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Had an encounter on Mt Hood this weekend that made me think of this thread. Feeling frustrated and curious what others think or would do. I was heading down the S side route just below the Hogsback and I heard a drone. I saw a person standing still below me. He suddenly sprinted up hill and raised an ice axe in the air. At first I thought he was trying to wave the drone off but it became obvious he was posing for the drone. He then went back down to where he had been standing and picked up the controller and started making the drone swoop back and forth. I noticed he did not have a helmet or a few other things that would be standard fare for going higher on the mountain, he was also not Caucasian so I consciously tried to give this person the benefit of the doubt (thinking about how people of color have often stated they feel unwelcome in outdoor spaces in the US), maybe he just didn't know better. As I got closer to him on my descent I asked how he was doing. He responded with an accent but in a way that suggested he was a fluent English speaker. I said, "hey, just to let you know, the upper mountain is a wilderness area and flying drones is illegal in wilderness areas." He responded that he had not seen a sign that prohibited drone use. I said that it was a nation-wide law for all wilderness areas. He shrugged and continued flying the drone. I then mentioned that there was an injured person near the hogsback and SAR teams were heading up the mountain, which could include law enforcement and that I wouldn't want him to get a ticket. He said, "thanks for letting me know." At this point I continued down the mountain and he continued flying the drone for as long as I was in earshot. I feel really frustrated with this encounter. Part of me wanted to yell at the guy to land his toy and put it away. Part of me wanted to ask him to explain himself. I doubt either of those things would be productive, but wish there was something else I could do. Didn't help that on the way down I passed through the usual tourist horde at Timberline and picked up multiple empty alcohol containers that had been left since the start of the day in snow where people where posing and sledding. It's tough to have a special experience on a mountain that you have returned to many times and finish the outing watching others do things that are not just illegal but also infringe on the ideals of protected natural space that brought me there in first place.

Same problem as every other thing in the world: too many people. Get a vasectomy (if you're a man).