This has to be the most subhuman behavior in the hiking community. It's orders of magnitude worse than boombox hikers although I'm sure there's some overlap there.

I've been hiking in this one park for over ten years and the last 2 weeks I've seen an unprecedented amount of trash someone else left behind. Water bottles, cigarette butts, food wrappers etc. I took it upon myself to clean up what I could (yes I did it for free) and filled up 2 plastic bags worth of trash both last Friday and today. This is a 5.5 mile loop that I'm used to seeing maybe 1 or 2 bottles on. I usually assume it was dropped by accident and take it with me without thinking much of it.

There are trash and recycling bins at the fucking trailhead. Some people apparently just can't be fucked to carry their trash for 2 hours. It's not just an eyesore it's terrible for the ecosystem that surrounds the trail.

I'm not sure what to do. Maybe if I talk to the park office they'll pay me money to clean up the trails.