At 11:23 AM 07/06/2000 -0700, ralph diaz wrote: >I was unabashedly referring to non-emergency camping as well as >emergency. >On long stretches of paddling waters, it really is hard to avoid camping >on private property. I've been an occassional commando camper while backpacking and bicycling. You learn some techniques that make it more-or-less OK, even if you are discovered. The no open fires rule is the best and most obvious. Nothing will get you thrown out faster than building a fire on someone else's place. Some young adults I ran into on one trip were shocked that I spent most nights at legal campgrounds. They economized by commandoing at every opportunity. In much of the Pacific Northwest, there are small towns strung out every 5-10 miles or even further apart. Every town has a cemetary. They would find some tree covered spot on the edge of the cemetary and camp nearly every night. A brother and sister, about 19 and 17, told me their technique. Early in the evening the young lady would approach a nice house with an empty water container. She would ask to fill the water -- she was never refused. Then she would ask if there were camping spots anywhere nearby. She said that over 50% of the time she would be offered a lawn, or in some cases a trailer or a room for free. My own technique was more mundane. Look for a place with either no fences, or untended fences. Camp out of sight of both houses and roads. Leave absolutely no trace. Sometimes there would be surprises -- like cows surrounding the tent in the morning, or a fellow who stopped on the road which we were sure we were out of sight of, and asking, "you fellows want a better place to camp than that?" After camping we would try to leave at or even before dawn. The only problem I've ever experienced was one incident commando camping at a closed National Forest campground on the Klamath River. (We were biking, not paddling.) There is nothing like getting to the only campground for 20 miles and finding it unexpectedly closed. We quietly crossed the barrier and set up camp out of sight. About 8 guys from a motorcycle gang got roughly the same idea about 2 hours later, but after racing their bikes around and smashing some tequila bottles they got bored and left, thank goodness. jerry. *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - All postings copyright the author and not to be reproduced outside PaddleWise without author's permission Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************Received on Thu Jul 06 2000 - 10:14:33 PDT
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