Two legged dangers in National Parks

[Ignition Override]

wbanzer: Thanks very much for creating this topic.
forindooruseonly: Very interesting. If you had had a semi-auto rifle in your car or four-wheeler, it would have been too dangerous to have displayed it to those thugs?

Ghost Tracker:
Hopefully that guy did not survive other encounters after holding a knife by your head.
It was a brilliant insight and courageous to have stomped on your brakes. If he had worn His seatbelt, there would have been no other way to hurt him?

That guy did not deserve to live.
At least your engine kept running after you left him behind.

 

[yeahbuddy]

The way I see it, it's not the odds...it's the stakes. It is highly unlikely that anything will happen but if it does, you are truly on your own.

Ghost Tracker- I find nothing wrong with what you did. That man said he would KILL you. You saved your own life and that is a great thing. There was a really easy way for him to avoid that situation and he chose to be an aggressor instead. Like others mentioned, he could have received a chest full of lead for what he did. He played with fire and he got burned. F-him.

 

[baronthered]

I've come across several pot patches and other odd things here in the local woods and others both recreationally and working. I couldn't tell you how many pot patches I've come up on doing power line work.

Somewhat luckily for me my dad and former step dad were big 'heads and I can sling the lingo well enough that if the guard was visible I'd compliment them and keep the rest of my crew away from the area. I never have called leos in for the unfortunate reason Most of them knew me anyway from both dad and my former step dad. Had plenty given to me by some of dad's old buddies but never did have any desire after around age 20 to mess with it gave it my few burnout friends on the tree crews (which helps out in some occasions needing some storm wrecked trees cleared. fast! )

The scariest time I had Me and some friends were out riding 4 wheelers and we had stopped on top of a hill to rest and let everyone else catch up. Out comes a dude in a ghillie suit and an ar. Chit chatted for a minute told guy we'd move our rest area further up the trail and wished him a good day. He melted back into the trees and we rode off.

Bout two weeks later an uncle comes and tells me it was his buddy from out of state turkey hunting who was a little lost. We skedaddled before he could say a word though Not sure I believe my uncle but the guy did look familiar... to this day I don't know.

Seems like I heard something on the news the other day about a murder in either the Daniel Boone Natl Park or something along the Appalachian trail. Can't remember right off sorry.

 

[Dean1818]

So y'all made all the right moves with flawless judgement when you were 19? You held your temper & obeyed every law under violent, rapidly evolving circumstances? Then I surely am envious. Hell, I don't know that I "agree" with what I did. But it IS what I did, at the time, with the all judgement I had to muster at the moment. If you disapprove, fine by me, go get my "victim's" side of the story . But remember, never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. 'Cause that way, you're a mile away from him...and you've got his freakin' shoes!

I am sure the guy survived.

You probably taught him a life lesson.

 

[Ghost Tracker]

I've never had much worry if the guy survived (unless the had a Deliverance Encounter, cue banjo please...) because the weather was calm & mild. After all, he just had to walk 10-15 or so miles in his socks & jock. It wasn't like he was in Seal Training Hell Week or anything. And he had plenty of time to contemplate the cause & effect of his choices. To those who have noted a more extreme response (kneecaps, lead poisoning). I would have had a LOT more personal legal/moral/ethical/religious difficulty leaving him there. And killing him & then driving out with his body to the nearest authorities would've undoubtedly created both immediate & residual repercussions to my otherwise quiet, peaceful (terrific!) life. Nope, looking back & imagining different choices with different outcomes, I may have purely stumbled-over the best possible resolution...with a teenage, snap decision. But taking all his gear? I think that might have some pure, angry, redneck, retribution to it. If I got a magic "do-over" I might've just taken every single stitch of his clothes & left him everything else. He would have looked kinda' cute wearing that backpack into town.

 

[The Red Hot Rider]

Ghost Tracker...so you picked up a "felon" and then commited a felony in the process of getting away from the situation...wow

That guy totally got what he had coming.

 

[lowerunit411]

i have no issue with defending yourself and in that regard i think Ghost did the right thing...i dont think robbing him of all of his gear was exactly cool...two wrongs..sure kick his a*** in the dirt naked..no worries..and i think if it were i he would be 6 feet under that dirt but like i said, its just my opinion, robbing him...not so cool.

 

[Ringolevio]

What's not to believe?

baronthered:

The scariest time I had Me and some friends were out riding 4 wheelers and we had stopped on top of a hill to rest and let everyone else catch up. Out comes a dude in a ghillie suit and an ar. Chit chatted for a minute told guy we'd move our rest area further up the trail and wished him a good day. He melted back into the trees and we rode off.

Bout two weeks later an uncle comes and tells me it was his buddy from out of state turkey hunting who was a little lost. We skedaddled before he could say a word though Not sure I believe my uncle but the guy did look familiar... to this day I don't know.

What's not to believe? If Bill Clinton can hunt ducks with a rifle, why can't this guy hunt turkeys with an AR? Don't lots of folks do that?

 

[rondog]

Ghost Tracker is my hero! The rest of you that are wagging your fingers at him, not so much.....

 

[welldoya]

I think what Ghost Tracker did was brilliant, both the slamming on the brakes and leaving the guy out there.
What else could he do ? I mean honestly, he could have either shot him or left him there with all his stuff to do it again to some other hiker. It would have been dangerous to have the guy in the car with him to take him to turn him in.
I think you did very well, especially for a 19 year old.

 

[Ole Coot]

We always ride in a group, usually couples we go to church with. I get kidded a lot because I always carry. We can ride several hundred acres on trails without any homes, campgrounds etc. I notice if we turn a corner and run into a drunken drugged party of 50 or more everyone seems to get behind me. I have never had a problem yet. Usually in my area someone knows me or someone I am with and they know I never part with my 45. Growers never bother me. Guess I know most of them.

 

[robhof]

My brother worked as a contract photographer for a large USAF base with a large bombing range amd over the years he's been called out many times to photograph the pot fields found on the restricted ranges, and the perps that were found guarding the fields.

 

[Ghost Tracker]

robbing him...not so cool

Understand entirely. But it's funny, it didn't even register in my mind at the time that I was, indeed, robbing this guy at gunpoint. I mean not for a single second. I didn't want/need anything that he had. It didn't seem like any sort of Victor's Plunder. I wasn't feeling pleased or clever or sly with the sudden turn of events. And I wasn't creating some lone-cowboy-white-hat-good-vs-evil horsecrap as I went along. It was more just the idea of him taking a Pirate's Stand with me...ME!, the nice guy who had, only seconds before, had offered him a ride! Him becoming resultantly barefoot just seemed...fair, almost natural. After realizing what a tight spot being barefoot put him in, the rest just cascaded from there. As for his pack, tent, etc., please recall that they were already in the back seat before the fun started. With all that my gray-matter was processing as I drove away, I kinda' lost track of that. I had driven quite a distance before I remembered. Driving back to return it just didn't...uh, suit my mood.

 

[lowerunit411]

Ghost, i totally understand...........if im honest despite the potential hazzard i find the whole incident funny in a twisted way...

 

[CoRoMo]

A couple years ago on our annual elk hunt in the backcountry...

We always pack/hike in, several difficult miles, to the same spot, and we've only ever seen one or two hunters make it to that spot over all the years we've been camping there. So Dad and I set up camp for the first night and went to bed in each of our tents. Excitement kept me from going to sleep and I would occasionally turn on my light to check the time.

It was just past midnight when I hear footsteps coming right through our camp. Midnight, way out in the middle of the dark nowhere of mountainous backcountry. Two guys with flashlights walk right through our camp, and step less than two feet from my flesh, only my tent wall between me and them as they walk right by. Quietly and without a word.

I know it was just another couple of hunters, and they meant no harm and did nothing.

But it freaked the ever-lovin' crap out of me. My dad was also awake and was quite disturbed by two guys walking through at midnight, way out as far as you can get from anywhere. I lay there frozen for another hour or more after that. Yes, there has always been a .357 laying right beside my pillow for only one reason. But that was as close as I've ever thought about needing it.

 

[X-Rap]

I can't imagine not believing you could be assaulted in a park, just off the top of my head I can think of a couple groups of serious felons that used parks or public forest areas. The three sibling fugitives that came from the SE and were caught down around Pueblo stayed at a park the night before and probably as they traveled across the country and the escapees from AZ that ended up scattered across the west. One was caught in Rifle after he shot at a cop, another in Montana in a church and the last with his incestuous cousin down around the White Mtns in AZ after being reported by a FS employee.
The incidents are few and far between but so are the ones in schools and a great deal of resources are given to school violence. I'd guess that based on daily individual visits schools are the safer of the two.

 

[Ringolevio]

This thread dovetails with our discussions of the FBI shootout in Miami. Remember that the perps in that case had robbed and shot folks at remote rock quarries or other de facto shooting ranges. A certain class of predator takes advantage of such remote areas; it is folly to be in a remote area and to lack the awareness that such things can happen there.

One more thing about Ghost Tracker: the whole point of his tale is that he had a gun. Without that, and even with the perp injured and momentarily disoriented, the fight would have been on, and Ghost Tracker might not have prevailed.

And another point: Even though, in my early adulthood (which was in the "hippie era") I hitchhiked all over and picked up hitchhikers, nowadays I will never again get in a car with a stranger or allow a stranger into my car, no matter how innocent he (or she!) may seem. And the fact that I am usually armed and with a big dog in the vehicle doesn't change that.

 

[X-Rap]

I live near an Interstate Highway and see some pretty rough characters hitching on the ramps, can't believe there are people who will pick them up and put themselves in that kind of jeapordy. It's to bad that we can't help our fellow man but I still remember the late 60's early 70's, there was a hitch hiker outside of Yellowstone that killed a couple and when he was caught had some finger bones in his pocket. I was young at the time but we were visiting family there and it was big news so it has never been real safe.

 

[CZguy]

Ghost Tracker,

Your decisions at nineteen were certainly better than mine. When I consider the emotions that you felt at that point, I think that you showed remarkable restraint.

 

[pyth0n]

I don't have any personal experience, but there are many instances here in AZ. Also there are concerns for two legged predators by the parks and forest services or they wouldn't put up signs at the entrances of parks and forests that warn "Travel Caution- Smuggling and illegal immigration may be encountered in this area."

 

[Ghost Tracker]

Here's a little more light-hearted Daniel Boone National Forest tale. I'm accompanied by one close friend. Our rock climbing "base camp" was high on Hatton's Ridge, seven miles up Indian Creek past the last possible spot to drive & park any vehicle. We had set-up late Friday (barely before dark) & get surprised by a 5" snowfall at wake-up Saturday morning. It was one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever viewed coming out of a tent, nothing but pristine wilderness & untouched snow as far as we could see from atop a tall ridge in every direction, 360 degrees around. Whew!
Then...we see it. Smoke trailing up into the morning sky from someone ELSE'S fire. We are mad and getting madder, we have busted our humps to get as far away from people, ALL people, as we can possibly get and now we spot their breakfast fire less than two miles away from our own personal slice of isolationist heaven. We decided we simply HAD to recon the folks who were (almost) as determined & skilled as we were at disappearing into the rugged, rocky hills of Eastern Kentucky.
Early in the stalk we whisper guesses back & forth as to who these people are & how (in the heck) they found this spot. We were still regularly finding pottery pieces from the last people to be here, hundreds of YEARS before. The relic hunters hadn't yet gotten in this deep. We had never run across a single sign of ANY(modern)BODY in dozens of weekend trips. No trash, no cans, nothing. As we got closer to the smoke, we quit even whispering & focused on our (laughingly limited) sneaking-Indian skills. But we're getting quite near and still there is no noise, no voices & no woodsmoke smell in the air? My buddy was the first to solve the mystery & began belly-laughing so loud & hard as to shake the very stillness of the morning. We had, for well over an hour, been sneakin' up on a Hot Spring! We hadn't ever seen it before because the new melting snow was making the steam we mistakenly believed to be smoke! The Hot Spring pooled into a 4 ft. wide rock bowl about 20" deep before the overflow ran into a nearby creek. If you've never soaked your bare feet in warm flowing water in the snowy wilderness while laughing uproariously with a close friend at how very STUPIDLY LUCKY y'all are just to be alive. Then you, my friends, have never stalked a Hot Spring.

 

[hermannr]

I always carry in the woods. Here in WA you can carry CC or OC, no permit needed if you are participating in some recreational activity.

30 or so years ago it was Labor day weekend and it was exceptionally hot so I wanted to get as high up in the mountains as I could. Wife didn't want to go along, don't remember exactly why as we usually took the kids with us and hiked almost every weekend. So I headed off to the Pasayten Wilderness area and the Jackita Ridge loop trail. The whole loop is 42 miles, but I only went in about 12 miles and then came back out. Maybe it would be a bit cooler at 6500'-7000'...at least that was my idea.

I figured I would be the only one up there, and it would make for a good solo day hike. Was I ever wrong. When I hit McMillan Park (5300') I met my first set of campers, (they were not happy to see me) but I just kept moving on. When I got to Devils Park (6000') I met another guy solo, he was trying to do the whole loop in one weekend, got to the top of Jackita Mt (7350') and turned back. On the way back, at the trail cut-off to Crater Lake I met a large group of technical climbers headed for Jack Mountain (8905') and a couple more smaller groups doing the loop. (everyone was trying to excape the heat)

Then finally, I met a customer of mine, solo, coming up the trail. He was surprised to see me (anyone really) as the FS had told him if he wanted total isolation and no possibility of seeing any other humans, his best bet was the Jackita ridge trail....I think I saw a total of 25 that day...

After I got back to my home I found out that the first two guys I met were actually felons fleeing the police. They were caught when they left lower McMillian Park because there were too many people up there. Not sure if old Sam Colt helped, but they didn't bother me, and maybe my OC pistol was what made them decide to leave.

 

[Sniper 51]

2 legged Dangers

Flatlander937,

Yes, Uwharrie National Park is where the suspect was apprehended. I think it was Table Rock Park near Morganton where the shooting actually took place. He was a complete stranger to the victims.

Be safe and carry everywhere you go and every time you leave your castle.

 

[Maia007]

I can tell you with certainty that marijuana grows in NF lands in the Pacific Northwest are common. As pointed out, most are not actively tended or guarded. Most. Most Forest Service LEO's spend their entire summer working active marijuana grows.

What is the risk? Hard to say.

On the subject of random murder, I would say that the risk, while there, is much lower than in populated areas.

 

[nosmr2]

Ghost Tracker
You sure it was a '68 Beetle. That was the first year with a padded dash.