Instructors are quick to point out that the “Leave No Trace” slogan is an ideal more than a reality. It’s impossible to take ourselves and our heavy animals into the wilderness without leaving some sort of sign that we’ve been there. The focus is on keeping impact as minimal as possible.

Conscientious Camping     
Before we take a closer look at that ideal camp in the valley, let’s pay some attention to minimizing the impact of our travel to this pristine place. First, we’ll choose lightweight, compact gear, such as a synthetic Relite tent, which is half the weight of canvas.

Then we’ll pack our gear on as few animals as possible. We don’t want to overload our pack animals, but we won’t take two when one will do. Every hoof on the ground means additional impact. One pack animal, carrying around 150 pounds, should be able to supply two wilderness travelers with everything they need in the backcountry for an extended stay; with light backpacking gear, the ratio might extend to one pack animal for three riders. (These ratios may not work in cold-weather situations, when you need more fuel and warmer gear, or when you must pack in horse feed.)

If we can, we’ll avoid travel during extremely wet weather when the ground is more vulnerable to erosion. We won’t cut switchbacks on the trail, and, of course, we won’t let so much as a gum wrapper elude our grasp to trash the trail during our ride in. We’ll also bypass pretty campsites that are too small to be ideal for horse camping. Leaving these for backpackers improves relations with other wilderness users and prevents concentrating our stock in too small an area where impact will be greater.

The camp described earlier was carefully assembled. Locating it 100 yards from the stream (or lake) minimizes impact on water quality. We’ll also forgo the all-too-common photo opportunity of posing on our horses perched on the shore of a lake or stream. Bypassing that temptation lessens chances that our animals will choose that very time to leave manure in that clear mountain water. 

Assuming that grazing is legal, we’ll constrain our horses by hobbling, picketing, using a highline, or a combination of these techniques. When using a highline, we’ll look for a high, rocky place where the ground is least fragile, to minimize impact.

We’ll secure the line to trees with commercially available tree savers (wide straps with attached tie-rings; by tying horses to these rings, we’ll avoid damaging the tree with rope pressure and friction). In a pinch, we’ll use packsaddle cinches. (We’ll carefully go over cinches when we break camp, removing any debris that might irritate our horses.) When picketing, we’ll frequently move our horses to prevent their grazing an unsightly circle.

Hobbled horses do the least damage, but they can travel fast and far, so we’ll closely supervise our hobbled horses. We’ll also keep one horse tied short in case we have to go after the rest. When we break camp, we’ll use a shovel to scatter manure and repair obvious ground damage as best we can.

We’ll locate the cooking area downwind from the sleeping area. A bear, scenting food, is thus likely to stop at the cooking area and not continue to our “bedroom.” We’ll keep our tent food-free, knowing that “a fed bear is a dead bear.” That is, the bear that becomes dependent on humans for food either will go into winter lacking the fat deposits necessary for survival or he’ll become a nuisance bear, inevitably experiencing a conflict with humans that he’ll eventually lose. If we leave camp unattended, we’ll either string our food packs high overhead on a rope between trees or close them in certified bear-resistant panniers.