There are easier ways to spend a day in the Bridger-Teton National Forest than picking beer cans, fireworks, burned tires and pieces of a red car out of the dirt, but at a large campsite south of Jackson, cleanup crews have had to do it again and again.
U.S. Forest Service workers, along with an army of volunteers, have cleaned up the area at least five times, hauling out more than 500 pounds of garbage in the process, Bridger-Teton National Forest spokesperson C.J. Adams told Cowboy State Daily.
The haul has included alcohol cans and bottles, food waste and fireworks. There also have been burned tires, and even pieces of a red car left behind.
Now there is a federal investigation.
Forest Service law enforcement officers are actively investigating incidents at Fall Creek, Adams confirmed. He said he did not have information indicating whether anyone has been identified, cited or charged.
The Jackson Ranger District has, however, documented an increase in trash being brought to and abandoned at this campsite, Adams said.
It's a problem forest managers have seen migrate previously.
Adams said gathering locations can become known among particular groups and used repeatedly for parties. As generations change or officials put pressure on one location, the party moves to a new spot.
He compared it to “squeezing a balloon in your hand and having it pop out between different fingers as pressure shifts.”
Tsk Tsk
Wyoming’s great abundance of empty country is one of its chief attractions. It is also, occasionally, a convenient place to leave a washing machine.
But empty country is not lawless country, Adams said.
He identified six federal regulations that can come into play at gathering sites, covering everything from leaving a fire without completely extinguishing it and failing to clear flammable material around a campfire to damaging federal property or natural features.
Federal rules also cover the basics: Don’t leave trash behind, don’t dump anything near the water, and don’t haul your garbage from home into the woods to get rid of it.
Violations of Forest Service prohibitions under 36 CFR Part 261 can be prosecuted as federal misdemeanors. Under federal law, a person can face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $5,000, or both.
Forest Service schedules also establish set collateral amounts for some offenses. Bridger-Teton regulations list $225 for leaving a fire without completely extinguishing it and $125 for violating the seasonal camping-stay limit in the Fall Creek area.
Adams also warned that gathering locations can involve underage alcohol use, illegal controlled substances, and drug paraphernalia, but he did not say those offenses have been established as part of the current Fall Creek investigation.
The general picture is this: People party, people leave, and somebody else comes back with trash bags.
40,365 Volunteers
The area has been on local recreation managers’ radar for years.
Plans for the Ambassadors for Responsible Recreation program specifically identified Mosquito Creek and Fall Creek for coverage in 2022. The plan called for two full-time summer ambassadors to cover the area as part of a larger effort to put people on the ground in heavily used parts of the forest.
By 2024, one of 16 full-time volunteer dispersed-camping ambassador positions in Teton County was assigned specifically to Mosquito Creek and South Fall Creek Road. Three additional volunteers roved among dispersed camping areas, cleaning and stocking vault toilets, and running supplies to ambassadors stationed in the field.
Friends of the Bridger-Teton has now logged 40,365 volunteer hours and 19,260 contacts with forest users, while ambassadors have extinguished 185 unoccupied fires and addressed 243 food-storage violations.
The group's advice to people using the forest is considerably shorter: “Pack out everything you bring in.”
In September 2024, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and its Bear Wise Jackson Hole partners warned of an increase in black and grizzly bears getting into unsecured human food, garbage and animal feed in an area stretching from Cache Creek south to South Fall Creek. Officials urged people to secure garbage and other attractants to reduce human-bear conflicts.
Not Just Fall Creek
The investigation also joins a much longer list of dumping problems on Wyoming's remote public lands.
In 2025, Cowboy State Daily reported that four drums of jet fuel were discovered dumped among rocks on public land near Jeffrey City. Removing them was expected to cost taxpayers more than $35,000.
Wyoming Department of Transportation spokesman Cody Beers said at the time that illegal dumping sites can become habitual, with people returning to places that have already been cleaned, and leaving more material.
Three years earlier, six WYDOT employees spent a workday cleaning a stretch of Gas Hills Road east of Riverton.
They filled three eight-yard dump trucks.
The final weight was 12,280 pounds — more than six tons of washers, dryers, furniture, and household garbage.
Dump fees alone cost $308, not counting employee time, trucks or other equipment. Beers said money spent cleaning illegal dumps is money unavailable for highway work such as snow removal, pavement repair and fence maintenance.
In 2023, recreation manager Jay Sammer told Cowboy State Daily that regulations only accomplish so much across a vast national forest without people there to enforce them.
“Even though it’s illegal, if you don’t enforce it, it does nothing,” Sammer said.
Kolby Fedore can be reached at kolby@cowboystatedaily.com.
