June 2021 - 41

dirty or getting fish guts on your fingers,
camping sounds nice after many people were
cooped up throughout 2020. The outdoors
were a good way to stay safe and follow health
guidelines during the pandemic, and many
people took advantage of it - even those
who didn't get much closer to camping than
sitting by a grill in their backyard roasting
marshmallows.
Camping was already steadily increasing
in the last decade. Nearly 80 million households
reported going camping in 2018, a
22 percent increase since 2014, according
to a KOA national camping report. But it
exploded last year, and as frustrated seasoned
campers found out, reserved spots were even
more of a premium. That's especially true in
the West, which brought more campers to
Wyoming's wide open spaces including an
increase in resident and nonresident campers.
But as the pandemic stretched into the fall,
reserved spots became harder to find. That
meant dispersed camping became popular
as well.
Dispersed can mean different things to
different people. Garrett said for some RVers,
dispersed means going to a place without a
sewage hook up - but it generally means
camping without a reservation in a spot that
isn't a standard or reservable campsite.
" Recreation use was big in general, " said
Ben Lawhon, education director with Leave
No Trace, an organization that promotes
enjoying the outdoors with a feather touch.
" It's become virtually impossible to get a
campsite, especially on the weekends, and
people want to go anyway. "
That caused problems, and most states
experienced at least some issues with it.
Most of the problems are obvious: There's
no plumbing, or many times, there aren't even
any chemical toilets, and there aren't trash
cans, either. Those problems, and others, are
worth discussing. But Lawhon also felt good
about what happened last year.
" This is a tremendous opportunity to
reach a whole new bunch of people on how
to recreate responsibility, " he said. " This past
year was perhaps one of the best opportunities
I've seen in my career. "
Even though an increase in campers and
outdoor recreationists comes with complications,
knowing what those challenges are
and how people can reduce them means
people can reduce their impact on habitat
and wildlife.
With designated camping areas filling up, many recreationist have sought dispersed camping locations, like this one at
Diamond Lake in the Wind River Range. (Photo by Kyle Spradley)
EVEN THOUGH AN INCREASE IN CAMPERS
AND OUTDOOR RECREATIONISTS COMES
WITH COMPLICATIONS, KNOWING WHAT
THOSE CHALLENGES ARE AND HOW
PEOPLE CAN REDUCE THEM MEANS
PEOPLE CAN REDUCE THEIR IMPACT
ON HABITAT AND WILDLIFE.
More campers
The coronavirus definitely sparked a major
increase in dispersed camping. But lands
managed by the U.S. Forest Service and
the Bureau of Land Management that
offer wide-open spaces and limited developed
campsites have experienced a steady
increase in dispersed camping in the last
decade, not just last year, said Aaron Voos,
spokesman for the Medicine Bow-Routt
National Forests and Thunder Basin
National Grassland. Voos, like others,
pointed out you could say this about any
form of recreation, and overcrowded spots
in Colorado inspired residents thirsty for
the outdoors to spill into southern Wyoming.
But even beyond that, dispersed
camping is more popular than ever.
" It's by far one of our largest uses in the
forest, " Voos said.
In 2017, the Forest Service invented a
new term, " designated dispersed, " to address
Wyoming Wildlife | 41

June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2021