Easy access to some of the the most popular trails up Tumbledown Mountain in Weld is threatened by trash, but it's not hiker trash, that's for sure.

The timber company that recently bought the land doesn't want to bar hikers, but is fed up with the garbage and sanitation problems at the trailhead and wants to put up a gate.

I can't blame them.

The trailhead is at the edge of a large, unregulated camping area, and it's usually an absolute disgrace with large groups of 'yahoo' campers on the weekends camping willy-nilly all over the place. It's an unsightly mess with huge firepits, garbage, beer cans and the like littering the area, never mind the poor sanitation in the surrounding woods.

I hope the solution doesn't come down to a gate, which would force hikers to park a mile further down the road from the trailhead. But without any way to properly patrol the area and keep people and their trash under control, it may have to have happen.

I'll walk a mile further each way if it means the area gets cleaned up and stays that way.

The local folks are trying to work out a solution, so we'll see what shakes out.