Safety in national forests/parks - Are you safe?

[paul_ashton]

Robert, I don't think most people who have responded have ever

been in the situation you have described, otherwise they would

be a lot more sympathetic!

 

The wilderness can be dangerous, by definition, but the dangers

should be natural, not man-made. One of our favorite places to

visit, Big Bend NP, is not that far from Arizona and it has its

problems with the border (illegal immigrants, drug-running, etc.)

that are often not widely acknowledged by the tourist guides and

even by the NP service. Although it is true that the NPs and NFs

ought to be safer than the cities, our perception is even more

one-sided, at least until we know otherwise. Having been in Big

Bend when a fellow camper was shot and murdered in his tent

my immediate reaction was "surely not here?" But it did happen

and it will probably happen again.

 

The NP and NF services are under-paid and under-staffed. One

of the ironies about staying in a NP is that you are not allowed to

carry loaded weapons to defend yourself from others. After the

Park Rangers visited our campsite following the murder at Big

Bend I asked what I should do about the unloaded 9mm

automatic I had in the car (this is Texas!). Without a moment's

thought he suggested I load it and keep it by my side. That

wasn't real permission to shoot on sight, obviously, but it made

us feel, and sleep, a whole lot better!

[uncle git]

Guys - I was talking about potentially dangerous situations - not just someone you meet in the supermarket ;-)

 

If you are hiking alone in a place with a history of violent crime and drug use - it is probably in your best interest to watch your own back.

 

But hey - it`s your back to do with what you want ;-)

[gwrhino]

Robert, I guess I don't understand your reluctance to name the NF and the trail/ area in question. Surely it would be advantageous to all of us to be aware of the problem, rather than leave to stumble onto the area ourselves?

[robert_kennedy]

I actually just wanted to "cover my bases" and make sure I got the area right. The region a patchwork of NF/NP/BLM and I did NOT want to give the wrong area (there are no real markers in some areas when you cross from NP/NF).

 

The area is in Coronado National Forest outside Tucson, AZ. The area where there has been trouble is from Tanque Verde Falls - up to Chivo Falls. With most activity seemingly centered on an old dam above Tanque Verde falls.

[gwrhino]

Thanks, Robert. I have gone there to shoot in the past, but have not visited in recent years. Its truly a beautiful place. Thanks again for the heads up......

[scott_g2]

Robert,

 

Thanks for bringing this situation to our attention.

 

I also live in Arizona and often travel alone when photographing. When not goofing off, I pay the bills by being a law enforcement officer.

 

Other contributors have made excellent suggestions such as; take a partner, phone, OC/pepper spray, tell a friend when you�re due back etc. Also your description of how you have handled yourself also tells me that you are able to act reasonably under similar situations.

 

If I may suggest, nothing can be done about any situation unless it is reported to the local agency responsible for the area. I know it feels like a waste of time and you may be met with an indifferent attitude, but that is the only way anything will happen.

 

Speaking from experience, nothing gets an administrators attention like complaints from the public, politicians and press. The amount of resources and commitment of the administrator rises with the stress induced by their political bosses.

 

On another tact, I tell my family that to avoid being a victim they must first decide that they are not going to be one. Often the hardest step is the commitment to maintain awareness of your surroundings. (Never let your guard down unless you�re locked safely in your house) I am not suggesting be paranoid, just vigilant. This also means being smart and avoiding situations and areas that may be prone to problems. Never ever, discount that �uneasy feeling� you get about a person or situation. That is your self-survival mechanism talking to you.

 

Take responsibility for your own safety. Educate yourself on the local, state, and federal laws that relate to use of force and criminal responsibility. You might be surprised on what you learn.

 

Once armed with knowledge, make some decisions on just what you are willing to do, or not do, BEFORE something happens.

 

Then, seek the training, skills, equipment, etc. that meets your needs and situation. Maintain and practice your skills to remain proficient. Once prepared, your in a much more comfortable position should you be forced into something dangerous.

 

I would agree with many that things should not be this way. We should be able to enjoy ourselves with worry or fear. Unfortunately the real world is not that way, no matter how bad we would like it to be.

 

Best of luck and be safe.

[alex_p._schorsch]

Why don't photo.net users bombard the administrator of the park or the state superintendant with email complaints from our individual email addresses. Hope that the implementation of this suggestion won't create problems for any individual involved, because it could cause the stressing of relations with some park official and the photographer or photographers in question. I'll leave that call to the resident photographers of that area. FWIW, alex

[robert_kennedy]

Thanks for the advice Scott - It has made me sort of reasses where and when I take a picture. I shoot a lot of MF as well as 35mm and honestly I've realized my attention will not be on my surroundings as much as it should when I am in that area since I am concentrating on the picture. So I need to reasses this.

 

I do know one problem the police in the area have been having with enforcement is that they are ill equipped to deal with some of these guys in that terrain. The trails into the area are all highly visible. Apparently when they see a cop coming, the bad guys just start running! They get a big head start and the average cop isn't outfitted to go on a merry chase through the wilderness (few people are). I wouldn't relish it being weighed down with some of the gear they carry!

 

And apparently the NF people just don't do enforcement. Even though theyhave better gear for the job.

 

Maybe I need to make a few phone calls....

[christian deichert]

Haven't really visited that area, so that would explain why I haven't had these issues come up. Perhaps it's because I'm blissfully unaware, but I have always felt safe in the parks around Tucson: Saguaro, both sections, Tucson Mountain Park, and Mount Lemmon are favorite haunts of mine.

 

As far as a good safe place for birding, have you tried Copper Creek? I was just up there last weekend to see the ghost town ruins and saw a lot of uncommon (to me, anyway) birds, with few visitors in the morning. Email me if you want directions.

[john_tanner]

I sent a link of this thread to the President and the National Parks Service office at the White House. I like to start at the top and if people are not clever enough to stop this sort of criminal activity they should work in less challenging jobs.

[m._huber]

John, neither contact has any connection with the area in question. For this area and this problem, you need to go to www.fs.fed.us/ then link to National Headquarters, then link to Law Enforcement and Investigations, or from same home page link to Ariz. to Coronado to proper Ranger District. Don't get various jurisdictions mixed up.

[christian deichert]

Actually, that's half right and half wrong. The National Park Service doesn't have jurisdiction over National Forest land -- two different service bureaus within two different executive departments (Interior and Agriculture). However, I'm pretty sure that the President, as chief of the Executive Branch, has jurisdiction over the Forest Service. Not likely that he'll personally respond to the message, mind you, but he does have jurisdiction.

 

While you're forwarding messages, I think two good places to go would be Congressman Jim Kolbe and Senator John McCain, two good folks who are pretty active on Arizona issues.

[craig_gillette]

Still laughing at you guys that think complaining to the politicians is going to do anything. These are the guys that set the budgets. If they thought law enforcement in the National Forests was more important, they'd have budgeted for it. The rangers know about it, the local law enforcement knows about it. They know where it is and if the nudists and drug users stay in one place, then it's a much smaller problem than if it spreads out all over the area.

 

Just to give yourself an idea of some of the priorities, take a look at the Angles National Forest site. Check out the Rubio Canyon fiasco and all of the planning and meetings and public comments and on and on. Ask yourself if maybe some of that money might be better spent on law enforcement. Look at the road closures and studies going on for various other areas. And a 5000 acre brush fire. As crazy as it sounds a bunch of nudists and sleepy dope smokers reall are very small issues.

[m._huber]

I think this thread is being run to the ground, but I'll add one last comment. Craig, you are right and that's more or less what said earlier, only without the details. I think the bottom line is that that the government has no regulations on morality on public lands; therefore, they have nothing to enforce.

[robert_kennedy]

Yes, but people disappearing, ISN'T a small issue....

[craig_gillette]

You are right, that folks disappearing isn't a "small" issue. There is no surefire way to keep people from disappearing in wild areas. Short of keeping them out. Which isn't going to happen. Areas near population centers receive inordinately high levels of use. We ask way too much of the government stewards of these areas and provide unbelievably limited resources to accomplish these competing goals.

 

Not being "holier than thou," we all know that just shlepping all the photo gear you might want, let alone a full kit of the "10 essentials" is really, really inconvenient. We all play these odds. And usually win.

 

But "people" safety is a different issue. Skinny dipping is a traditional wild area practice. So much so that web-sites are devoted to it. And searching for info on a roadside rest area (to see if it was still closed for maintenance - I was planning driving directions for a group outing.) I came across several sites that discussed this rest area as a known area for commercial or opportunity sex activity. I would expect that you may also find those sites listing certain forest areas or other parks as also good hunting. (Why my daughters don't websurf unsupervised.) The problem is that these activities attract both the casual participant and the criminal element that intends to prey on the other folks. Yet these activities are too some extent like water ballons. Squeeze one place, they pop-up in another. It isn't going to be entirely safe around these areas. Sufficent enforcement to provide "safety" would also require enforcement of other laws. That would simply drive the problems elsewhere. It's not really surprising that these activities (in their "innocent" forms) have their own constituents drving political attention as well! You really do have to look to your own safety.

[christian deichert]

Craig, I think you underestimate our government. I have a client who is getting help from her Texas congressman on a problem with her student loans. Not a problem with the student loan process, but her individual situation. If constituents have issues that need resolution, congressmen and senators have many other ways of resolving them besides additional funding. Remember how these guys got elected -- they are networking masters.

[craig_gillette]

On the contrary, you underestimate the issues. A Congressman can "solve" a loan problem because he (his staff) can be a pain to a bureaucratic organization to solve a single isolated problem. Small, individual issues can be worked. We had congressional attention on social security issues for a family member. But that doesn't solve the overall problems with either social security or student loans. The question here is can he send a personal Marshal, Ranger or Deputy Sheriff to hold your hand while you are wandering around a vast wild area populated with natural hazards and two-legged vermin. He can't do that. And he can't make anybody else do that without sending the bonzo bucks. The usual bureacratic response to over-use or controversial use of an area is simple. Lock the gates and make entry illegal. Make enough noise about a watering hole, they'll shutdown the area or go into a short-term intensive enforcement effort. But, if they don't let swimmers in, they won't let photographers in either. Or maybe you'd like security checkpoints at the forests like at the airports. They seem to be real popular these days.

 

What services would you withold or change to provide added funding to pay for "security" in the forests? Campground maintenance? Road and trail maintenance? Fire suppression? How about adding Adventure Pass fee requirements to all forests? The features that make a wild area inviting to nature lovers also create an enviroment that is conducive to criminal activity.

 

Visitors must be aware of the hazards and be reasonably responsible for their own safety. Just as in a city.

[the lone ranger]

that is some sick stuff man. if there are gonna be people having sex out there, it might as well be good old fashioned straight sex where innocent bystanders don't have to be grossed out by what they see. one naked guy approached us on baker beach in san francisco and asked if we were magazine photographers and asked if he could pose for us. that was pretty gross, but at least he had manners and was a friendly guy who was just there to have conversation. i don't mind naked dudes approaching as long as they dont' have anything sexual in mind. btw, where are all the chicks at the nude areas? guys outnumber them by at least 20 to 1.

[mtnbuuny_red]

I have to respond to this one. I personally have hiked this area in question many times, and throughly, over a period of years. The Redding Pass area and Tanque Verde Falls have been a "naturist" area for at least 50 years, that I know of. It is a place where gays and straights can go to play in the sun uninhibited. The use of this area has been "tolerated" by the Forest Service all these years. Most people in Tucson know of the nature of the area, and are either not offended hiking up there, or go somewhere else. Yes, through the years there have been incidents there, as anywhere in the deserts of Arizona. There is sometimes, not often, blatant activity between gays in the upper area. I have seen the same in the straight area, as well, but have never frequented it as much. If people are offended by what goes on there, then "Don't Go There". There are plenty of areas around Tucson where people can experience and photograph nature. If you hike in the Redding area, and you are offended by gays or straights feeling uninhibited and yes, at times "frisky" with each other, go somewhere else, it is a BIG country. Yes, there are always illegal activities in outdoor areas, there are also those that get carried away and make out in places where there may not be enough privacy. "But so what....."? Walk the other way! Gays have no where they can get together in public, as opposed to straights where the horizon is wide open: to include making out in lover's lanes, bars and everywhere else. Of course, when people see this, it is "oh look at that cute couple, why don't you get a room"....chuckle chuckle! A real double standard in this country where at least 1 tenth of people are gay.

To conclude, I have met many, I mean many, very friendly people in that canyon looking for conversation and some sex. I have never felt endangered. I have never been shot at, (although I have heard of isolated incidents), I have never seen anyone dividing up drugs, or had people throw rocks at me for stumbling onto an innocent union of passion. Of course, I would suppose if a person was leering and rude, a person might be inclined to throw a rock and say, "leave us alone"! I don't want people to get scared away from a beautiful area because of posts from a bunch of homo-phobes that think all of nature belongs to only them and no one else. Yes, there have been some flash flood drownings up there, and it seems a hiker that disappeared. Hey this is the Arizona wilderness, and we are close to the border. When you are in un-policed areas, keep your eyes and ears open. Watch out in Arizona for tanked up high school kids and rednecks shooting at nudists, (they are the real problem), but I don't hear people screeming about that. And, as well, watch out for mining claims, I have heard they use guns to keep people out. The same goes for smugglers and drug dealers, as well, don't forget people coming into the state in droves illegally, some armed. Arizona is still a wonderful state with unsurpassed beauty, people use the vast deserts for different things, be aware of your surroundings, but keep an open mind. If you see something that is truly a crime than walk the other way. Yes, it is true our law enforcement (which I have been actively involved in) are over-taxed and stretched to the limit. But in spite of that I have hiked all over this state to the most remote areas, and have never had a bad incident with anyone. I guess I know how to keep my distance and walk away quietly when I see something that perks up my ears. Of course if someone see a real crime, and feels law enforcement can actually get to area in time to do something, than report it. But leave the nudists alone, gay and straight!

[robert_kezer]

OF COURSE YOU ARE SAFE! After reading this, I see ONE instance of a problem that may have scared you. That is some guys wailing rocks. However, you were not harmed. As for someone disappearing, who knows what happens. However, I do not want every single place I go to be crawling with cops.

 

If one instance worries you, then carry protection or do not go to that area.