CITO along the Santa Fe Rail trail: Hobo Camp Cleanup

It's been a while since I hosted a CITO event and I decided that for the Spring CITO season (where Groundspeak gives souvenirs for attending CITOs) I'd try it again. I didn'tant to do anything fancy, so one day while I was out jogging along I noticed an area along the trail had a bunch of trash and decided I'd host an event there. The Santa Fe Rail trail is an urban bike path along the rail tracks, and extends for miles through town. The CITO would be easy enough. Cachers would meet me at a spot along the trail, we'd clean up as much trash as we could find, I'd haul off the trash and we'd all be happy. Or something like that... GC7W17C was published.

My last CITO was kind of a bust. I had high hopes for it, and had coordinated with the City parks to make sure trash pick up was arranged. Only a couple geoachers showed up, and I ended up snowing the night before, making it impossible to see any trash on the ground. This time, almost ended up th same. the day before he event, it snowed in Santa Fe. I only had a few "Will Attend" logs. It could have been a repeat. But then the weather cleared, and a bunch more people posted that they would show up. So it looked like we'd have a bit more success.

My son and I showed up a few minutes before the event started and already a bunch of geocachers were there. I had picked up a bunch of pastries and baked goods from a nearby bakery, but everyone declined to eat some. What's up with that? I mean, who doesn't like pastries? Oh well... more for me I guess. We had about a dozen people and after chatting for a little bit, I handed out trash bags and we all started fanning out to pick up trash. The area I had picked didn't look as trashed as I remembered when i ran by a few months back. I bet other do-gooders clean up along the trail, it is very popular with walkers and bikers. Where we did find trash, and tons of it were a short ways off the trail in a nearby arroyo. There were signs of several hobo encampments, and the trash associated with these is gargantuan. I'm glad my son was using a trash-picker, some of the trash was pretty nasty. We hauled out two very gross mattresses, with their springs filled with sand and mud. There were soggy dirty jackets, bedding, a ripped tent, shopping cats, and tons of assorted food wrappers and drink containers. By the looks of it, this encampment has been abandoned for a while, All the stuff was soaking wet and full of dirt. But then, maybe that's always how hobo camp look? I'm not an expert in this stuff. Even if that's the case, I doubt anyone would care we took all this stuff out. In fact, they may even appreciate that we cleaned up the area and now they can bring in "new" mattresses and tarps and junk.

Before...

... After

We used the whole hour of the event to pick up, but next was he real challenge, hauling out all the trash. Because I hadn't arranged anything with the city, we would have to figure this out on our own. one of the geocachers, Jimmaggi had a truck and offered to take a load to the dump. We spent the next 15 minutes using the shopping carts, one with a missing whee, to cart all the trash down the trail and to Jim's waiting truck. We filled up the pickup bed with the trash bags, and then put the old mattresses on top, tying everything down with rope. This left only a wooden pallet, the two shopping carts, and a mess of old bedding. We dumped the bedding in a nearby public trashcan, and left the carts and pallet next to it too, hoping the city workers who empty the trashcan would pick this up. Then I followed Jimmaggi to the Santa Fe dump to get rid of the rest of our haul. Of course, we stopped for a geocache on he way....

Jim was hoping he'd be able to talk the attendant at the dump to waive the fee for us, since we were ding a public service and had picked up trash off of City property. No such luck. The attendant simply said they were not associated by the city, and run by a company, and that they could not waive the fee. I was bummed about this, but Jim promptly paid cash (it came to $9.45) and we went in and unloaded the truck. I owe him big time. I kept saying I would make it up to him, or pay it back, and he dismissed all my attempts. Nice guy, Jim.