Earlier last month I witnessed someone fell a tree in the Eagles Nest Wilderness while I was on a backpack trip. Its quite obvious that you're not supposed to cut down trees in a national forest, in this particular wilderness fires are also prohibited. I hadn't any idea how to deal with this group of individuals. I feel that yelling at them would have done no good, as its obvious that what they were doing was wrong and they knew it.

Should I have reported these individuals? I had no way to identify them, and its hard to track who was even in the area during that time frame.

Should I have said something? Threatened to report them? Or is it best to just let it happen, because it seems there's not much that can be done.

It really upsets me to see someone do something so detrimental to a protected area. Its such an obvious trace of human presence. I've heard this has become a big problem in the Maroon-Bells Snowmass Wilderness, which isn't far from where I was hiking.