A Golden Shower for the Golden Stairway

Yep, seems like everybody is pissing on our national forest lands these days. I recently returned from a trip to the Okanogan National Forest doing research for my upcoming book on the North Cascades. My first time in the Tripod Burn-an area of over 175,000 acres scorched by wildfires last year in the Okanogan. The forest is starting to come back-it always does. It is the hand of man that I worry about. Seems its open season for the mushroom pickers-from this point on referred to here as the Fungus people because many of them look like they crawled out from under a pile of... well you get the point. The Fungus People are all over the burnt hills picking mushrooms for yuppies, turning their loot into cash. I don't have a problem with that. What I have a problem with is the unregulated nature of this activity.

There are no Forest Service personnel out there making sure that the Fungus people aren't trashing the place-because they are! Literally! They are leaving scads of trash-bottles, wrappers-cans-and latex gloves all over the damned place. Many of these Fungus People have no environmental ethics-they've crawled down from the hills or over the border and they don't know a thing about Leave No Trace. Why isn't the Forest service out there educating and regulating-hell this is a money maker for the pickers it might as well help the Forest Service's bottom line too. But this is the Federal government and they don't know a thing about balancing a budget.

But there's more abuse going on out there adding insult to injury. The renegade motorcyclists know that the Forest Service isn't out there so they are out tearing up trails that they are not supposed to be on. So, I take a nice hike up the Golden Stairway in the Tiffany Highlands and what do I get with the beautiful views and forest? I get to pass by hordes of Fungus people leaving their trash and asswipe motorcyclists criminally encroaching on my forest! When will the federal government start funding the Forest Service properly so that our natural heritage isn't squandered and trashed? The situation out there is dire!