Here’s How You Can Help Clean Up The Trails And Maybe Win Some Swag

Gather round, all ye trash collectors, shitbox owners and adventure seekers! The Sons of Smokey want YOU to join in the great Trash Pin Brawl!

Here’s the thing, y’all. People can be jerks and leave crap all over our public lands. I’m sure you’ve seen an old mattress, pile of tires, or just a big ol’ mound of garbage left out in the wild because some yahoo was too cheap to pay the dump fees. It’s a freaking tragedy, I tell you.

The good news is there are people who want to help. The Oregon-based Gambler 500 is one of the largest organizations, albeit a very loose one, that sponsors clean-ups all around the country. It even has an app, Sons of Smokey (click to get it for iOS and Android), where users can mark locations of trash they’ve found if in case they aren’t able to haul it out on their own or are already full-up with trail junk.

I mean, I’m happy to throw a pile of discarded tires in my truck when out wheeling, but I’m usually alone and can’t really lift an old fridge into my truck by myself. The app allows me to pin the location and add a description so other folks who do have friends can run out and grab the offending detritus.

The problem is that the app has gotten a little out of date. Some gamblers get so excited about grabbing trash that they forget to delete a pin, and the app requires the user to be within a five-mile radius to, uh, put the pin in the trash. Thus the Trash Pin Brawl is nigh.

Credit Johnny Cressey of McMinnville, Oregon, Gambling with an old Isuzu Amigo, for stepping up to the plate. Realizing that some people can’t participate in some of the bigger Gambler events for whatever reason, he figured this kind of virtual competition would let folks clean up trash on their own schedule and get the app back up to speed at the same time.

“This allows people to have fun cleaning up trash when they want to. To gamble all you need is a rig and trash. The app provides one of those two things, but if the app isn’t current it’s not useful,” he said.

For the month of July, anyone can help clean up the app and public lands across the United States. Just go to the public Facebook page – you have to know what ABG stands for but you can Google it – and randomly join a team. You don’t have to know the folks or even live near them, but by working together you can score points to be exchanged for some Gambler swag. I’m on Team Tidy Cats. Or get some pals together and form your own team. Gamblers live by the credo fun > rules.

[Mercedes’ Note: If you want to learn more about how awesome the Gambler 500 is, feel free to read my series of posts here, here, here, here, here, here, or here. Whew, I never realized how much time I’ve spent messing around in these rallies! The Gambler 500 has a place in my heart for helping me become the full-throttle crazy -itch I am today, and you can read about that by clicking here. – MS]

Having said that, there are a few goals and guidelines for the month.

• Week 1: Clear as many inactive pins as possible to get them out of the way. (Completed!)
• Week 2: Get as much trash as possible and create pins for larger stuff. (Completed!)
• Week 3: Capture the Flag. In areas that don’t have as many pins, flags will be hidden so folks can still have an adventure. Cressey also hopes this makes it easier to gamble with kids.
• Week 4: FREE FOR ALL!! Here is where we can get the big stuff out. Cressey would like to enlist the help of the forest service as well as his local wrecking yard to help drag cars, boats, RVs and all the other large shit people leave out there.

Of course, if you’re out hunting for pins and see trash that you can take out, you should do it. You’ll earn points for your team and with Mother Nature. And if you have the hook up with your local junkyard or tire disposal location, ask them to be a part of the Brawl in week 4.

And don’t worry if you’ve never Gambled before. It really is just going out and picking up trash.

“Gambling is a mindset,” says Cressey. “If you want to clean up public lands, you’re a Gambler.”