Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Trash Back in the Day on Whitney

I was browsing through old issues of the Sierra Echo, the newsletter of the Sierra Peaks Section of the Sierra Club, when I found this:

ANTI-LITTER EXPEDITION FINDS 2 TONS
OF TIN CANS, GLASS ON MT. WHITNEY
More than 2 tons of litter was removed from Mt. Whitney August 8-16 by the Burl Parkinson Memorial AntiLitter xpedition. The houl included
4,000 ววนาาüร-กlus of tin canន •
Tom awi Trudie 'unt were leaders.

Errors are perhaps due to scanning of old copies. Wonder how they packed it out.

Vol. III, No. 4, September-October 1959

https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/default/files/2025-05/sps1959v3_4.pdf

Also found issues where members criticized the section for allowing large campfires on trips. Smaller campfires were still common in 1974, and that was when I turned against them. While I enjoyed a campfire as much as anyone else, I could not bear their ugly remains.

So Leave No Trace has made progress. I remember that when I first hiked Baldy in September, 1969, I saw no one else, and the ugly use paths and stone wind shelters were not there. But the summit was littered with broken glass and cans.

Back In The Day...
Scarring...

I remember heading up the MR and Ranger Dave was hard at work eliminating the scars of the multiple campsites at LBSL...
They had been tasked with an Inventory...
And, then the Hard Work...

[quote=Edw]I was browsing through old issues of the Sierra Echo, the newsletter of the Sierra Peaks Section of the Sierra Club, when I found this:

ANTI-LITTER EXPEDITION FINDS 2 TONS
OF TIN CANS, GLASS ON MT. WHITNEY
More than 2 tons of litter was removed from Mt. Whitney August 8-16 by the Burl Parkinson Memorial AntiLitter xpedition. The houl included
4,000 ววนาาüร-กlus of tin canន •
Tom awi Trudie 'unt were leaders.

Errors are perhaps due to scanning of old copies. Wonder how they packed it out.

Vol. III, No. 4, September-October 1959[\quote]

Perhaps:
"The haul included 4000 pounds-plus of tin cans.
Tom and Trudie Hunt were leaders."
Has AI made us too stupid and lazy to read for our selves?

As to how they packed it out, horses and mules were available on the trail in the old times. Perhaps horses and mules hadn't been carrying down as much as they had been carrying up.

Later in the document you have referenced, Trudie Hunt refers to the "Mule Pack Group". It was a Sierra Club Angeles Chapter Section. Maybe they helped.

Dale Dalrymple

Ed,

Thanks for recalling the August 8-16, 1959 Anti-Litter Expedition that removed 2.5 TONS OF CANS from Mt Whitney.

My Dad and I descended Mt Whitney 2 weeks later (50th Anniversary of the Summit Shelter) and benefitted from this cleanup.

In that same edition of the Sierra Echo there is an article "Bearpaw Meadow Beginners' Hike." After a canned dinner, it is noted "The Bearpaw Meadow proprietors then dumped an assortment of garbage over the cliff."

In late August 1959 my Dad and I hiked the High Sierra Trail. When the ranger at the Chagoopa Falls Ranger Station discovered I was low on food, he gave me two (really good) cans of corned beef hash. (BTW-then the adjacent Kern Hot Springs had two tubs and was enclosed in a wood building.) We camped at Timberline Lake and Mirror Lake, which was permitted in that era.

It seems our approach to backcountry travel has improved since then, but there is still room for improvement. So let's take good care of the Mountain which has provided our families with such great experiences.

Jim

PS-Concerning Dale's observation, I have a Sierra Club book published in 1953 "Going Light with backpack or burrow." It is edited by David Brower.

It's a shame they shut down the Trail Camp Research Station---too much crappy data, I guess...

A couple of years after the removal of the Trail Camp Research Station (as well as its twin in Bighorn Park), the auxiliary station (THE THRONE) was removed from its location several dozen yards west of the Summit Shelter. We had hoped that the Throne would be designated a National Historic Monument, but that did not happen.

I collected a few scraps of the discarded wood siding from the Throne after its demise. They were added to my collection of old beer cans, horseshoes, etc from the Mountain.

After I top out on the Final Pitch, my estate has been instructed to forward the chunks of wood from the Throne to the Smithsonian Institution.

Jim

I remember when Bob Huey discovered that someone had very recently used Bob's stone shelter on the summit as a throne.

I never felt worthy enough to sit on the throne...the tragedy of being low-born.

Fun fact: The original Game of Thrones throne was modeled after the summit perch, but was deemed "too unrealistic" that anyone would actually sit on it...

Rick Kent and I were up on the Mountain the day the Research Station at Outpost was burned to the ground by a couple of Rangers...I'm sure I have a photo sonewhere...

Thanks for the link to your photos. Planning to do Mountaineers route next month, so the photos are helpful.