Stealth Camping?

[GEC]

Here In NJ you can get away with it as long as you don't camp to close to trails. Alot of the ranger police have quads and bikes to get into the hard to reach areas in the pine barrens. So you really have to bush wack to get some where far enough away so you go unnoticed. Fires have to be kept down and try to burn dry wood so that you don't make to much smoke. Hammock camping is the way to go if you have make quick get away.

 

[DennisStrickland]

in texas most land is privately owned. many parents take the kids to their land to shoot pistols & rifles & roll around the property shooting rabbits & such, hogs if spotted are machine gunned. [ my term for all guns blazing ] hogs break fences & play hell with corn. peanuts & watermelons. legal or not i would be careful on entering private land in texas w/o permission.dennis

 

[LMT66]

In my area, stealth camping means pitching a tent where it's not allowed which is about everywhere. I guess I'm a criminal?

I live on the border of two counties in a massive Metro area. One has 68000 acres of dense untouched public use forest preserve and the other has 25000 acres. Camping is allowed at two places that I know of. One is only for boy scouts and is seldom used and the other is loaded with families with campers, small RV's or massive tents, is only open on weekends May to Sept and has 60 spots.
There are a few private "campgrounds" surrounding the counties but they consist of a small pond in a field surrounded by parked dilapidated pop-up campers. These places become "outdoor bars" on the weekends.

93000 acres of public land, no camping allowed?
Stealth Camping :thumbup:

 

[Gadgetaholic]

Ive been known to do it. Some of the conservation lands here have designated camping areas, but the are usually right by the dang parking lot, right by the road. Might be illegal, but these lands are maintained with my tax dollars and hunting/fishing fees, and some of them are bought with my tax dollars. So, I dont see the problem. Im not poaching wildlife, and I leave no trace.

Last year I headed off to go camping somewhere quiet. I visited a camping ground on public land and saw tents & campervans, not really what I was looking for. So I headed off to find somewhere quieter and found a spot that wasn't accessible by car (I was motorcycle camping) and set up my tent. I couple of people came by during the day, one informed me that there was no problem (legal or otherwise) with what I was doing. Over night I saw no one and was completely alone, it made a nice change of pace compared to every other day living in a city.

If I could spare the money I'd like to get a dual-sport bike and head to even more inaccessible places to camp so I can spend a couple of days every now & then completely alone and away from everything. This is what I think of as 'stealth camping' - not necessarily illegal, just out of the way where no one realises where you are or what you are doing.

Often when riding along the road I think about whether I could camp near the roadside in a spot where no one would realise I was there. I kinda like the idea of pulling into some trees & bushes at the end of the day, pitching a tent, cooking some dinner and getting some sleep, then packing up and continuing on my journey at first light.

I've stayed in a cabin at camping grounds plenty of times, I wouldn't call that camping at all.

 

[Havokk]

I first heard the term in Ray Jardine's book. In it he uses the term to mean camping without leaving any sign that you were there. In other words, the least environmental disturbance possible. His reason for doing so was conservation-minded; camping to cause the least amount of ecological damage possible.


B

 

[Don Rearic]

In my area, stealth camping means pitching a tent where it's not allowed which is about everywhere. I guess I'm a criminal?

93000 acres of public land, no camping allowed?

Stealth Camping :thumbup:

I reckon you are a criminal. At least by a lot of people's opinion.

Not by mine.

As for your other comments, I went to a campground a couple years back and had to tolerate another couple's kid constantly fornicating with my campfire, including when I was cooking or making coffee. Other campers were apparently designated babysitters for this little tur...errah..."tyke." We didn't get paid or volunteer, however.

And they brought their god-damned dog, too. Now, I have no problem with dogs at all. I cannot have one because Wifey and Son are allergic to them and I always stop and pet people's dogs where I live, etc. But to bring a ankle-biting, yip-dog to the damned campground and just disturb the living hell out of everyone and because you pay your 60 smackers, you think you have a right to do that...and the other people who don't want to hear it paid their 60 smackers, too. If your dog is not accustomed to the outdoors and is going to bark at every songbird tweet, hoot, leaf and stick crush and snap and squirrels cutting nuts - leave them at home. Dogs running around defecating in other people's sites is another big problem with these piggish owners.

I mean, people have a sense of entitlement nowadays that would make a third gen welfare queen blush.

Not even discussing the "campfire" THEY had. They probably used so much charcoal lighter fluid they damaged the water table.

 

[Codger_64]

A lot of interesting responses here. I don't like to camp in a tent city and pay money for the experiance. Not thirty dollars, not five. I don't care for buying marginally useful firewood at crazy prices and having to build my fire in a designated firering filled with trash from the last 120 people who used it. I don't go camping to enjoy the "social experience", worry about someone helping themselves to my stuff if I hike to the restroom that is often nastier than the worst gas station john. I don't want someone's "little precious" foo-foo dog peeing on my tent or pack. I don't go out to listen to a radio or other noise maker (if I, with only 20% of my hearing, can hear it, it is way too loud!).

So I avoid these places. Yes, I understand the reasoning behind having them. Imagine the damage to the backcountry if all of these nimrods and their broods went about chopping and clearing, building uncontained fires, leaving their garbage strewn over the landscape. These people need a place like this where there are rules and "woods police" to enforce sanitation, conservation, and consideration of neighbors. I don't.

Stealth camping. Never really thought of it that way, but I guess that is what I have done 99% of the time. I have practiced LNT since the 1960's. I believe I am a good steward of the wild places I visit. I can recognize fire danger without a visit from a Ranger, and use a gas hiker stove carefully. I know not to leave a pile of feces laying about, or ashes and scorched rocks and sticks from my campfire, and never any trash. I don't chop live trees or alter the landscape in any way that I can't conceal when I clean my site to leave. I want the next person to find the spot just as I did, if not better.

Trespass isn't welcome anywhere, but left with no other choice of site, I will ask permission if possible. If not possible, I try to depend on riparian rights laws and comply with those.

 

[kvaughn]

I have next door access to a 6000 acre watershed that surrounds a municipal water reservoir in a very rural area.The property has been owned by a large municipality about 40 miles away since the 1920's. No tresspassing signs about every 50' or so on the property lines and then no enforcement except at a couple old trailheads. I pack into this relatively pristine old growth woods for overniters and a little guerilla fishing occassionally and leave no trace. This land was paid for and is maintained with tax dollars. I dont tell or take anyone and leave no damage or contamination. I also dont feel guilty about trespassing as I consider this public land even though it is posted. Most likely because of the reasons people posted above. I feel quite differently about trespassing on private property.--KV

 

[Don Rearic]

Out in the wilds, I don't think I would have a problem with making the occasional fire ring or anything like that. How often do you come along and find some burned out fire ring that you can trace back to American Indians or Cowboys from over a hundred years ago? Rare thing in most areas, yet they existed! Nature cleans itself up nicely. Rain, snow, wind, it works wonders. (That is not taken to an extreme by me, like others do, that we can ignore things like this BP debacle because "the earth will heal itself," etc.)

Feces and trash are a different thing.

When I was a kid in the 70s, my Dad found this little creek off the lower Susquehanna River, a couple/three miles below The Conowingo Dam. It was always just trashed. It was about 3.00 a day, no bathrooms, no nothing. No electric - nothing! OK, well, they had rusted out old 55-gallon drums for trash.

Great place.

I was a total, but safe, firebug. I kept in the campfire area, but I would burn damned near anything. I burned a tumbleweed of cut and dried Poison Ivy once. My Dad almost let a chunk loose over that one!

People would bring back that nasty radioactive green corrugated fiberglass and make halfassed lean-tos out of them, etc., then they would be all busted up. Just kids coming back with a hammer, pocketfull of nails, the fiberglass, a couple 2X4s and a bag of dope. Up goes the smokendope shelter.

Every time my Dad wasn't looking, in the fire it would go. Plastic milk jugs, huge tangled balls of discarded monofilament line. There was nothing I would not burn. Hell, he was cooking on a Coleman stove, didn't hurt anything...except for my cancer they will one day blame on cigarettes I used to smoke.

I would burn an entire year's worth of trash and garbage, within reason, in one week. It wasn't going to be disposed of in any other way.

He was in The Marine Corps, so, even as a small boy, if you didn't take care of your #1 & #2 deposits, he would put his foot in your ass. He knew about sanitation. He would sharpen my knives, when I was six and my mother would always argue with him and he would have to explain to her that it was safer that way because, "He don't have to work at cutting something, the knife does the work."

She never understood that...or maybe she just liked to fight with The Old Man.

Point is, most kids are not being taught correctly and they grow up to be pigs in campgrounds and stuff. Other people discover camping and stuff later in life and they have not done it and they, too, are little forest piglets.

And we that know better have to suffer right along with them.

 

[Don Rearic]

This land was paid for and is maintained with tax dollars. I dont tell or take anyone and leave no damage or contamination. I also dont feel guilty about trespassing as I consider this public land even though it is posted. Most likely because of the reasons people posted above. I feel quite differently about trespassing on private property.--KV

That's what I am talking about. I mean, the land is the People's land.

And the private property situation is a totally different thing, I agree.

 

[RedbeAR15]

That's what I am talking about. I mean, the land is the People's land.

And the private property situation is a totally different thing, I agree.

You think stealth camping on public land is OK? How does that differ from a "sense of entitlement"?

As far as trying it on private property, it would be best to ask permission. I would have no problem at all allowing someone to do this if they asked, but they might have a problem if they didn't since I frequently target practice on my property..

 

[hollowdweller]

I always thought of a "stealth camp" not as an illegal camp but as the term made popular by lightweight backpacking guru Ray Jardine.

What he means is as a backpacker you do not camp in the worn out camping areas but go off trail to where others on the trail can't see you and you have a minimal impact camp.

In fact a lot of backpacking books suggest stopping and cooking dinner then proceeding to your stealth camp to keep your camp free of food odors if you are in a heavy bear area.

Also waking up, hitting the trail and eating breakfast down the trail rather than in a camp.

http://sectionhiker.com/stealth_camping/

 

[kgd]

You think stealth camping on public land is OK? How does that differ from a "sense of entitlement"?

It is a sense of entitlement. Entitlement to use public lands that are, well, they are public lands. Using public lands in a manner that isn't degrading the quality of them is I believe not only an entitlement but it is an obligation if I truly value the resource.

The power of 100 people showing up to protest a municipal council's decision to encroach the outer ring of a conservation reserve can be remarkable. The complete apathy of the public who are too used to playing video games and watching Opera on TV to care whether or not another sub-division of million dollar houses goes up and destroys their local wilderness is a far greater crime to that nature reserve than anything else. You can even take a slightly paranoid attitude and suggest that bylaws, often put in place by ignorant uneducated pukes called city Councillor's, are often designed to exactly limit access to public places and in so doing elicit public apathy a few years down the road. By-laws can always be changed with public pressure.

An unused thing is an unvalued thing. If you want to save it, then use it and encourage good stewardship and promote it as a public resource. The basic premise of the U.S. National Parks system is to provide a resource that maximizes the long term use for as many people of the wider public as possible. I'll assert that this is a good ethos to work from.

So, when it comes to my local places I do like seeing a bunch of kids tooling their bikes through the local forests even when they aren't supposed to necessarily be on that path. These kids are growing up loving the place I love. They might be its next champions.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

Whats so hard about asking the owner of the property if you can set up camp. They probably won't want to bother you, all you have to do is clean up the site. Maybe trade them a service or knife/tool/gear for the opportunity.

Stealth camping, when you are not allowed on public or private land, sounds like a good way to get shot to me.

 

[Don Rearic]

Stealth camping sounds like a good way to get shot to me.

Well, if nothing else was done, I guess it sounds like a good way for someone other than the landholder's children to inherit some land. This is 2010, unless you are really in the sticks, it would be advisable not to shoot people for trespassing or try to manufacture a confrontation so you could shoot someone for trespassing. All of which should be much, much more illegal than simple trespassing in any sane world.

But...this world really isn't quite sane any longer.

But it is so interesting how simple discussions can get turned around like this.

 

[moonwilson]

If I catch anybody camping on my land without permission, they won't be greeted with open arms, I can assure you. Most likely I'd fire a couple rounds into the trees above their heads from a couple hundred yards away until they got the message and left.

 

[silenthunterstudios]

The laws might be asinine, even draconian, but its still the law. Protest it at city hall, not on the public trail, or someones private property. I note that most of the members in this thread stated that they would not trespass on private property, but there are still dangers on public property. Not just getting arrested or detained by a game warden. There are lots of marijuana plots and meth labs out there off the beaten path.

 

[hayseed1]

Some pretty wise ideas,The heck with where bullets fired through trees might go or what or who they might hit.In fact lets throw out all firearms safety to the wind for the sake of feeling like a land Baron from old England.Maybe you'll even catch some noisy brat in the head playing in their yard and you'll have one less annoyance to put up with.
Would anyone know who to ask for permission to do anything on your Kingdom?Is it posted on all sides along the surveyed boundries?

 

[silenthunterstudios]

In my neighborhood, there are many POSTED NO TRESPASSING signs. My father does not have any. That does not give passerby the clearance to go traipsing through the woods. Many people in my fathers neighborhood will gladly allow you entrance to their woods, sometimes in exchange for an extra hand on the farm etc.

In my opinion, if you have paid for the land, yeah, it is your kingdom. If you don't like, buy your own kingdom. My father doesn't want me firing guns on Sunday on his land. Tough crap for me, its his land. It might be mine someday, doesn't mean its mine now.

In all seriousness, it would not be that much trouble to find out who owns the piece of land you want to go on.

While posting NO TRESPASSING signs might be the law in MD, it still doesn't give anyone free access if they are not posted.

 

[moonwilson]

Some pretty wise ideas,The heck with where bullets fired through trees might go or what or who they might hit.In fact lets throw out all firearms safety to the wind for the sake of feeling like a land Baron from old England.Maybe you'll even catch some noisy brat in the head playing in their yard and you'll have one less annoyance to put up with.
Would anyone know who to ask for permission to do anything on your Kingdom?Is it posted on all sides along the surveyed boundries?

My family's land is shaped like three big bowls, with mountains all around. 300 acres. We can shoot anywhere we want on our property without having to worry about a backstop, unless you're shooting directly at one of the buildings. We're a few miles in from the nearest paved road, so you can take your misguided advice about firearms safety and shove it. It's our land, and if we want to act like English land barons, or anything else, then that's our business. All boundaries are posted and fenced.

You want to know who to ask to camp on our land? Feel free to ask any of the neighbors. They'll be happy to tell you, if they don't shoot you first, for being on THEIR property.