50+ thread

He wouldn't do the siren for me either

 

I try to visit with the camp hosts and FS folks whenever possible - figure if they know I'm out there solo they'll be more apt to keep an eye on me. I'm usually keeping an eye on everyone else too. This was the same camp I was at this spring on my big trip and found the abandoned campfire (and cute FS fire crew guy) and later the creepy guys who kept driving through camp and eyeing me (once I flagged the FS guy down that day he made it a point to have every FS employee drive through and stop to talk to me as a sort of intimidation tactic).
This weekend I saw another camper doing donuts in the trailhead parking lot on an ATV and later took the ATV off-trail and drove through the creek. Saw a white truck with the FS badge on the door drive past while I was inside fixing my coffee. I took off out of the camper and chased after him. He went up to the trailhead and was looking at the ruts dug in the gravel from the idiot doing donuts. I told him that's what I wanted to talk to him about and explained what I saw. Turned out his specialty is being an OHV Ranger. He said the donuts were an $80 fine, going off-trail was $260. And I pointed out that operating a vehicle off-trail during stage 2 was also a no-no. He laughed and asked how I knew his job better than him - but I was right and that was another $300 fine on top of everything else. So $640 in fines total. He ended up going over and talking to the folks, gave them a warning. He swung back by my site (wasn't in view of the other campsite) and we talked. He said he always tells folks upfront what the damage is going to be so choose your words and attitude carefully. He said they apologized and didn't realize what they were doing was wrong (lame but whatever ) so he just gave them a written warning. Whatever he said must have worked because they didnt even start the damn ATV the rest of the weekend except to load it on the trailer yesterday as they were leaving.

I was wearing shorts He didn't frisk me either and I had my pack and bear spray on

I'm just trying to fit in is all!

well... yeah. you think I'd be -ing otherwise?

 

I asked if the ranger guy who gave me lift if he could deputize me so that I could just deal with the morons myself and not have to wait to flag down an FS vehicle to have them handle the situation.