Favorite Non-Quota'd Trailheads (pre Labor Day special)

[egull]

Just came back from a trip to the Emigrant wilderness and was pleasantly surprised to learn that there are no quotas in use there.

[hikerduane]

Just had another thought. Might be a good idea to check how fires are in any area planning on visiting. Up north where I live, at least on weekends, another fire had started, but most are about fully contained now. I hope my "crop" in the Feather River canyon made it thru all this. J/K. Smoke was not detected over the weekend finally after over a month now?

[giantbrookie]

I hope my "crop" in the Feather River canyon made it thru all this. J/K.

Funny you should mention that. One of my graduate students had his field season prematurely ended when he was chased off of an area north of and above SR70 (southern flank Red Hill) by a gun wielding "crop" guard who didn't speak English (this actually led to a very large bust up there). We are figuring that these fires mean that there will be a short period of time (a few years) when growers won't have much cover disguise their plantations under in certain areas. In the meantime, this summer's fires chased a second graduate student out of the Feather River area prematurely.

[TehipiteTom]

Just came back from a trip to the Emigrant wilderness and was pleasantly surprised to learn that there are no quotas in use there.

I just did a four-day trip up there myself, Friday-Monday. Saw tons of people, even on the cross-country. (We crossed the Granite Dome ridge from Post Corral Canyon to Ridge Lake, and saw 5 other people in that time. Didn't see anyone during the next day's X-C, though, from Ridge Lake to Upper Relief Meadow.) Enjoyed talking to everyone we met, but on the whole I think I prefer wilderness areas with quotas.

[egull]

I just did a four-day trip up there myself, Friday-Monday. Saw tons of people, even on the cross-country.

We were there the weekend of Aug 1-3 and also saw lots of other folks. There were three other groups camped at Chewing Gum Lake. Everyone we met was very nice and it was a great trip. So you're right , maybe not the best choice for solitude but no worries about being turned away on Labor Day.

[hikerduane]

There was a story in the local paper last winter/fall about a guy who was out day hiking last summer and he met a guy who motioned him to come closer, but he turned around and ran. There was a garden growing in the area, so when the law arrived, there was no one around.

[giantbrookie]

The subject of the story you mention (the guy who ran after being told "come here") is my grad student. He was doing geologic mapping when he heard this funny hissing noise while climbing up a gully above SR70. After a few minutes of hiking he saw what the hissing noise was all about. It was a leaking connection between two hoses. Knowing immediately what he had stumbled upon, he turned around and bailed. As he was fleeing (and fortunately climbing up a side spur that bounded the gully) he was accosted by a pistol bearing man who shouted at him to "come here". For some reason, that to this day he questions, he actually replied, and quickly realized that "come here" were the only two words of English the fellow knew. My student is totally fluent in Spanish so he spoke in Spanish before a voice in his head asked "why am I doing this?" at which point he turned and ran/fell down the slope at full tilt to SR70 calling the sheriff on his cell phone in the process. Fortunately by the time the gun bearing fellow had initially accosted him my student was in a good position on higher ground (above the gully) at a decent distance (with a tricky line-of-sight) which he says would have presented a very difficult pistol shot for all but the most accomplished marksman. Nonetheless it was a frightening experience. While on the phone to the sheriff, he was told to wait along SR70 until a deputy came along, but he was worried about what would happen if the guard guy had descended and gotten to a vehicle himself. He was then told to descend to Rich Bar but, as you probably know, some of those folks are almost as scary as the garden guards (or scarier). Eventually he met and spoke to some officers who told him he had better end his field season, because even if he didn't venture into the specific area again, he had been recognized and might be a marked man. So that was the end of his field research season. He returned to the area this summer with me and my next grad student when I started my other student off on another project (the one that ended prematurely when he was burned out of the field area).

[hikerduane]

Small world, which reminds me, thank you.

[SSSdave]

GB, scary situation indeed. Such guards have likely already played out various scenarios of what they will do to intruders. The obvious thing such guards may do for solo hikers in order to keep their operation unknown is obviously murder. Simply asking visitors seeing their illegal doings to keep quiet would be a huge gamble for their purposes. Thus their evil employees likely make it clear what they are to do. If they catch one person while their friends get away, they may instead question and beat info out of them a bit and then decide whether or not to escape or remain.

[giantbrookie]

Yes, as a field-oriented research geology professor, the hazard to the my students from things like this is a constant source of stress. In the mid 80's when plantations were more "mom and pop" and less dangerous than today, one my friends had one of his PhD students executed and dumped over a cliff on the north coast. Needless to say, that is one of a geology professor's worst nightmares. I myself have had three of four scary encounters, spanning over 20 years of geologic field work, including one when I faced a shotgun wielding guard (and I was within lethal range) whom I could not communicate with (apparently guarding fields disguised beneath avocado groves in SD county). Fortunately, he didn't seem to be overly aggressive or hostile (he was not pointing the shotgun at me). His buddy rode up to me as I was leaving the area a few minutes later, carrying a machete and smiling at me with a big toothless grin. Another time, my defensive instinct kicked in for no apparent reason while on a dirt track and I reduced the range of my visibility by going off into the bush. I peered onto the track and saw two horsemen riding in my direction carrying AKs. I was also doing field work along Slate Creek once when a bunch of dredgers who were carrying mammoth hand guns (44 magnums) thought it was fun simply to discharge their weapons. They weren't shooting at me or my field partner (we were about 50 yards away) but I think they discharged their guns just to put a fright into us. It worked. I haven't returned to that spot.

Returning to the original purpose of this post, I guess Emigrant is the big no-quota destination for now. There are still spots in Emigrant that aren't too bad in terms of crowds and the crowds in Emigrant, even at the more popular destinations, are not like those encountered in Desolation Wilderness' most popular spots, nor along the first few miles of the favorite trails out of the East Side.