Bad Behavior in the Woods

If you’re out in the backcountry a lot you meet all kinds of people. Most are great, whether they’re skiers, snowmobilers or four wheelers. We all share that love of the outdoors. But sometimes you come across some real jerks out there.

A couple of weeks ago three of us took off for a little ski from what’s known as the four corners in Westfield. We parked beside the ball field where the Britian Road and the Campbell Road meet. It’s a busy place in the winter with trails leading off from that junction in all directions and plenty of snowmobile and ATV traffic. We skied for a couple of hours and on our return, as we got closer to the car we heard a group of ATV’s nearby. It sounded like one or a few of them were just spinning around in circles kicking up the snow. It went on and on. A short time later we saw the group from the top of the hill. There must have been about ten ATV’s most of them those racing models with rear wheel drive. They’re a lot noisier and faster than the four wheelers. We could see what appeared to be mostly kids driving them, spinning the tires and chewing up the trail as they went. When we reached the car the driver’s side was completely coated in snow. A moron on one of those machines had spun around in circles doing donuts a few feet from the vehicle, kicking up a spray of snow and pebbles on the car. It was on so thick I had to scrape the windshield. Thankfully it was my old car and not the new van belonging to a friend we were originally going to take.

About a week later I was skiing again with one of the same guys and we came upon a pile of empty beer cans and bottles and other garbage just tossed in the snow. It was at a beautiful spot where the Robin Hood and Little John Lakes connect. It is at the beginning of the trail to Turtle Mountain. No doubt a large group of riders were out for the day enjoying themselves and decided to leave their garbage behind for someone else to deal with. This is just thoughtless and selfish behavior. People using the trails should know better. Thankfully the kind of people who do these kind of things are in the minority.