glance.
The end of the road, however, is marked by a half-dozen or so bowling pins, painted red, hanging from tree limbs and pockmarked with shotgun scars. It's a little unsettling. I wander off of the road to try and tear them down, but fail -- they're secured with tightly wound coathangers.
We meander back up to the car and ultimately settle on that spot, then fill a trash bag with broken glass and spent ammo.
An hour later, the view overwhelms everything else. Clouds and sky above, evergreen forest and pink granite below, a sense of smallness prevails. The setting sun casts a purple hue on the landscape.
It is an incredible moment, one I'll never forget.
The only drawback? The silence is punctuated by gunfire well into the night. Then it stops. After several hours -- at about 3am -- it starts again. I rouse in the tent. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
The 2nd Amendment may bestow the right to bear arms, but nowhere in the Constitution is the right to trash public lands. Nor is there any mention of the right to be an asshole.
It's high time to reclaim the forest from them.
Update (July 8, 2014): Amazingly, the U.S. Forest Service announced a shooting ban on Mt. Herman today: http://gazette.com/forest-service-bans.../article/1522624
Update (Aug. 1, 2014): Friends of Monument Preserve has been organizing cleanups on Mt. Herman.
Eric Peterson / July 2014