LNT Trainers Course
On Tuesday/Wednesday I went on a overnight Leave No Trace trainers course put on by some park employees for park employees, including the superintendent. In the morning, we had a discussion on ethics and covered the basics of each principle.
At noon, we hiked out a couple miles to Nicholson Hollow. We spent the majority of the afternoon discussing the specifics of the LNT principles and covered the history of Shenandoah National Park's backcountry management plan.
The park regulations have been swinging between strict dispersal camping with a large trail to camp distance requirement to heavily concentrated camping where you must camp within sight of one of thirty-five large poles in the park. Today, the backcountry management plan is based upon some research by Jeffrey L. Marion which you can view here. Since campsites show significant usage after only 10 nights and it may take years to recover, the park has decided that it will try to find a happy medium between dispersal and concentrated camping regulations and guidelines.
The current distance regulations, ie 20 yards from trails and 10 yards from water were based upon a campsite survey and selected so that approximately 60 percent of campsites would be "legal". Park staff also strongly encourage visitors to use preexisting campsites. Part of what I do at the park now is that I rehabilitate those campsites that are too close to trails or water or those that are too heavily impacted. I thought this discussion on backcountry management was one of the more interesting topics in the course, especially with the SNP's superintendent providing his views.
In the morning we covered some more on the principles of LNT and finished up with a discussion and activity on Authority of the Resource. We generally discussed how to approach visitors about LNT or any other issue.
Overall, I got a lot out of this LNT trainer course and having the superintendent of the park added quite a bit to the workings of the National Park Service and the decisions that are made.
At noon, we hiked out a couple miles to Nicholson Hollow. We spent the majority of the afternoon discussing the specifics of the LNT principles and covered the history of Shenandoah National Park's backcountry management plan.
The park regulations have been swinging between strict dispersal camping with a large trail to camp distance requirement to heavily concentrated camping where you must camp within sight of one of thirty-five large poles in the park. Today, the backcountry management plan is based upon some research by Jeffrey L. Marion which you can view here. Since campsites show significant usage after only 10 nights and it may take years to recover, the park has decided that it will try to find a happy medium between dispersal and concentrated camping regulations and guidelines.
The current distance regulations, ie 20 yards from trails and 10 yards from water were based upon a campsite survey and selected so that approximately 60 percent of campsites would be "legal". Park staff also strongly encourage visitors to use preexisting campsites. Part of what I do at the park now is that I rehabilitate those campsites that are too close to trails or water or those that are too heavily impacted. I thought this discussion on backcountry management was one of the more interesting topics in the course, especially with the SNP's superintendent providing his views.
In the morning we covered some more on the principles of LNT and finished up with a discussion and activity on Authority of the Resource. We generally discussed how to approach visitors about LNT or any other issue.
Overall, I got a lot out of this LNT trainer course and having the superintendent of the park added quite a bit to the workings of the National Park Service and the decisions that are made.
Tags: training