In the park last week

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mattB
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Re: In the park last week

Post by mattB »

paul wrote:Speaking of Law enforcement. I saw a few back country users in camp with holstered guns. It made me uneasy.
Were those the guys who were trying to convince the girl camping alone to share her site with them? Were they trying to poach a site, or just have more room?
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Re: In the park last week

Post by paul »

mattB wrote:
paul wrote:Speaking of Law enforcement. I saw a few back country users in camp with holstered guns. It made me uneasy.
Were those the guys who were trying to convince the girl camping alone to share her site with them? Were they trying to poach a site, or just have more room?
The guys who convinced the girl to share her site were supposed to be camping somewhere else that night. I think they just decided to see if someone at Cosley would let them share a site. And yeah, at least one of them had a gun.

There were other people poaching for real at Mokawannis lake.
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Re: In the park last week

Post by llholmes1948 »

Does anyone know how these permit violations are handled in the backcountry when discovered by a ranger? Does the ranger issue a summons but still allow the people to occupy their poached site for the night? Or are they issued a summons and ejected from the site?

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Re: In the park last week

Post by Sue Z »

I encountered a lone poacher a few years ago at Stony Indian. He crawled into a corner away from everyone else's sites, so I didn't pursue it. Conspiring to invade someone's reserved site is not cool.
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Re: In the park last week

Post by NDjason »

We had two instances of poaching while on a 5 night trip last week. Once at Hawksbill, a group came into camp late that had a reservation at Brown. Apparently is was very smokey that day, the water in camp had dried out, and the pit toilet was over full, so rangers had suggested if they didn't want to stay, they head to HAW and, if necessary, set up at the hitching post. They very politely waited until almost dark, and no one had shown up for the other site, before setting up in a campsite. So while off permit, I was not bothered by it.

However, on our last night at Francis, a father/son from Alberta hikes in who had a one night permit (supposedly) at Waterton River. They said they had only hiked up to fish, but decided they were too tired to hike back. However, they did manage to hike in with their full packs, so it was immediately clear it was their intention to stay all along. This was around 5pm, just after I had regained my eye sight from a canister of bear spray that had exploded in my pocket, so I was already in a bad mood.

They asked if they could set up in our site with us (which we refused as it was tight with two tents already) and then the other group also refused. They then set up a tent on the beach area by the lake, which pissed me off because I would love to camp there, but was following the rules and staying in the designated campground. I really wish a ranger would have come by. I took pictures of them and their tent on the beach with the intention of reporting it, but ultimately figured rangers had enough to do without me pettily reporting poachers.
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Re: In the park last week

Post by orin »

I took pictures of them and their tent on the beach with the intention of reporting it, but ultimately figured rangers had enough to do without me pettily reporting poachers.
The rangers aren't going to be able to do anything about that particular violation but by reporting it you would be giving them the heads up about what is going on. Enough reports like that might convince them to increase their backcountry presence which in my opinion would be a good thing.
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Re: In the park last week

Post by paul »

The poachers at Mokowannis lake seemed to have planned it. After I setup camp I headed over to the food prep area and there were 6 guys sitting there. I asked them where they were camping that night and they said "here". I immediately knew something was wrong because there are only 2 sites at MOL and I had one of them. There were 6 guys and only 4 people can occupy a tent site. I told them that they must be permitted to another site and are mistaken. Then they came clean and said they were supposed to be at Kootnei lakes that night but they couldn't make it there since they got started a day late.

I ended up telling them that they can't camp in the open site since another party will eventually show up for that site. I also told them that I saw several rangers on the trail and if they are caught poaching they will be fined. (This was kind of fib, since I didn't see many rangers. I just wanted to make it clear that they are breaking the rules). Anyway, they ended setting up tents on the little peninsula a few hundred yards from camp.

I didn't like that they were breaking the rules but they did seem to try and be good clean campers. They hung their food on the site poles, used the pit toilets and seemed to leave no trace where they camped in the trees.
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Re: In the park last week

Post by teapot57 »

Apparently is was very smokey that day, the water in camp had dried out, and the pit toilet was over full, so rangers had suggested if they didn't want to stay, they head to HAW and, if necessary, set up at the hitching post.
If I remember right, BRO was on your itinerary. Was it really that bad? :shock:
Anyway, they ended setting up tents on the little peninsula a few hundred yards from camp.
If I’m thinking of the right spot (the open area with a great view of Mokowanis Lake and the waterfall), then this is another incident, similar to Jason’s experience at FRA, where the poachers got a campsite with a better view than the campers rightfully on permit. :evil:
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Re: In the park last week

Post by paul »

teapot57 wrote:
Anyway, they ended setting up tents on the little peninsula a few hundred yards from camp.
If I’m thinking of the right spot (the open area with a great view of Mokowanis Lake and the waterfall), then this is another incident, similar to Jason’s experience at FRA, where the poachers got a campsite with a better view than the campers rightfully on permit. :evil:
Yeah, that's the area with the best view of the lake, mountains and waterfall. They kept their tents back in the woods where you couldn't see them easily. I went over there once to look at the views but they were smoking and it bothered me too much to stick around very long.
We are in the mountains and the mountains are in us. - John Muir
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Re: In the park last week

Post by NDjason »

teapot57 wrote:
Apparently is was very smokey that day, the water in camp had dried out, and the pit toilet was over full, so rangers had suggested if they didn't want to stay, they head to HAW and, if necessary, set up at the hitching post.
If I remember right, BRO was on your itinerary. Was it really that bad? :shock:

teapot - yes, we had BOU on our itinerary too. When we picked up our permits, the ranger at St. Mary's told us that the pit toilet was close to overfilling so they had reduced the number of available sites to 1 or 2. So they were actively trying to move some people, apparently, to prevent overfilling it before it could be cleaned out. However, they didn't ask or suggest we change out itinerary. When we arrived, we had pretty low expectations given the ranger, the group we crossed paths with at Hawksbill, and some others who said bugs were bad. But we had no issues with bugs, the campsites were large and flat, the food prep area was one of the nicest I've seen, and there was no smoke. It's true that water had dried up, but it was only a couple hundred yards away. So we made one group trip to fill everything up (I have a 10L Katadyn Basecamp filter), and we were good to go. The pit toilet was getting full - it was only 18"-24" below the top. Definitely needed a cleaning. But really, I didn't think it was that bad. I preferred it to Hawksbill, for sure.

As for the Lake Francis poachers, here's a view of their 'campsite'. Yes, I would have liked camping there.
Image
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Re: In the park last week

Post by joybird »

paul wrote: They kept their tents back in the woods where you couldn't see them easily. I went over there once to look at the views but they were smoking and it bothered me too much to stick around very long.
In the backcountry during fire season? :shock: I sure hope they were in a rocky, unvegetated spot.... Or maybe the state fire restrictions about where smoking is permissible were not in place yet then?
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Re: In the park last week

Post by paul »

joybird wrote:
paul wrote: They kept their tents back in the woods where you couldn't see them easily. I went over there once to look at the views but they were smoking and it bothered me too much to stick around very long.
In the backcountry during fire season? :shock: I sure hope they were in a rocky, unvegetated spot.... Or maybe the state fire restrictions about where smoking is permissible were not in place yet then?
They were right on the shore of Mokawannis lake, but yeah still not a good thing to do during fire season. In the last few seasons with all the fires, I have encountered several parties in the back country that were smoking. Last year, during the historic fire season, a group of guys were smoking cigars at Lake Francis.
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Re: In the park last week

Post by teapot57 »

Well they are poachers so they obviously don’t follow the rules. :evil:
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