I spend a lot of time tooling around one particular pnw national forest and can anecdotally confirm that sort of camping activity has gone through the roof from summer '21 onward. While I'm sympathetic to the situations a lot of these folks are in (had some extensive conversations with campers) the bit in the article about environmental damage is unfortunately super true. I'd say that at least in my area, as many as half of illegal long-term campers put very little effort into trash disposal. These days, every time I go out I come back with a pickup bed full of bags of trash. Last time, I had to figure out how to get rid of a bunch of partially rusted through propane tanks. Yelling at individual campers about it doesn't really work because they're all constantly cycling through anyway, so in a week the same spot will have been trashed by another jerk.
One bright spot is that the FS, at least in my area, has been stepping up enforcement. A couple trips ago I ran into a pair of rangers who'd been turfing out RVs and issuing citations for litter.
One bright spot is that the FS, at least in my area, has been stepping up enforcement. A couple trips ago I ran into a pair of rangers who'd been turfing out RVs and issuing citations for litter.