Can I bring an ugly situation to your attention. We recently received a report from a US ham not involved with SOTA about vandalism in a US State Park that also happens to be a SOTA summit. Hams have been carving their callsigns into the walls of buildings at the summit.
The SOTA MT looked at the photo evidence and found that from the calls we could decipher, none were recorded as having activated the summit. Also in our opinion the damage looked to be old and not recent. As US calls get reissued itās possible the recent holders of these calls were not the holders when the vandalism occurred.
Please note the SOTA rule:
3.7.3 Code of Conduct, section 6
"Behaviour likely to bring SOTA into disrepute
Examples of behaviour likely to bring SOTA into disrepute include a failure to apply the
following common-sense provisions:
Activators must not cause any damage to the environment. This includes damage, whether
deliberate or resulting from a lack of care, to the mountain itself, walls, fences, livestock,
buildings, wildlife, trees, plants etc."
If we find conclusive evidence that SOTA participants have taken part in such vandalism then we will take action such as temporary or permanent exclusion from the program.
Thank you for your post Andy.
I am deeply touched.
I would like to show example of SOTA āactivityā being highlighted: thereās a tree on SP/BZ-058 with SOTA marking (photo taken on August 11th, 2024):
Very sad . For outdoor activities it should always be: Leave no trace (as much as possible)
I recall also from some years back that someone nailed SOTA markers with ref on summits along the Appalachian train in the US. If I recall correctly they were removed later on because of the discussion here on the Reflector. Canāt find the Reflector article
Iām afraid that I came across a callsign scratched into a large stone on a cairn on a lesser activated G/LD summit. I rearranged the cairn after my activation and in effect hid the stone with the callsign leaving the summit clear of all SOTA graffiti. At the time I didnāt report it, but probably would pass the call to the MT if I saw it againā¦. and no I no longer recall the callsignā¦.
Some years ago there was a spate of a certain activator signing trigpoints with his full callsign in indelible pen. Graffiti at best. I canāt see the need for doing such a thing, though perhaps in this particular case it was down to his activities having been questioned. Hopefully in time the weather will erode the evidence.
I think weāre talking about the same guy Geraldā¦ I kept finding little wooden stakes with his callsign on. This is 10+ years ago.
Heās no longer part of the SOTA programme. He did get a reputation for a remarkable rate of summits reached in short periodsā¦ I think this was his way of trying to prove he really was there.
I do not see why people feel the need to do this sort of āmarkingā. If you really need to prove you were there, make a GPS tracklog and take some geotagged photos. If you are that determined to cheat you will probably find a way to edit those filesā¦ but I really couldnāt care less. Just āLEAVE NO TRACEā.
Oh I am well aware that these things can be edited. Iāve spent many hours of āfunā stitching multiple GPX track logs together for a couple of people who needed them as one element of proving a cycling circumnavigation of the world, for a Guiness World Record. To be fair, my work was trimming data at the start and end of each day which wasnāt 100% cycling.
The only one I ever heard of was in Ossianās Cave on Aonach Dubh in Glencoe, the rock climb to reach the cave was first done in 1868 and the Victorians kept a log book for visitors to sign. Eventually a young yob slung it down the cliff! Such things are at the mercy of more than just the elementsā¦anyway, imagine having one at the summit of Snowdon, it would fill up in less than a week!
There was one at the top of the Wayfarer Pass (near Cadair Berwyn), although being a pass its definitely not on a summit.
I believe it was being maintained by a green laning group.
I think we, as an organisation, need to be aware that, whilst we take the āleave no traceā ideology completely for granted, it is still struggling to gain traction in the wider world; particularly the non-English-speaking world, due to its origins in the USA.
Activator guidelines mention āleave no traceā as an aside, so perhaps we need to make it more overt on SOTA websites and spell out exactly what that means, and why it matters to us as an organisation. At least then, we can say that the individual is clearly diverging from our group ethos.
Progress on this is going to be slow. Remember, the vast majority of the public see absolutely no problem with disposing of biodegradables directly on trails and summits. The fact that the summit is strewn with biodegradable waste that is in the process of breaking down over a matter of months - and they have just added to the problem - simply doesnāt register in their brains. I no longer activate the HĆ¼hnerkogelOE/KT-148, because it is so disgustingly covered in waste.
It is, of course, deeply ironic that no one cares about the rubbish but will instantly remember a SOTA badge nailed on a tree, but it is what it is, and we must be vigilant with regard to this sort of public reaction - and especially careful!
73 de OE6FEG
Matt
I think that in the General Rules 3.7.3 Code of Conduct states our requirements quite clearly. Littering is not mentioned as an aside, not littering is a requirement, failing that requirement opens the miscreant to penalties. Perhaps we should print it in LARGE BLOCK CAPITALS and colour it red!
I donāt know when the leave no trace idea arose in the USA, but I remember when the Backpacking Club here formed in 1974 its motto was āThe Backpacker leaves no trace of his passingā, or words to that effect. After half a century it should have caught on by now!
Having checked the SOTA website, I see that there is a whole page dedicated to the environmental statement, which is exactly what I had in mind. The general rules say this:
Care for the environment (copied from SOTA General Rules 3.7.3)
Activators must not cause any damage to the environment. This includes damage to the mountain itself, walls, fences, livestock, buildings, etc. Any Activator who is found to have deliberately or carelessly caused such damage may be, at the Programme Management Teamās discretion, excluded from the programme.
As can be seen, the rule uses the word damage, but whether or not damage has occurred may depend on your point of view. You are right, that littering is not mentioned anywhere in the rules. Perhaps that is because it is taken for granted as implied in the notion of damage? However, it does need to be repeated, that modern āleave no traceā guidelines consider biodegradable items, such as food and tissues, as pollution, but the general public as a whole are not familiar with this definition. Am I splitting hairs for thinking we need to be more specific? Some people clearly donāt have the antennae for what is being implied when we talk of āleave no traceā. Similarly, not bringing the program into disrepute has been interpreted subjectively by some activators. What we mean is: donāt give people even the slightest cause to complain, because as we all should know, thereās always someone out there itching to do just that.
73 Matt
Here we have the Countryside Code. It has its origins in advice from the Ramblers Association in the 1930s. It became statutory in 1951 as an amendment in the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act 1949. It has always included phrases such as āLeave no litter. Prevent damage to walls, fences, tiles and property.ā
So the concept started long before the 70s in the USA. Itās so obvious, and so ingrained in responsible walkers, that perhaps the writers of the SOTA rules didnāt feel the need to be more explicit.
Unfortunately its existence doesnāt stop selfish walkers. It always amazes me how many empty pop bottles there are stuffed into drystone walls on the summits of popular hills. They carried it up the hill full but canāt be arsed to carry it down empty.
. For outdoor activities it should always be: Leave no trace (as much as possible)
