Trash piles up on Mount Lemmon as government shutdown lingers and endless other headlines from our National Parks during the Government Shutdown are on my mind on the way up the highway.

At Babad Do’ag I don’t see a pile up and at Molino Basin the bathroom doors are open and things look clean – I can see a little trash scattered at Windy Point, but nothing out of the ordinary after a busy weekend and in Bear Canyon things seem fine.

The Bigelow Trailhead is the first place I pull in where the government shutdown really shows – trash is scattered across the parking lot and accumulating under overflowing trash bins – a women hesitates at the bathroom door and turns back to the car exclaiming ‘not fit for a pig’.

Bits of trash at a trailhead really just isn’t all that shocking – there is a reason that I keep a trash picker in the truck – but this amount of trash is unusual and sad. It doesn’t take long to have two trash bags full and leaning against the truck – I’m working on bag three (mostly broken plastic sled pieces) when when a Forest Service Crew pulls up – a sort of trash strike force they quickly empty bins, grab trash and work on the restrooms – in spite of what I suspect must have been an epic (depressing?) day of cleaning up trash they still smile and graciously add my collected garbage to their load.

I wonder if other areas were as bad as the Bigelow Trailhead before the Forest Service crew came thru? Probably… It is sad to see people leave so much trash – and sad that our government can shutdown and leave these places without the care they deserve.