Founded in 2010, BPTA is an awesome organization that works with Philly Parks and Rec. to manage our beloved trail systems of the Belmont Plateau and West Fairmount Park. The organization is largely fueled by volunteers so Saturday morning, April 11th, 2015, I showed up alongside a bunch of other volunteers to pull trash out of the woods.
I found the motivation to do this from the experience of riding around on these trails and getting really distracted from all the stuff that gets discarded in the woods or discarded out of someones car window and then blown onto the trail. When I am in the woods, I don't want to think about anything but being in the woods so seeing a Wendy's sandwich wrapper, or an empty bottle of motor oil really detracts from my enjoyment. Instead of just complaining about the trash in this sacred place, I decided that I would join the efforts put on by the BPTA and do something about it. This season's clean up met up in the parking lot across from the entrance to the Cancer Support Community on Chamounix Drive. They had a nice little tent with doughnuts, pretzels, and water for the volunteers. A bunch of really nice bikes were scattered around the tent from other volunteers who had ridden there.
At first I heeded my desire to get away from the busy bustling motor-vehicle filled Chamounix Drive and get into the woods to make the most impact on the trails that I like to ride. After a couple bags of trash pulled from more secluded areas of trail, I realized that my impact would be greater if people saw what we were doing. My riding buddy and trash-picking-up companion, Jed and I decided that we wanted to pick up trash along side the road. We reasoned that this would be the most beneficial for two reasons: 1. I think most of the trash comes from cars who discard stuff out their window as they are driving by. Maybe by seeing us pick up trash, they will realize that their behavior has a negative impact on other people who care enough to take care of the forest. 2. If someone is considering throwing something out the window, maybe seeing that there isn't already a bunch of trash will discourage them from doing so. Amazingly, one motorist did stop to ask us what we were doing and thank us for our efforts!
After sifting through the road side next to the guard rail, collecting trash closest to the road, and crawling under bushes to pick plastic bags out of the brush, Jed and I moved down to a slope and creek bed. THERE we met a beautiful creature. A grey male cat practically materialized out of thin air. I say this because neither Jed or I actually saw him approach us. All of a sudden he was 1o feet away from us and moving closer. I am 100% certain that if this cat could talk he would have said, "Thank you for cleaning up my home and taking care of the Earth! I am going to reward you by being extremely friendly and following you around while you're on this side of the street," because thats exactly what he did. He hung out with us while we sorted through empty 40oz malt liquor bottles, and fast food wrappers. We had a recycling bag and a trash bag and we made sure that what could be recycled was put in the appropriate container.
A dual goal of going out to the Belmont that morning was to select the perfect log for later in the day. Last month I got in contact with some folks who were in the midst of organizing an alley cat. I told them that I wanted to be a checkpoint manager and they told me to come up with a bike-related task. As a person who identifies as a mountain biker (among a few other things), I wanted to have a fun task that represented one of my main passions in life. I came up with a log jump. Then they told me that I needed an assistant to help with the checkpoint so I asked some folks and Jed stepped up. He came up with the idea to make people limbo under something. We threw around some ideas and settled on a linear course consisting of bike limbo to log jump. After 2.5 hours of trash and recycling collecting, Jed found the perfect log for the course and I threw it in my car under the children's bikes that were also part of the checkpoint plan.
At first, the task of picking up other people's trash in a place that I love and deeply care for was a little frustrating and seemed like an insurmountable task. After a couple hours on the grind, I admitted to myself, and Jed, that I was actually having a lot of fun. I enjoyed coming up with scenarios that might have led to the random articles of clothing or weird objects being discarded in the woods. Jed and I talked a lot and we made friends with a guardian of the forest, the kitty. All in all it was a glorious and rewarding morning that set us up for a perfect fun-filled and entertaining afternoon.
