you know, ive never posted on this forum, thought it might be time. i live in the city, and im generally a lazy ass. its taken me all summer to get up and get a job, i never finish jobs always have a million things laying around my room, smoke to much pot.... but when i go camping, its like i go on automatic pilot. i love the outdoors so much and when im there i feel like i'm right with the environment, surviving like an animal. i can't stand any camping with accomadations. if there is something to be done - a tent to be pitched, wood to be chopped i'm on it. before a camping trip is one of the few times i really prepare and organize for something, and i go all out. not to mention the other incredible attributes of camping, from aesthetics to spiritually, i just love how living on your own in nature activates taht part of the mind which naturally takes care of business -work for direct results, not a piece of paper with a number - something i think modern humans have lost. and once the work is done, i can truly appreciate sitting around the fire with a beer and my guitar and my freinds... it actually seems like i deserve it. i think camping is good for me, both physically and mentally and gives me the change of scenery i need for motivation without having to give up whats most important - my friends and my music what sucks is at the beginning of the summer, we went camping for a graduation party and got seriously fucked with by the dnr ranger. this guy wanted to be a cop so bad it was pathetic - he wanted to put caution tape around the "evidence" (our beer and backpacks) in the woods! since then, no one but me has the nuts to just get out there and go. its really to bad. but hopefully early fall will be different! don't know if anyone read this rant, but well i just love camping haha
I used to feel the same way about Rangers for the U.S. Forest Service, due to numerous negative experiences with them. Then one day I met a couple of guys that volunteered for The Forest Service. I took their advice and attended a volunteer's meeting. And found out there are a lot of cool Rangers. I became a volunteer Ranger and was for many years. You know how some cops are assholes? Hell a certain segment of the population are assholes, from people who work at the DMV to the drunk sitting next to you at a ball game. Well, some Rangers are assholes, no doubt about it, but you also have to factor in that even the cool ones have to deal with mega-assholes who go out into the forest and really have no business being there. I lost count of the # of times I've seen people build a huge fire and then drive off, fire blazing, leaving piles of trash behind. Every week I'd on the average haul out like 50-60 lbs of trash, all of which I would have to pick up and bag, and some of which I'd have to hike out carrying, as much as 6 miles in some cases. Some people go out into the Forest to cause trouble. Shooting guns, tearing up things with their ATV's, poaching, gang members tagging everything with spray paint, speed freaks cooking up meth, crooks breaking into cars of hikers, booby-trapped marijuana grows, or going out-of-control on alcohol and other drugs. Like the guy I saw attempting to chop down a 20' tall tree in a campground. I asked him what he thought he was doing and he said "I need firewood." Aside from the fact that a falling 20' tall tree could injure/kill other campers, and ignoring the fact that fresh wood doesn't burn, the guy must have assumed that 40 years or so ago someone planted a tree at that campground just so he could chop it down. In the Angeles Nat'l Forest outside L.A., about 50 bodies a year are discovered, almost none of them killed in the forest. People use the forest as a dumping ground for people they kill in the city. Many times I helped Rangers recover bodies. They, as well as I, are well-aquainted with the smell of rotting human flesh, and the sight of decomposing/mutilated bodies. I've seen Rangers break down and sob after recovering a childs body. And more often that that we'd find sites where people had killed goats, and dogs (dalmations are a favorite) and other animals as some sort of cult ritual. So keep in mind who and what we have to deal with. The worst Rangers are the ones who are National Park Rangers, the guys who wear smokey the bear hats and ride horses. They think that they're in the army fighting a war. Now THOSE guys will REALLY fuck with you.
don't get me wrong man, i have met some cool rangers and i do respect the work that they do for conservation. this guy was just ridiculous, like funny and almost sad. he was shaking so bad that he would keep dropping his papers and walky talky like a little kid. one of my friends started talking shit, saying he beats off to busting kids, and the cops had to jump in and protect him. he couldn't even remember our names! he had the balls to call my house a week later and tell my mom what a bad kid i am (like she gives a shit about that) and then ask me and her for the names of the friends he couldn't remember! ridiculous... i just couldn't believe i got a drinking ticket from the dnr.
