I'm glad to see that I got some people's panties all wadded up. Perhaps I wasn't as articulate as I should have been, so let me elaborate. First, I have quite a few neighbors who live around me here in California who are LDS, and some of them are great friends; so don't get the idea that I have any beef with that aspect at all, because I surely don't. I have a lot of respect for their morals, certainly more than some other demographic groups.
What I was perplexed about is that since Utah has a high LDS population, there is a large percentage of the populace who doesn't drink alcohol, or very little alcohol; therefore it was surprising to see so many beer cans strewn along trails. I am sure that I saw at least 35-40 beer cans dumped here and there. It has nothing to do with anyone who's mormon, but when you consider that most mormons wouldn't be drinking, you eliminate a large portion of the population who might have dumped a beer can in the woods. That gave me the impression that a small portion of the outdoor using public are a bunch of slobs. I'm being serious when I say I haven't seen that much trash in the woods in a long time; I haven't! Whether you agree or not, I thought that it sucked to hike all the way to the crest of the range to the west of Barney Lake, to come out at 10,700+ feet, and find beer cans laying along the trail. Sheesh, if someone needed a beer that bad that they would pack it all the way up there, then why can't they pack it back with them when they've emptied the can? They're uncaring slobs, that's why. If my comments are construed as pointing a finger at someone on here, so be it. Think next time before you dump trash in the forest. The rest of us, regarless of our beliefs, will appreciate it.
As for the comments about people road hunting from vehicles with arrows nocked on bows, is there really a need to do that? I mean, seriously, if you are so lazy and such a poor hunter that you have to ride around hoping to get a shot at a deer WITH A BOW from your pickup, do you really need to be out in the woods? I could actually almost understand it if they were rifle hunting, at least they'd be able to shoot a deer from the vehicle (even though it's illegal in most or all states to shoot from a vehicle on a public road), but with a bow you're not going to get any kind of quality shot, and I have no doubt that an unacceptable portion of the deer shot by these SHOOTERS are wounded and lost. The people who engage in this sorry behavior give all hunters a black eye, especially on a unit such as Monroe where the hunters are sharing the woods with so many non-hunting people who are simply out there enjoying the forest. If you think the non-hunting public has an impression of hunters besides those slobs they ran into on the roads with bows in their hands while in a vehicle, I'd love to know what it is. They sure as heck never ran into me out in the woods on foot, because they don't go in those spots. I actually ran across a pickup with a long bed, that had bench seats set in the middle, with three shooters facing out to both sides, six shooters total, and they all had arrows nocked on their bows. I wonder what happened if they ever ran into a poor yearling buck? Talk about blazing saddles... Good thing Custer wasn't around, he'd have thought it was deja vu all over again!
Again, religion had nothing to do with my comments other than to illustrate how a relatively small portion of those out in the woods, the largely non-LDS portion, can have such a large negative impact. If more people ascribed to some of the values that my LDS friends believe in, a lot of places, perhaps especially California, would be better off. This place is more screwed up than most anywhere else, and I look forward to the day I retire and move out of this screwed up state. I promise I won't bring Nancy Pelosi or Maxine Waters with me.
