[mljdeckard]

http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=7714527

I worked a summer as a survival instructor out here. This is a problem growing VERY, and I think it's just a matter of time before something really bad happens.

[smallbore]

Wow! I would always be armed in that environment.

[FROGO207]

Even up here in Maine there are reports of growers and violence. As time goes by the reports of growers and busts get more frequent. The wide open spaces of our state combined with a transient tourist population in the summer months the activity often goes unnoticed until someone gets in the way of the growers. Play it safe and stay armed. Let the BG become the statistic not you!

[rbernie]

A friendly reminder - talk of drug policies is not appropriate for THR. Keep it focused.....

[astrolite]

It is a good thing the carrying in national parks is now legal. I wonder if this sort of issue swayed government towards allowing it?

Just imagine going out on a wilderness hike and running in to some armed drug traffickers. They don't want ANY witnesses.

[fase3]

Here in La. they are planting on the islands in the Miss. river. They have taken to booby trapping the fields. This from my best friend who is with the local D.A.'s office and is the contact person for that office with the state police.

[rbernie]

Back in the Seventies, illegal grow activities were a big problem in most all parts of Appalachia and encountering such grow plots was a constant hazard. I knew many hikers who carried (legal or not) because of this.

[MarineOne]

I don't blame you at all, and IMO everyone should arm themselves if you're going out in the back country.

Just this summer alone in southern Idaho there have been 2 massive marijuana busts; one in June that nabbed 12,500 plants and another in August that netted another 6,000 plants.

Estimates for the first bust were $6 million and if it had been havested would have a street value of $18.8 million. The second appeared ready to be harvested and was valued at $18 to $24 million.

Both busts were in the same county.



http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-jun0809-marijuana_plants_seized.600c60b4.html

http://www.ktvb.com/news/localnews/stories/ktvbn-aug1809-pot_bust_owyhee.f2546200.html


I would rather get an earful from an upset park ranger than a gutful of lead.





Kris

[mljdeckard]

And as of February, we won't need to worry about the rangers anymore either.

[Kleanbore]

Dang!

We have numerous meth labs and pot growers in Missouri. Most of the people involved are dangerous.

An awful lot of people made the claim that if concealed carry were to go through, it would become like "the wild west."

Seems they were right. We now have concealed carry, and in a lot of places out there it is as dangerous as the wild west of fictional history! :)

I carry wherever I can. I've never encountered people of that ilk, but someone I know who is a conservation department ranger has, an he considers his job to be very dangerous for that reason.

[Eightball]

It is a good thing the carrying in national parks is now legal.No, it is not. Wait until February, when it then will be.

[Dambugg]

When I was in fifth grade my classmate's father was shot in the back by a pot grower. Her father had stopped off the side of the road to relieve himself, walked a short distance into the woods, and the next thing he knew he was on the ground bleeding. The shot was so close he said he never heard the gun go off. He never saw the assailant either. The only reason he is still alive is he had a CB in his truck he was able to crawl back to. This was before cell phones.

[ichiban]

I always carry in when hiking. More for the two-legged animals than the four-legged ones.

[9MMare]

It is a good thing the carrying in national parks is now legal. I wonder if this sort of issue swayed government towards allowing it?

Just imagine going out on a wilderness hike and running in to some armed drug traffickers. They don't want ANY witnesses.

No, it's not the reason. It is however, because of other human-based crimes.

If you're hiking anywhere on an estabilshed trail, it's not likely you'll find any pot fields...they are in more 'off the beaten path' areas so they arent discovered. Hunters might, but then you'd be heavily armed.

I still do plan to carry when hiking & trail riding, but it's more for 'other human' crime than pot growers. (sad)

And you're not going to run into them in national 'parks'....they'd have to be way in the back country and regular people cannot get motorized vehicles into those areas....crud needs better access than that.

[9MMare]

Dang!

We have numerous meth labs and pot growers in Missouri. Most of the people involved are dangerous.

.

I live on the edge of this kind of area...it's the #1 reason I finally decided to get a gun for self defense.

[Defense Minister]

One thing I might add in addition to always being armed in the woods: if you run across any "NO TRESPASSING" signs, any irrigation piping, or any electrical wiring on public land where it shouldn't be, GET THE HELL OUTTA THERE BACK THE WAY YOU CAME! Then, notify the proper authorities.

[mbt2001]

Two Virgina Tech students were in the Jefferson National Forest camping. No one knows for sure what happened, but needless to say they are not among the living anymore.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hnIVzil5Q0aiAyCpb8OkH_U8qfxAD9AC4DJ00

Keep your head low out there people.

[9MMare]

Two Virgina Tech students were in the Jefferson National Forest camping. No one knows for sure what happened, but needless to say they are not among the living anymore.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hnIVzil5Q0aiAyCpb8OkH_U8qfxAD9AC4DJ00

Keep your head low out there people.
They were in a parking lot. Dead is still dead, but they werent out isolated.

OTOH, parking lots at trailheads and campgrounds can be dangerous because there are so many break-ins. The closer the trailheads are to Seattle, the more window glass litters the ground of the lots. It's terrible. Again, one of the motivations for me to learn about carrying.

[DeadLiver]

Wow, I'm going camping right by where they found all those. I must admit that I've occasionally stumbled across small plots, even one inside of a boy scout camp where I worked, but never anything this big. Btw, Boulder Mountain area gives some of the best fishing in all of UT.

[Leanwolf]

Marine One beat me to it posting about the two recent pot farm busts here in idaho, up in the National Forest. Since, however, another one was busted in Boise County, Boise national Forest. Millions of $$$$ of grass confiscated.

Grass and meth labs are everywhere, no matter what State in which one is hiking, hunting, or camping.

As others have said, if you're out in the boonies and run onto suspicious "equipment" that ought not to be there.....

Get. Out!!!

L.W.

[Sam1911]

This whole problem seems to me to be worthy of pretty serious consideration -- perhaps in S&T.

This is not random street crime, or even home-invasion type stuff -- which is bad in itself.

However, the folks whom you might meet in a pot field or meth lab are a kind of threat that takes things up a level. For one, they're likely to be heavily armed. At least, logic would lead me to believe so. Anytime you have a product with a street value estimated in the many tens of millions, serious weaponry becomes quite affordable, and the value of that product is worth defending to the death.

Second, it seems unlikely that there will be only one assailant. You might encounter only one, at first, but there are likely to be at least a couple more, and perhaps quite a few. And they will have some means of communication with which to warn the others -- even if the shots you may exchange wouldn't bring the rest anyway.

Third, unlike street crime or home invasions, these guys can't flee the area in the hopes that they can't be identified. They have an investment that is routed (ha ha) to the spot. If they see you and you leave, they'll lose that multi-million dollar profit. If you vanish, they may lose it anyway if there's a detailed search of the area, but a lot of hikers don't leave good info about where they're going and it's more than possible that the searchers would never approach the right area. In any event, if you don't leave the hillside, they've got several days to a week, maybe, to salvage as much as possible of their crop and split.

All that to say, these guys will be armed, numerous, at least somewhat coordinated, and HIGHLY motivated to kill whomever enters their area.

This is pretty frighting and seems to me to go a bit beyond the average S&T discussion.

It also seems to me to be very distressingly LIKELY to actually happen to some of us.

I'm going to start an S&T discussion on this. HERE: http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=471761

-Sam

[franconialocal]

My patrol borders and is in a large chunk of the White Mt. National Forest (800,000 acres) and Franconia Notch State Park. Our patrols have taken us "into the lions den" on several occasions. A few years ago a young man (21 y/o) was found hunkered down with a fully loaded AR-15 essentially "guarding" the field....luckly without confrontation, and was arrested. This grow was (only) about 30 plants, and northern NH is tough due to the short growing season. But these guys take it seriously and WILL KILL to protect the grow.

The National Forest is under-staffed, we are under-staffed, the $$$ is just not there for much beyond municipal patrol (example: I cover 100 sq/mi. by myself) and I can't think of a rural area that isn't experiencing the same problem. Due to the thick nature of our woods up here it's rare that people stray off the trail, but there have been meth labs, pot grows, and other problems located all over the place.

[mljdeckard]

And yes, even in national parks it's a serious concern. I was watching an article last night where in Sequoia NP, they are growing it. Zion NP, where I grew up has a LOT of territory away from the regular access.

My grandfather never would have armed himself to protect himself from these criminals. He probably wouldn't have needed to.

[rondog]

When I get my old Jeep finished and start running the scenic trails here, I'll be wearing a 1911 in an M3 shoulder holster. Probably have my M1 carbine in the Jeep too. http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13212051?source=pop_section_news

[Shadow 7D]

Isn't just in National parks, when I was a kid living in california I remember running across nursery flats alongside one of the hiking trails at a local CITY park, I also knew were about 25 to 30 plants were, they were in the middle of 5 acres of Himalayan blackberries. Stay on the trail and get the hell out, let someone paid deal with the mess.

[Caimlas]

My grandfather never would have armed himself to protect himself from these criminals. He probably wouldn't have needed to.

I don't know about that. I suppose it depends on how old you are: my great-grandfather likely had to deal with bootleggers (he was a cop during/prior to WWII), and I know my great-uncle did (he was a Park Ranger back when they regularly had to deal with violent poachers and bootleggers - 20s and 30s).

I'd personally be more worried about meth cook sites than pot. Meth takes less time and less area, so it'd be easier to "stumble upon" when there's an armed guard or booby trap. With regard to outdoor safety, at least a lot of the small-time stuff is being done with the "2 liter bottle" approach than w/ the more environmentally dangerous cook site.

Depending on where in the country we're talking about, pot is a different story. I'd not generally be concerned in (say) WA or CA, because everyone there smokes it and/or grows it. I'd avoid it if I found it, but I'd not be all too concerned w/ being shot. Still, going armed is the best policy.

I've stumbled upon a pot grow before, and I've got a friend who stumbled upon (on a back mountain bike trail) a mushroom grow of some sort (he just narrowly avoided running into a tree felled across the trail which had the branches cut off like punjee sticks). I suspect he'd have found a lot more than mushrooms had he bothered looking.

[mljdeckard]

He didn't live in moonshine country. :)

[coloradokevin]

Good topic! We actually just had one of these grow operations discovered here on this side of the Rockies as well:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13212051

Honestly, I do think these grow operations pose a significant concern to us outdoor-oriented shooters. Generally speaking, I've always felt more at ease in nature than I do in the city (I'm a big city cop, and I spend a lot of time backpacking in the wilderness on my weekends -- so both environments are intimately familiar to me).

The news articles didn't give the exact location of this large operation that was just discovered around here, but the general area where it was found is in an area of forest that I often frequent myself!

Personally, I'm always armed wherever I am, but I'll admit to the fact that my guard is often a bit lower when I'm off in the mountains, away from areas where I'd otherwise expect to run into humans. These stories serve as a reminder to be always vigilant, regardless of your location... I'd sure hate to accidentally stumble onto one of these operations while under-armed!

[SSN Vet]

My BIL is a Maine State Police Detective....

Pot growers are very defensive of their fields and will booby trap as well as stake them out if they think their going to be ripped off.

He investigated a case where one "partner" tried to go do an early harvest and the others found out about it.... caught him.... chained him to a tree... came back three days later and threw his body in a hole and then used a skidder to bury him with a jumbo boulder....

My BIL was involved with digging up the body and the forensic evidence, as well as witness testimony showed that the guy was actually burried alive... and they knew it.

The "problem solver" who was brought up from NH to "fix the problem" got off.....

How's that make you feel? Knowing this guy is still out there.... probably doing the same things.

Cold blooded murderers!!!