Illegal Camping

[Dogwood]

7 minutes ago, Game Warden said:

About a week ago I found two tents pitched right where the AT crosses a stream--illegal two different ways in my state. I woke them up and asked them to break camp and move to a better location about a hundred yards away. It was about 1:00 AM. I could have fined them as well. There were several good legal sites with a few hundred yards.

There you go, reasonable authority doing a nice job at 1 a.m. ^^ Tell me it was raining.  

[Game Warden]

No...everybody knows game wardens don't get out of the truck when it's raining.

[balzaccom]

LOL.  You are still a nice guy.  I hope to run into you someday on the trail.

I'll be the guy with the legitimate permit, the bearcan, and following all LNT principles. 

[jay]

I think this topic centers around simple respect:  for other's property, for the land and everything else we affect by being there.  While there are a very few mitigating circumstances for this topic, I believe illegal camping is illegal for a reason.  Barring sudden unforeseen circumstances (a sudden storm, injury or illness forcing you to stop, critical gear failure, etc) I cant think of any reason I would consider this.  And in any of those circumstances, I would welcome the appearance of Game Warden in his official capacity.

Oh, and being tired and footsore isn't an unforeseen circumstance in my mind.

[Michael aka Mac]

So camping someplace you are not suppose to can result in $250 fine and land you in jail for 15 + days, depending on your location. It is trespassing plain and simple. Now I am not saying that I have never camped illegally,  but doing so was out of pure necessity, and not intention.

For example, when I arrived in Switzerland, being totally exhausted, and unable to rent a room for a few hours, I took out my hammock and slept for a couple of hours at woody area until the hotels were accepting guests for check ins.

In all honesty, there is so many free places one can camp legally that there should be little need to do it illegally, less due to some sort of act of God: Your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere; you are hiking a trail and get lost; you get injured. Unless otherwise stated, you can camp on Federal land, US National Forests & Grasslands.  Some locations infer that one is suppose to sleep in their car, but for argument's sake, if you rode a motorcycle, horse, or bicycle in,  you would have to use a tent or hammock.

I should note that certain federal land requires a permit to camp on, but other then those and ones that explicitly say no camping, you are good to go.