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I've never had this feeling more poignantly than one day, where I was deep in a wilderness zone of the Cascades, several miles from even the nearest logging roa

by ty6853 1y ago

I've never had this feeling more poignantly than one day, where I was deep in a wilderness zone of the Cascades, several miles from even the nearest logging road. I was minding my own business, pack in, pack out, with not a soul in sight. And out popped a park ranger, the first person I had seen in days, asking me if I had a permit to exist in the wilderness. No, no I did not. Sorry for the terrible intrusion of existing. Then he went up to write an order that I had 2 days to get off the public land, with it being a 2 day hike out. Before handing it, he wanted an address I had none. Apparently this somehow broke his brain. The dude would literally not let me go until I came up with an address, even though I legitimately had none.

azemetre 1y ago
Have you heard of "right to roam" laws in the UK? They make sense to me and maybe the US could use them for all public lands.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > maybe the US could use them for all public lands We have this for some public lands. It doesn't work for all of them. Our National Parks would fail at their conservation mission if everyone were allowed to break trail, for instance. (You'll also see rampant poaching if refusing to provide ID or an address for a citation turns into a get-out-of-jail-free card.)
  - azemetre 1y ago
    I wouldn't consider right to roam the same as right to hunt.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- UKsoct 1y ago
  [dead]
candiddevmike 1y ago
:shrug: there is no right to roam in the US, you need to pay to use various state/federal parks. The money goes towards the upkeep of the park. The park ranger was doing his job and you made it difficult for him, I don't know what else to tell you.
- jjulius 1y ago
  This comment makes assumptions and gives OP crap for said assumptions. As someone who also frequently backpacks in the same region, it's just not true. OP specified "wilderness zone" and there are numerous wilderness areas where the only requirement is to fill out a permit yourself near/at the trailhead. Otherwise, access is entirely free. It's hard to know how much of a violation OP made without knowing exactly where in the Cascades they were.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- jandrewrogers 1y ago
  Vast tracts of land in the US are explicitly open for people to wander around or camp-out wherever they want. On BLM land (much of the western US), you can stay at any particular site you choose for up to two weeks before you have to move on. National Parks are completely over-run with millions of people from all over the world, it would utterly destroy the environment to not limit the number of people that access it and how they access it. They have to keep ratcheting up the restrictions because of extreme levels of demand that cannot be reasonably met. National Forests and wilderness areas are somewhere in the middle. You can buy a general pass to use them but there are local restrictions on what you can do and some popular areas require additional limited-availability permits for backcountry camping and similar to manage the number of people occupying the land at any one time. In this case, it seems like the ranger is being a bit of a dick. I’ve never been hassled in the National Forest backcountry of the Cascades in regions that require no special permit, just a cheap general pass that I buy every year that technically permits that usage. I did once get a ticket from a rural sheriff for not parking far enough off the shoulder on a forestry road when I went camping.
OfficialTurkey 1y ago
My understanding is that permits, especially quota permits in locations like the Cascades, are to protect the wilderness from too many people. In that case it sounds to me like the ranger was being a good steward of the land. In your case you may have been pack in, pack out (though there's still waste to think about), but in general that's not true and I don't see a non-blanket approach here.
- peterhadlaw 1y ago
  The world is meant to be explored and people have dominion over the Earth and animals-not the other way around. Whatever happened to liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
  - dkarl 1y ago
    There are a variety of public lands with a variety of management methods. It's important for some to be more restrictive and others less restrictive.
  - chowells 1y ago
    What? "Dominion"? What are you on about? What is the moral and rational basis of this supposed authority?
    - peterhadlaw 1y ago
      The stance is anti-authority.
      - all2 1y ago
        I confused. How is this anti-authority?
        peterhadlaw 1y ago
        To find someone minding their own business in the middle of nature/nowhere and then harass them out of said place is oppressive. I'm opposed to said authority. Just leave people alone. Yes I understand the tragedy of the commons and whatever, I don't think a dude chilling and minding his own business/liberty is _that_. So I'm arguing to leave people more alone, which is more anti-authority.
j-bos 1y ago
You might enjoy the book "the man who gave up money". He faced a similar experience, better brain breaking.
stevenAthompson 1y ago
I think it was Locke who talked about the "Social Contract". The idea being that society robbed man of the opportunity to live as a "feral" by inventing property rights and restricting their right to roam; therefore society owes each member a subsistence at least equivalent to the one nature would have provided. I'm not sure I agree with Locke, but I at least feel that the parks are meant to exist as a partial means of living up to that contract and should be less strictly patrolled than this one was on that day.
- dimal 1y ago
  That’s an interesting argument. I looked it up. Looks like it’s from Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice.[0] It’s essentially an argument for universal basic income. Crazy, radical stuff, and it’s hosted on a government website! [0] https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html
  - stevenAthompson 1y ago
    It's been a very long time since I studied it, but... The founders of the US (including Paine) took most/much of their inspiration from the works of Locke who popularized a lot of the ideas about inalienable/natural rights coming from God and governing requiring the consent of the governed. I'm fairly certain that Locke adapted ideas from some some older source, but Locke's work is considered foundational to the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and some of his phrasings found their way into both documents. Definitely worth reading more about it if you're into that sort of thing. Especially in the current political climate where everything that doesn't fit the agenda is fast being swept beneath the rug of history.
gwbas1c 1y ago
I think that's a symptom of there being too many people. Sometimes I feel guilty for reproducing.
ninalanyon 1y ago
Why the hell should you need a permit? Sounds like you met a real jobsworth. I'm so glad I live in a country with a legally defined right to roam, Norway [1]. There is a two day limit but that only means you can only camp for two nights in any one place not that you can be told to leave. There are provisions for the kommune (local authority) to forbid access to areas that have been damaged by over-use though. [1] https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/publikasjoner/2020/juni-2020/the-norwegian-right-to-roam-the-countryside/ https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/publikasjoner/2020/juni-202...

by ty6853 1y ago

azemetre 1y ago

Have you heard of "right to roam" laws in the UK? They make sense to me and maybe the US could use them for all public lands.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> maybe the US could use them for all public lands We have this for some public lands. It doesn't work for all of them. Our National Parks would fail at their conservation mission if everyone were allowed to break trail, for instance. (You'll also see rampant poaching if refusing to provide ID or an address for a citation turns into a get-out-of-jail-free card.)
- azemetre 1y ago
  I wouldn't consider right to roam the same as right to hunt.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
UKsoct 1y ago
[dead]

candiddevmike 1y ago

:shrug: there is no right to roam in the US, you need to pay to use various state/federal parks. The money goes towards the upkeep of the park. The park ranger was doing his job and you made it difficult for him, I don't know what else to tell you.

jjulius 1y ago
This comment makes assumptions and gives OP crap for said assumptions. As someone who also frequently backpacks in the same region, it's just not true. OP specified "wilderness zone" and there are numerous wilderness areas where the only requirement is to fill out a permit yourself near/at the trailhead. Otherwise, access is entirely free. It's hard to know how much of a violation OP made without knowing exactly where in the Cascades they were.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jandrewrogers 1y ago
Vast tracts of land in the US are explicitly open for people to wander around or camp-out wherever they want. On BLM land (much of the western US), you can stay at any particular site you choose for up to two weeks before you have to move on. National Parks are completely over-run with millions of people from all over the world, it would utterly destroy the environment to not limit the number of people that access it and how they access it. They have to keep ratcheting up the restrictions because of extreme levels of demand that cannot be reasonably met. National Forests and wilderness areas are somewhere in the middle. You can buy a general pass to use them but there are local restrictions on what you can do and some popular areas require additional limited-availability permits for backcountry camping and similar to manage the number of people occupying the land at any one time. In this case, it seems like the ranger is being a bit of a dick. I’ve never been hassled in the National Forest backcountry of the Cascades in regions that require no special permit, just a cheap general pass that I buy every year that technically permits that usage. I did once get a ticket from a rural sheriff for not parking far enough off the shoulder on a forestry road when I went camping.

OfficialTurkey 1y ago

My understanding is that permits, especially quota permits in locations like the Cascades, are to protect the wilderness from too many people. In that case it sounds to me like the ranger was being a good steward of the land. In your case you may have been pack in, pack out (though there's still waste to think about), but in general that's not true and I don't see a non-blanket approach here.

peterhadlaw 1y ago
The world is meant to be explored and people have dominion over the Earth and animals-not the other way around. Whatever happened to liberty and the pursuit of happiness?
- dkarl 1y ago
  There are a variety of public lands with a variety of management methods. It's important for some to be more restrictive and others less restrictive.
- chowells 1y ago
  What? "Dominion"? What are you on about? What is the moral and rational basis of this supposed authority?
  - peterhadlaw 1y ago
    The stance is anti-authority.
    - all2 1y ago
      I confused. How is this anti-authority?
      - peterhadlaw 1y ago
        To find someone minding their own business in the middle of nature/nowhere and then harass them out of said place is oppressive. I'm opposed to said authority. Just leave people alone. Yes I understand the tragedy of the commons and whatever, I don't think a dude chilling and minding his own business/liberty is _that_. So I'm arguing to leave people more alone, which is more anti-authority.

j-bos 1y ago

You might enjoy the book "the man who gave up money". He faced a similar experience, better brain breaking.

stevenAthompson 1y ago

I think it was Locke who talked about the "Social Contract". The idea being that society robbed man of the opportunity to live as a "feral" by inventing property rights and restricting their right to roam; therefore society owes each member a subsistence at least equivalent to the one nature would have provided. I'm not sure I agree with Locke, but I at least feel that the parks are meant to exist as a partial means of living up to that contract and should be less strictly patrolled than this one was on that day.

dimal 1y ago
That’s an interesting argument. I looked it up. Looks like it’s from Thomas Paine in Agrarian Justice.[0] It’s essentially an argument for universal basic income. Crazy, radical stuff, and it’s hosted on a government website! [0] https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html https://www.ssa.gov/history/paine4.html
- stevenAthompson 1y ago
  It's been a very long time since I studied it, but... The founders of the US (including Paine) took most/much of their inspiration from the works of Locke who popularized a lot of the ideas about inalienable/natural rights coming from God and governing requiring the consent of the governed. I'm fairly certain that Locke adapted ideas from some some older source, but Locke's work is considered foundational to the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence and some of his phrasings found their way into both documents. Definitely worth reading more about it if you're into that sort of thing. Especially in the current political climate where everything that doesn't fit the agenda is fast being swept beneath the rug of history.

gwbas1c 1y ago

I think that's a symptom of there being too many people. Sometimes I feel guilty for reproducing.

ninalanyon 1y ago

Why the hell should you need a permit? Sounds like you met a real jobsworth. I'm so glad I live in a country with a legally defined right to roam, Norway [1]. There is a two day limit but that only means you can only camp for two nights in any one place not that you can be told to leave. There are provisions for the kommune (local authority) to forbid access to areas that have been damaged by over-use though. [1] https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/publikasjoner/2020/juni-2020/the-norwegian-right-to-roam-the-countryside/ https://www.miljodirektoratet.no/publikasjoner/2020/juni-202...