The end of dispersed camping?

[DontDoThat]

The end of dispersed camping?

An increasing number of campers are trashing dispersed camping sites around the country

 

[crofter]

The difference between pay camping and free dispersed camping is that with free camping no one is paid to come clean up the mess every day. Campgrounds would have that same flavor of destruction and garbage if not for the tireless efforts of camp hosts to clean up after people.

If you feel strongly about it, get BLM to fund more camp host jobs in your favorite places. And have BLM install dumpsters and pay for the removal of garbage. And get vault toilets installed to keep the forest floor sanitary. This will all be paid for with fees from dispersed campers like you, by the way.

Or if you really do care about it, and want to keep free camping, take action and pick up and dispose of the garbage yourself, 20 bucks a load at the dump. The slobs will always be with us.
-crofter

 

[RVTravel]

It would not surprise me if some of it was done on purpose to get it banned near where they live.

 

[Qxxx]

This same issue comes up every couple of months. There are many such threads on this forum. The problem has been going on for decades. Coconino and other NF in northern AZ are especially bad, and places therein are being closed. No news there. Apparently Phoenix city folk are idiots.

40,000,000 people in the US go camping every year, and it's good they're not ALL idiots.

 

[jacqueg]

The difference between pay camping and free dispersed camping is that with free camping no one is paid to come clean up the mess every day. Campgrounds would have that same flavor of destruction and garbage if not for the tireless efforts of camp hosts to clean up after people.

If you feel strongly about it, get BLM to fund more camp host jobs in your favorite places. And have BLM install dumpsters and pay for the removal of garbage. And get vault toilets installed to keep the forest floor sanitary. This will all be paid for with fees from dispersed campers like you, by the way.

Or if you really do care about it, and want to keep free camping, take action and pick up and dispose of the garbage yourself, 20 bucks a load at the dump. The slobs will always be with us.
-crofter

What would REALLY help? More funding for BLM and USFS and other agencies that manage camping land, including state lands. Their budgets have been STARVED for decades. Private orgs have been trying to pick up the slack, but...

https://www.nationalforests.org
https://www.nationalparks.org
https://www.nfwf.org

And most states have a state parks foundation. I know that for both Oregon and Washington, the state parks agencies no longer receive ANY general fund money. (They do receive funding from the state, just not general fund money.)

The user fees that state and federal agencies collect don't cover the expenses.

There ain't no such thing as a free lunch. Not even for boondockers.

 

[WanderingRose]

It comes down to individuals who respect the environment they or others are in, or don’t.

I was in a federal campground in the eastern US a few years back, and pulled into my campsite to find it littered with orange peels, apple cores, onion skins, juice boxes, chip bags, etc., and the fire pit with burned cans and other garbage in it.

As I walked my dog, I saw the same kind of litter in other sites, including at one a pair of heavily soiled women’s underwear on the ground.

I took pictures and showed them to the young woman in charge in the office, who said that she had a couple of guys who reportedly were inspecting and cleaning up campsites after people left.

Apparently, not.

Then there was the state park, also out east, where a group had been gathering, and when I pulled into my site there was what appeared to be a weeks worth of animal feces on the ground at my site.

One of the best weapons we have against this kind of thing these days are the cameras on our phones, where if sites have been registered for or permits issued the problem can be tracked to individuals and addressed in some manner.

The state park referenced has since required that sites be inspected by assigned camp hosts before being released to the next camper.

 

[LoupGarou]

It’s not about camping anymore.

The word on the net is that public lands is the place you want to be, so load up the RV, trailer, van, truck, car or tent and live on public lands rent free.

A Research Paper;
Social impacts of homelessness and long-term occupancy on national forests and grasslands: A national study of U.S. Forest Service law enforcement officers.

https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/jour...NBXnRMKs4D9jXGFq53GXvHbsuXZPtH0UMFwCtNCPOEeHg

 

[tx2sturgis]

Thanks for that link to the research paper...I have not read it word for word yet...it is lengthy, but I like a term they use: NRC..."Non Recreational Camper". 

I like to think that means: Professional Camper....A term which I think is complimentary. (other than the 'PC' initials) 

What I dont like at all is this sentence in the conclusion:  

 "On the contrary, our respondents reported that the presence of
NRCs on USFS lands appears to be increasing or remaining steady. As a
result, LEOs, and other USFS staff, will be required to continue managing the effects of long-term occupants of their lands."

"THEIR lands"? WHAT THE HELL! Those lands are OUR lands!

Or they were...at one time....holy crap. They think the lands belong to them and that explains a LOT.

 

[nature lover]

Tx2sturgis - AMEN

 

[maki2]

Some fulltime Boondockers are doing recreattional camping. Others are just out there mostly being non recreational. Then there are ones like myself who do a bit of both things. I dont want to do constant travel sightseeing, hiking and such but there are quite a few places that I want to recreate at during my full time living in an RV lifestyle. I know that I am not at all unusual in my approach to it.

There is always some group doing a study that wants to stick people into boxes somthey can make it easy to count for percentages on the studies. We all get stuck in those boxes of income ranges, age ranges, gender, etc everyday of our lives for all kinds of surveys and studies. Every business online, every insurance compant, cities, states, schools, stores are constantly data mining us citizens. A lot of times they pay colleges with computer labs to do that work.i know that is how the BLM derives some of its data.

 

[Qxxx]

The gobmint funding priorities are absolutely bizarre. The link shows USFS budget at $5.3-billion with about 1/2 going to fighting wildfires. Plus I've noticed elsewhere that another billion or so is repurposed for that matter from the rest of the budget.
https://wildfiretoday.com/2020/02/10/administration-requests-2-to-5-increases-in-fire-budgets/

You'd think these people would have noticed the massive fires in the west for the past several years, and the horrid impacts they are having, and would have allocated an additional $5-billion or so directly for mitigation, at least for clearing brush near towns and cities if nothing else.

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

 . . . You'd think these people would have noticed the massive fires in the west for the past several years, and the horrid impacts they are having, and would have allocated an additional $5-billion or so directly for mitigation, at least for clearing brush near towns and cities if nothing else.

About 40 years ago environmental groups sued in federal court to stop all controlled burns (something the Indians had done for centuries to minimize fire danger)[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif] [/font]and defensive logging in California.  Now we have a huge buildup of tinder and it's probably not possible to clean the mess up any longer.

Cleaning up brush is the responsibility of the property owners (and subject to a lot of environmental restrictions in California) and probably wouldn't help anyway.  Once a forest fire gets going it jumps from tree to tree to house to barn . . .

 

[Qxxx]

Well spiff, do nothing because of a 40 YO lawsuit, or act on the basis of the current situation which is an environmental disaster and much more. I can't imagine any environmentalists today want to see millions of trees burning, and the air polluted for months at a time.

"Cleaning up brush is the responsibility of the property owners" will have microscopic impact. They clearly need to go in for several miles around any urban area with bull dozers and chain saws. It's national forest, so that shows where the major responsibility lies.

 

[Sofisintown]

About 40 years ago environmental groups sued in federal court to stop all controlled burns (something the Indians had done for centuries to minimize fire danger)[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif] [/font]and defensive logging in California.  Now we have a huge buildup of tinder and it's probably not possible to clean the mess up any longer.

Now nature is cleaning up the aforementioned mess, and she ain't joking...

 

[rvwandering]

I can't find anything about this "40 years ago environmental groups sued in federal court to stop all controlled burns". Can anyone post a link with more information?

 

[travelaround]

There are controlled burns around Happy Camp every year so.. no lawsuit stopping them.

 

[jacqueg]

I can't find anything about this "40 years ago environmental groups sued in federal court to stop all controlled burns".  Can anyone post a link with more information?

If there was such a lawsuit, the enviro groups clearly lost, as each west coast national forest I know of - and quite a few western national parks - has a controlled burn program in their annual budget.

 

[Qxxx]

It's obviously not enough.

 

[crofter]

....Once a forest fire gets going it jumps from tree to tree to house to barn . . .

Looks like there was a big jump in the fire southwest of Mount Hood in Oregon. Jumped across a large dam and ran up the pass on Hwy 224, then travelled down the mountain to the edge of town of Estacada. Much of the area was burned in  a big fire 15 years ago, and logged multiple times, but it burned down again anyway.
I will be interested to hear what sparked the fire. Could have been embers thrown from other large fires, lightening, shooting, chainsaws, campfire, fireworks, bird farts, who knows. Apparently domestic terrorists have been ruled out.
-crofter

 

[crofter]

I can't find anything about this "40 years ago environmental groups sued in federal court to stop all controlled burns".  Can anyone post a link with more information?

This ban in cali is 2020 thanks to covid 19.
-crofter

Description: news story text
https://www.desertsun.com/story/new...urns-may-lead-california-wildires/2891844001/