When I first started visiting the whites around 1977, the backpacking and outdoors boom was on. If you have access to the Forest and Crag book there is a chapter with some real scary statistics on projected use. Compared to then, todays surge in use is minimal. At the time there were no caretakers and popular sites were overrun. Liberty Springs like many other sites was trashed, with tentsites spread for 100 plus yards and the understory trampled. The former Desolation Shelter was even worse with acres of trampled woods. Even with a significant bear issue, there would routinely be 100 to 200 folks camping there on weekends, same with Thoreau falls and Franconia Falls. Many of the great gulf leantos were surrounded by campsites but a mandatory quota system had been in place for a couple of seasons and it was enforced so the many bootleg sites started to heal up once the throngs stopped going there. Bootleg sites were everywhere many of them with fire rings. It took awhile for AMC and FS to implement caretakers and luckily the backpacking boom fizzled out quickly (Yuppies didnt hike) and then the managing organization had a chance to harden up parts of the sites and allow other areas to revegetate. It has worked remarkably well and depending on soil types many of the bootleg sites grew in thick to the point where they are hard to find. When bushwhacking and coming out of the woods towards a trail, I frequently find evidence of old well used bootleg sites complete with beer cans and fire rings. The down side is that AMC and the FS managed to downsize the campsites size and thus with the recent uptick in use, there is minimal overflow room and thus folks are pushed up onto the Twinway.
As for current conditions, it comes down to resources. Guyot and Liberty Springs are pretty much limited to the resources available to process human waste and distribute the resultant compost in the woods. The alternative is to hand it off to the AMC and put a for profit hut in place and then far more intensive use could be supported. I expect AMC given their shift in focus to Maine on land they own, wouldn't be interested and the public wouldn't accept it. The FS has attempted to educate folks on the dispersed camping rules, but in the thick spruce/fit zones along ridgelines, the 200 foot rule is useless as the terrain is unsuitable for camping. Ultimately if existing campsites aren't expanded or new ones built it comes down to two choices, education of users or enforcement of rules. For several years every group leaving the Lincoln Woods trailhead was quizzed by a FS employee and if they didn't have a outfitter guide pass they were turned away. After years of trying to manage Franconia Falls they shut down camping and moved it to the other side of the river and for awhile they imposed day use restriction and passes at this spot. In general the Pemi area got the reputation that management was heavy handed and many just went elsewhere. Ridge runners can work but if someone is dead tired and set up next to the trail, they aren't going to move unless the ridge runner is writing a ticket.
The general shift from organized outdoor groups to minimal commitment groups like Meetup also has contributed to poor backcountry education. AMC had a vested interest in keeping the whites from being trashed and there was an educational component in most of their events. Their leaders were generally trained and expected to follow the guidelines in use. Meetup (of which I participate) has no formal leadership training or long term goals and no real incentive to educate (although many do). On occasion the leader of one very popular meetup group active in the whites is down right dismissive of acceptable policies unless he gets called out.
![IMG_0854[1].jpg](https://cdn.imagearchive.com/vftt/data/attachments/1/1239-c38cfb37318af059a31bb6f4a3779f54.jpg "IMG_0854[1].jpg")
