Lehigh Gorge State Park (5-Feb-2016)

Back in December I worked on cleaning up trails at the Glen Onoco access of the Lehigh Gorge. On this trip there I stuck to the riverside and it was just as trashy as the trails. The day started and ended with snow flurries, but there was a good amount of time in between with some sun. Overall it was a nice day by the river, exclude the trash and it would have been excellent. 

Picked these items up before I even made it to the water. That Gatorade was just a waste of plastic. Bottled, shipped, never used and now the plastic goes to recycling. 

Going up the river bank I ended up between the river and one of the parking lots. Here there is just a small trail and a steep slope that goes up to the lot. Judging by the amount of items I found it is extremely popular to throw your bottles and cans over the edge and down towards the river.

This was collected in just a small area on the slope. I could see more trash further down, but this filled my pack and I took the short walk back to my car to drop this off and start over again. 

One full pack. After sorting this out, taking this photo and separating the recyclables from non, I packed this into the car and went right back to the slope.

Even more stuff and I once again filled my pack and this time I got a trash bag out and started filling that. I think the items on the right were in a bag when they were thrown there. They were all grouped in a pile, not close to a trail and I have seen it before where the top half of a plastic bag will photo degrade leaving the contents like this. The green thing in the middle was the first diaper of the day. It was left there. Again I have to sort through all of the items later and everything has to go in my car. A used soggy diaper is not something I want to repeatedly deal with and there are no trash cans at the site.

This is an example of a plastic bag photo degrading. Until I meet someone drinking 40's in a state park, I am never going to understand who does this. If I do come across someone doing so I am going to go and talk to them, I have a lot of questions. 

Bottles, cans, bottles, cans, then....

I thought it was just an empty bag when I picked it up. The weight of it told me something was still in it and the smell of liquid running down my hand let me know there was a whole in it. This was the worst smelling item so far this year and like the diaper I had to leave it behind. In this case the smell really was overwhelming. When it warms up I will try to make it back especially for this items which then I can wash out in the river before I put it in a bag. 

A full pack and over a quarter of a garbage bag. This coupled with the first round filled the garbage bag completely and it was the only one I had on me. I set out again this time just with my pack and I was going to see how much stuff was along the D&L trail and the riverside. This hike was more for scouting to see how much trash was washed up in this area. Normally there isn't too much.

This snow man cheerfully waved as I passed, even as it was melting in the sun. 

The D&L Trail leaving Glen Onoco. Here there is an extremely steep slope down to the river and there are only certain places that can be walked below at this time of year. 

In the areas that could be walked there were a lot of debris piles and a few bottles in them. 

It didn't take too much time to fill up the pack and I was left with more items than would fit and had to carry some of it out by hand. 

On the way out I didn't look in this and of course it was full of trash. I will be back to this with my tongs on another day. I have a lot more work to do along the shore as well.

On the way out it was snowing again, I was cold, getting tired and I really just wanted to get everything packed in the car and warm up. Then I saw something that looked like a hand held radio on the side of the trail, but it had this odd cloth on the top. I took the cloth top off and I thought I had found a taser. The ranger yesterday said to call in anything strange and to me this qualified. I left it, called it in and took the trash to my car and waited. A ranger came fairly quickly and I took him out to it. He picked it up, examined it and it was clearly not a taser, but some sort of recording device. I don't think either of us had ever seen anything like it before. Thank you to the ranger who came out today, sorry I called you out for some sort of microphone.

I didn't do the sort on the last pack, it was just bottles, cans and some styrofoam, nothing special. The garbage bag, the white bag, the pack and a couple bottles on the right side were from today. Everything else behind them was from Beltzville. I need to clean my car out tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will not be as windy as this morning and I can finally do a recycling day. 
You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash