Forest Service official: Visitors getting too wild for Aspen-area wilderness

One hundred seventy-five piles of human waste, 244 dogs off leash, 107 illegal campsites, 307 illegal fires. Those are some of the outdoor transgressions the U.S. Forest Service dealt with in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness in 2014. The numbers reflect a growing number of visitors to the vastly popular wilderness area on the outskirts of Aspen. It turned 50 last year with the golden anniversary of the Wilderness Act, which passed in 1964. The swelling use of the pristine attraction — which includes the Conundrum Hot Springs, Crater Lake, the Maroon Bells and a number of hiking trails — has prompted Forest Service officials to eye ways to make visitors more aware of proper outdoors protocol, whether it’s by collecting their own feces, cleaning up their trash or leashing their animals. The Forest Service also is pondering the creation of a permit system that would limit visits, an idea that is partly based on the contention that the outdoor experience’s serenity and solitude have been compromised by the high volumes of visitor traffic...more

Hey, there's Pitkin County again.  I posted yesterday about them being so concerned the state might take over management of the federal lands.  Recall that Commissioner Richards and another county official thought the whole movement to transfer lands was a bunch of snake oil.  I kindly suggested Obama designate the entire county a national monument and it be named the Snake Oil National Monument.

Well, little miss Snake Oil herself is back with some grand ideas:

Richards suggested an honor code of sorts — “making people sign on to understand the rules” — in which users initial forms that explain proper protocol and the laws of the land. “I think for a lot of people in the city, this is as close as they’ll ever get to true wilderness,” she said.

 Its also as close as they'll ever get to 175 piles of human waste.  Let's see, all those piles of "human waste" plus "307 illegal fires" under federal management.  That's it!

We'll call it the Shit Fire National Monument.

I can't wait to see the honor code for that.