venting

[Michael]

My brother and some of his friends made a simple shelter a bit off the trail a couple of years ago. It was just a wooden lattice with a sheet of plastic secured to a couple of trees. There was a small fire pit beside it.

They go up there hiking a lot, including in the winter. The idea was that if it starts raining or snowing, they have a spot they can go to get out of the weather and dry off a bit.

So we went for a hike up there yesterday. It's the first time he'd been there since early this winter.

The place was wrecked. Someone had come in and torn down his shelter and cut up the plastic sheet. They'd chopped down more than a dozen small trees and taken big chunks out of several medium to large ones. They'd built up a fire and thrown someone's jacket into it, so there was a half burned winter jacket. And they'd left tons of trash.

They'd basically taken a beautiful area with a little shelter and wrecked it. I just don't understand why someone would do that. My brother was totally bummed.

[BirdBrain]

That's a shame. There are people who have no respect or common sense. I'm sorry he's so bummed out but look at it as an opportunity to go bigger and better. Then put a trail camera by it so you can see who does the damage.

[Forester]

I understand how your brother feels. Unfortunately, this world is not a perfect place. We can't just expect everybody to be respectful. I think those vandals need to psychological hep.