Mop Up Operations

 Visit #1302, Saturday 17 April 21, 11:25AM-2:00PM, 4.0 miles, 89.1 lbs. of litter.

Temps in the low 60's, variable cloudiness.

I returned to the homeless camp I found last week for the sole purpose of removing all the abandoned camping gear, food containers, clothes, and trash.

Having found and inspected the site last week, I knew what I would need to bring for a successful trip, and as a result I encountered no major difficulties.

Here's the site as I found it Saturday as I began to pull everything apart.

Honestly, I didn't take a detailed inventory but sorta thought there was a tarp among the mess that I could use to drag everything down to the water treatment plant. As luck would have it, there WAS a tarp, and it had grommets! Since I always pack a couple pieces of rope, I was able to pile a heavy mass in the middle of the tarp, draw the rope through the grommets to cinch up the package, and it was mostly downhill to the plant where I would leave it. Below is after the first trip; you can see the brown tarp on the right.

I folded the tarp, brought it back up, and made a second trip. That's the bundled tarp on the left, with my rope tethered to it on the right. Fortunately, the tarp survived all that dragging through the woods.

One last trip to add to the pile. Oh, the water department is going to love seeing this-NOT! I scribbled a note on the cover of the Rubbermaid container explaining everything. Hopefully they find, read it, and give me a pass.

And here's the cleaned up camp site.

With some time left on my schedule, I thought I'd hike a short loop of some trails and pick up litter. But as I neared the Halfway House I spied this:

I must have walked this trail hundreds of times and never saw this off to the side. Rather then continue on my way, I rolled the tire all the way to the water treatment plant and left it with the camp site garbage.

I returned to the park and dropped off my last bag of trash. Next week I hope to return to normal operations.