I thought I'd enjoy our public lands today..

[usmbguest5318]

In most places in the west if you even pick up a stick outside and some inside of a camp area you are breaking their rules. Common sense would say let someone use the deadwood.

While I've over the years backcountry camped in a variety of public lands -- Monongahela National Forest, George Washington National Forest, Daniel Boone National Forest, Thomas Jefferson National forest, Sierra, Klamath, Three Sisters, Unitas, Katmai, Denali, Yosemite, Ansel Adams, and a few others -- I can't speak to what's permitted in "most places." The rules about what one can and cannot do in the woods vary by the woods and the conditions at the time one is there. In general, however, one will find the rules about what is and isn't permitted here: Wilderness.net - Three Sisters Wilderness - Rules and Regulations.

In my own experience camping in the "great outdoors," I have yet to go to a national wilderness area where using anything other than deadwood is what is expected if one is going to make a fire, and I haven't been to any that disallow campfires. (Frankly, I don't know how the hell one could expect to eat well in the backcountry if one didn't catch fish/game and cook it on a campfire.) Most of the time, places that are good for making camp already have fire rings present (I have no idea who put them there), but on one occasion my party had to build our own. (That was a PITA as our options were to build a dirt one or keep hiking until we came upon a locale that had abundant large-ish stones or an existing fire ring. That was the only time I went camping and encountered other people away from the local "swimming hole.") Going to "developed" campgrounds, however, is a different matter, and as I haven't ever camped or visited those places, I can't say what their regulations are.

View attachment 126552

That's great at "developed" campsites. In the backcountry, this is what I use, although it's exactly the one the guy in the video depicts, it's quite similar. I and my friends use that sort of kit because we must carry everything we need, and in the woods, what one needs is that which gets the job done and doesn't require us to have to carry stuff out of the woods.



OT:
I wish I'd had the prescience to think that I could have marketed and sold the camping bracelet my camping friend made. We may have made a nice little sum of money doing so. My friend wishes he'd "back then" known there might have been some available for sale. LOL

California back country where I grew up it was generally no fires do to the fire threat.

You'll get no rebuttal from me about the fire rules in the California backcountry where you grew up for I'm well aware that there are places where "no fires" is the rule. Moreover, as I wrote before, I am in no position to remark about every single wilderness area, national forest, park and campground. I can speak to the ones I've been to and specific ones of which I bother to find out what the fire rules are.

Open fires, as opposed to backpacking stoves, are not the Forest Service's preferred means for campers to cook or "whatever;" however, it tries to make a reasonable effort to toe the line between outright disallowing fires so as to minimize fire risk to the utmost it can and accommodating minimalist campers desire not to carry a lot of stuff (anything over ~35 lbs of gear, food and water) into and out of the woods, it stipulates limited open fire rules.

• Yosemite
• Sierra in general -- The most recent stipulation for the Sierra National Forest is the termination of the prior temporary restriction on fires.
  • Ansel Adams Wilderness
    WILDERNESS CAMPFIRES
    Today, backpackers into wilderness areas are urged to use Leave No Trace ethics which encourages cooking on camp stoves and avoiding building campfires. Backpacking stoves are economical and lightweight and provide fast, clean cooking. In some heavily used areas, fires are not permitted. In fragile environments, such as alpine meadows, fires leave scars for many years and deplete wood supplies. Campfires are discouraged anywhere above 9,000 feet.
    
    WOOD BURNING
    Burning small sticks gathered from the ground is the best source of wood. Use only down, dead wood. Never cut green trees or branches; they won't burn. Standing dead trees will burn, but are valuable for cavity-nesting birds and aesthetics so don't cut them. Small wood will burn completely, providing good coals for cooking. The remaining white ash is easier to dispose of than partially burned logs.

You will recall that this line of discussion came about because you wrote, "In most places in the west if you even pick up a stick outside and some inside of a camp area you are breaking their rules." Deadwood that has fallen to the ground is precisely what the National Forest Service instruct fire-building visitors to use if one is going to build a fire; thus it is most certainly not a general rule violation to pick up such wood. For all the "crazy" things the U.S. Government might require and proscribe, "picking up" fallen dead wood that the Forest Service is willing to allow one to burn in a campfire cannot be among the proscribed behaviors.

FWIW, before I developed the skills for "minimalist" backpacking (skills I picked up over time through experience and before "everything" was available on the Internet), I used a canister stove. They work, they are convenient and they are lighter in weight than are some alternatives, but they are not as lightweight as matches or a cigarette lighter, a square foot of aluminum foil, and, if one must, either a cheap cooking rack (the cheaper the better) or a small broiler grate such as the flimsy ones provided as broiling grills with cheap countertop ovens. Truth be told, I'm not as much a minimalist backpacker as I am a "I just don't want to lug a lot of excess weight around as I trek through the woods." Developing minimalist packing skills are especially useful when doing a canoe/kayak trip where portaging is required; one is grateful for every unnecessary pound one left at home.

 

[PoliticalChic]

In the State and federal parks near us, there are lots of entrances, like that with gates shut, but they are for maintenance travel only, like those coming in to mow the grassy edges of the drives or meadow areas, or for the crew that comes in and cuts up dead trees... btw, you can haul off that wood in the pile if you need some fire wood....that's why they try to leave stacks of it near the edge where you can drag it to a truck...

Eventually there will be one gate, larger and wider for two way traffic, that will be opened for cars

In most places in the west if you even pick up a stick outside and some inside of a camp area you are breaking their rules. Common sense would say let someone use the deadwood.

You're wrong about that, too. Most, if not all, of these are no access roads. You don't get to bypass the gates on foot.

This is where you and xelor could come to some sort of moment.

The point is that I and my ancestors would not have been born here and and have anything at all to say had the European/U.S. governments not seized the land from its original inhabitants. Having the seized and in a few instances purchased those lands, the government obtained title to them.

I got your point its just not a good one in your justification of totally denying the public (the American citizen) access. Since you did bring it up though we could maybe consider why all of the sudden this land is totally off limits to the public. Do you think the government has the right to deny citizens access totally to public lands? If so why?

I got your point its just not a good one in your justification of totally denying the public (the American citizen) access.

While Koshergirl claims that one cannot enter the wooded area she pictured -- she hasn't even specifically identified the parcel -- and I'm in no position to speak to that specific piece of land, as goes public lands in general, the government does not "totally deny" public access.

The specious point is the one Koshergirl made about seizure, not my refutation of that point.

If a gate is in place and it says no public entry beyond this point you can be charged with trespassing and there are those places all over in the west now. You said just walk in. Even on foot the sign is forbidding to go beyond that point so why would you break the law by not following the orders they laid out with a sign?

"In most places in the west if you even pick up a stick outside and some inside of a camp area you are breaking their rules"

Exactly the same in Prospect Park here in Brooklyn.

Take a leaf that has fallen from a tree, and a guard will motion you to put it back on the ground.