DO NOT DISTURB

Once you learn to look for micro-trash, it becomes a compulsion — see tiny scraps of rubber bands and juice-box straws and bottle caps when you want your eyes to be drawn instead to arches of alders and oaks and sycamores, or to the stream you hear trickling beyond the tree line. Look up. Stop looking down.

But you don’t. Because there’s far more trash than you ever could have imagined.

The compulsion begins for me one winter morning at Fossil Creek, the 16.8-mile stretch of Wild and Scenic River that runs from Strawberry to Camp Verde. Wisps of breath hang in the air like the smoke streamers from a blown-out birthday candle, but Dexter Allen, Mike Roseman and I are picking up garbage. Chilled noses be damned.

Allen and Roseman are used to this kind of work. As river rangers for a three-agency alliance between the Coconino, Prescott and Tonto national forests, they split their year between Fossil Creek and Arizona’s other Wild and Scenic River, the Verde, remediating invasive species, cleaning up after campers, checking wildlife habitats and — more often than they’d like — looking for micro-trash. Indeed, much of what the rangers do is mitigate human impact on the environment.

When I spy remnants of a dirty disposable diaper half-hidden beneath a bush, I realize the men and their crew have their work cut out for them.
 

The “leave no trace” concept of wilderness protection dates to the 1960s, when the U.S. Forest Service noted a powerful correlation between the growth of public lands and the amount of damage being done to them. At its root, the concept mandates that people leave public lands just as they find them — unadulterated. By the mid-1980s, the Forest Service had established a formal “no trace” program that emphasized responsible wilderness travel and camping practices.

In 1994, the nonprofit Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics was established, and it published its seven principles: Plan ahead and prepare; travel and camp on durable surfaces; dispose of waste properly; leave what you find; minimize campfire impacts; respect wildlife; and be considerate of other visitors. Today, Leave No Trace operates educational programs across the United States, including Arizona.

“[Leave No Trace] is more important in Arizona because of its desert environment,” says Cindy de Leon Reilly, Arizona’s Leave No Trace advocate. “It’s highly sensitive due to the lack of water and high temperatures. Leave No Trace helps preserve the integrity of every ecosystem.”

Perhaps this decade’s most tragic example of forgotten Leave No Trace ethics and the resulting compromise of a delicate ecosystem is the Wallow Fire. As the fire burned in the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests during the summer of 2011, officials and investigators discovered that it began when two men went out for a hike without extinguishing their campfire. More than six weeks, 538,000 acres and $79 million later, the fire was out, but the White Mountains were devastated, along with the local economy.

The two men, cousins, faced federal charges of leaving a campfire unattended, starting a fire on federal land and failing to extinguish or remove flammable material from the area near the fire. Ultimately, they were ordered to pay $3.7 million in restitution, an amount they’ll likely never repay in their lifetimes.

And given the tinderbox conditions of the state as a whole — as of late March, “severe or worse drought conditions” in Arizona had expanded to include 57 percent of the state, according to the Arizona Department of Water Resources — it’s likely that this and subsequent generations will have to anticipate and manage more frequent and potentially larger wildfires. Especially if campers continue to ignore Leave No Trace principle No. 5.
 

Back at the creek, where drought conditions are now considered moderate, wildfire is a significant concern and the primary reason the Forest Service outlawed campfires here in 2010.

“Since we closed the portion of the road that leads to and from Strawberry, we only have one way in and one way out,” Allen says. “That would pose a really big problem if ever there were a fire. How would we get everyone out?”

But road closures and egress haven’t always been a concern at Fossil Creek. The water’s flow was significantly reduced for decades, thanks to two hydroelectric power plants Arizona Public Service ran along the creek’s banks. When the company closed the plants and undammed the creek in 2005, the area was returned to its original riparian splendor, and it became a major draw for summertime visitors — primarily from the Phoenix area.

But with the people came the problems.

“As charged by Congress, as part of the designation of a Wild and Scenic River, we provide recreational opportunities for people along Fossil Creek,” Roseman adds. “But that doesn’t trump the larger mission, which is to protect wildlife and habitat.”

Indeed, Fossil Creek seems ground zero for studying the Leave No Trace principles and what happens when people either never learn them or choose not to responsibly practice them.

On this day, Roseman walks me toward the creek while Allen disperses the burned-out log skeletons of a forbidden fire. We’re in a section of the wilderness known as Purple Mountain, and here, bordering the creek, is a stand of Arizona alders. Their bark smells of paper, and despite being leafless for the winter, their limbs cast long shadows.

One tree stands out from the others, but not for its beauty. Its bark is etched with the initials of lovers: “E+C,” “RGS+M,” “DMB.” Hearts. Scars. When I express my disgust, Roseman tells me that it’s not the worst thing people do to trees.

He explains that the creek is alluring because of its near-constant 70-degree temperature. Come summer, flocks of people travel the rocky, winding stretch of Forest Road 708 from Camp Verde for a chance to swim in the creek’s water and splash around beneath its waterfalls. When they come, they bring ropes, and they use them to make rope swings.

It’s hard to argue the exhilaration of flying over the creek and diving into the water, but the swings harm the trees — they choke branches, weakening the limbs. That leads to breakage, danger to campers and swimmers, and, as a byproduct, the destruction of bird habitat.

Mammals, too, are at risk.

“Deer, javelina, mountain lion and bear are being habituated by the public,” Allen says. “Raccoons and skunks are beginning to think there’s a free meal in every camp because people aren’t hanging their trash bags high up in trees, which is part of Leave No Trace. Or they leave trash bags behind. If people don’t clean up their kitchens and food debris, animals think there’s an easy meal out of the public. That’s a bad thing for those animals.”

It’s becoming more and more apparent that when it comes to Fossil Creek, the ecosystem is as fragile as fragile gets.

“Fossil Creek is a gem,” Reilly says. “It has a river system that includes a series of springs, swimming holes
and waterfalls. It’s one of the most diverse riparian areas in Arizona. Hence, thriving in this location are many species of wildlife, birds and over 30 species of vegetation. It’s a paradise surrounded by desert.”

But there are risks to that paradise.

As required by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act of 1968, the Forest Service is creating a Comprehensive River Management Plan (CRMP), which should go into effect in 2015. The plan is part of the three-forest initiative, in conjunction with Fossil Creek’s stakeholders — among them the Western Apache tribes, which maintain several cultural sites in the area. At press time, stakeholders were considering three different versions of the CRMP, and all of them included a heavy emphasis on the Leave No Trace ethics.

In the meantime, Allen, Roseman and the Forest Service have implemented measures to reduce human impact on the creek.

“We’ve had problems with social trailing and the capacity the creek can handle,” Roseman says. “We’ve corrected that in the interim so that we close the gate at a certain time every morning — and it’s dynamic. People arrive earlier or later, so it changes daily. We’ve had to come up with a capacity plan over the past four years, both at the spring site and the creek proper. Just to hold it together. Just to protect the place.”

Campers can no longer pitch their tents within 100 feet of the creek. Glass is forbidden. The Forest Service installed barriers around campsites to protect vegetation and differentiate parking areas from camping areas. The measures have controlled parking, reduced traffic and successfully nurtured a population of common black hawks.

As with anything, once the CRMP is in place, it will take the Forest Service some time to educate the public about what it means and how it will affect visitors to Fossil Creek.

“After we banned campfires, we spent three years writing citations before the public caught on that they couldn’t have fires anymore,” Allen says. But that’s not to say that he and Roseman don’t have hope for the creek’s future.

In fact, when I wonder aloud whether Fossil Creek would be better off if it were closed to the public — after spending the morning there, my instinct is to wrap a blanket of barricades around it — the men are quick to defend the public.

“It’s been challenging,” Roseman says. “But if we can teach people what this place means and just how special it is, maybe they’ll want to help us protect it.”

And maybe they’ll start by packing out their trash.

For more information about Fossil Creek, visit www.fs.usda.gov/coconino. To get the latest information on creek conditions, call the Fossil Creek hotline, 928-226-4611. For more information about the Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics, visit www.lnt.org.