Hikers find scenic mountain trashed along Appalachian Trail in North Carolina
A scenic North Carolina mountain has grown in popularity — and filled with trash.
Photos show tents and garbage littering Max Patch, an area along the famed Appalachian Trail, the U.S. Forest Service said Tuesday in a Facebook post.
Hikers found the location filled with discarded drink containers, cigarette butts and bedding last weekend, according to pictures Benny Braden shared with WLOS.
“Before it was said and done, we picked up five bags of garbage, along with four pillows, three blankets, and one red wagon,” he told the TV station.
The site has no trash bins or bathrooms available, and people have relieved themselves “all over the place,” the Citizen-Times reported.
“I wouldn’t want to go walking around there at night and have to dodge all the poop,” Morgan Sommerville, southeast regional director for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, told the newspaper.
The U.S. Forest Service in North Carolina will work with the conservancy and Carolina Mountain Club to find a solution for the site, which “has become an increasingly popular destination due to social media,” according to the public lands agency.
Though officials say they don’t recommend camping at Max Patch due to the risks of strong winds and lightning, people can still spend nights there.
Tents must be at least 200 feet from the Appalachian Trail and from water sources, according to the forest service. There’s also a restriction on the length of stay and a requirement that people make their campsites are a quarter-mile from trailheads and recreation areas.
“You must practice Leave No Trace principles including take all trash home with you and deposit human waste in catholes dug 6-8 inches deep,” officials said.
Max Patch is a 4,629-foot grassy mountain top that has “360-degree vistas of Mount Mitchell to the east and Great Smoky Mountains to the southwest,” the forest service said on its website.
The Max Patch trailhead is in the Pisgah National Forest, roughly 40 miles west of Asheville and bordering Tennessee. The Appalachian Trail crosses the area on its 2,190-mile path from Georgia to Maine.
