I'm planning a weekend hike through the mountains in southern Appalachia. Most of the hike is on private property. The start of it is on my land, and the idea is to climb up the nearest mountain and follow the ridge line for about 15 miles until it drops you off into a long valley where. At the end of that valley is a public trail (about 25 miles hike from my land) and the trailhead will be the end point of my hike. I've done plenty of hiking on logging company land but this is a bit different, it is going through many privately owned properties. I've been careful to design the route to not get close to any houses, but still most of the land is owned by individuals. I'm sure these people would not be so keen on having a random guy walking through their property or showing up on their cameras so there's a real risk of getting in trouble whereas you can pretty much go wherever you want on logging company land when there's no operations going on. I thought about wearing full camouflage and being silent and aware but I could never spot and avoid every camera. Perhaps a face mask with glasses?
Anyone have experience with thru hikes trespassing through private property?
I just think its weird how the system is not set up so you can easily figure out the email address of the private property owner or phone number if they wish and contact them. I feel like if you make it clear you are just hiking, tell them when you will be there, and frick especially if you just live nearby I doubt they would care, but I hate how realistically unless you offer them 1000 dollars or more most people are gonna say no. It's all about greed, not about any REAL threat hikers pose to their land, especially if that land is in a scenic area.
Is there any potential scenic value in your route, like any views to be had? I wish it were more like right-to-roam countries. I think its FINE to require you register your name and day you want to hike with the owner, but to make it about money, and at that a large amount is fricked.
>I just think its weird how the system is not set up so you can easily figure out the email address of the private property owner or phone number if they wish and contact them.
just knock on their front door
I've been told not to do that in certain areas.
>mailing address
I don't get why there's no publicly searchable database with contact info they provide like an email
that said I think it should be right to roam anyways
I'm just pointing out the system is deliberately opaque
>county property tax info is typically freely available with all pertinent details
depends on the state and even then typically does not include contact info, just the name and you have to find a phone number for that name
>no publicly searchable database with contact info they provide like an email
there is in my state. its called a cadastral.
>just the name
no. its gives the tax addess of the owner. you can mail a letter which is what people do when they want to use my property to access hunting lands
>mail a letter
its 2023 why cant we use email and phone
that's a deliberate inconvenience meant to discourage access
>whinging like a c**t.
dont fricking call me. I hate whiners.
>its 2023 why cant we use email and phone
its called privacy. a lot of landowners dont want you knowing who they are much less on their land. Thats why a lot of land is owned by LLCs etc...
it could be a throwaway email or there's apps you can get a new phone number
>Thats why a lot of land is owned by LLCs etc...
the land I was looking at trespassing on seems mostly owned by random out of state logging companies and a few small plots are residential
> a lot of landowners dont want you knowing who they are
well I feel the same, I don't want them knowing who I am so I am just gonna walk across and they won't see me
>so I am just gonna walk across
yeah. thats its. You show them whos boss! Laws dont apply to you! You are better than everyone else!! that'll teach'em.
There are multiple countries where people who just want to HIKE can cross private property to do so provided they do not bother people living in houses, and the systems work fine. Have you heard Scottish people complaining?
This is about MONEY
this is about wanting to grab as much cash as you can from hunters, and hikers just get lost in the process
so the real outcome is most people just trespass, and a few richgays who hunt pay out the ass for permission
it's a shitty feudal system
>This is about MONEY
Bullshit. its about private property and the rights therein. Private property is one of the fundamental premises of the US Constitution. Either you are on board with private property or you're a communist. Which is it?
This is OP, I completely understand people not wanting their property trespassed on. I don't want mine trespassed on. I know that I'm just there to walk through and get to the public land so don't feel so guilty about trespassing for a thru-hike myself but I do see where this logic goes on a larger scale, lots of people walking through others properties and such. In my case I'm mostly just concerned with getting caught. Could I reach out to every single land owner between here and there? Maybe, it may be a dozen or it could be two dozen, I haven't looked at ONX for it yet (I dont have it).
explain why there are no problems with private property in countries with right to roam laws
you dont understand. I dont want moronic c**ts like you on my land. what about that dont you understand and cant you respect? stay the frick off my property
>I dont want moronic c**ts like you on my land.
Don't care.
>what about that dont you understand and cant you respect?
The part where you think you have the right to cordon off a piece of forest from public use.
>stay the frick off my property
No.
internet tough guy lol. frick around and find out.
>Don't care.
welp, at least you admit you are a moronic c**t
>>stay the frick off my property
>No.
BASED
Frick the public. They can go to public land, private means private.
It's a difficult issue. On the one hand, I agree that property rights are sacred and should not be freely violated. On the other hand, when every single acre of land becomes private property suddenly no one can ever go anywhere except public roads and paths, which fricking sucks and means no one can freely enjoy nature the way humans are intended to. It's the same problem I have with the "social contract" being something that was thought up in a time when you could literally frick off into the wilderness and opt out of society in a very real way that can no longer be done today.
Back in the 1700s if you didn't like how the government was running things you could just frick off west where the government had no jurisdiction and tell them to suck a dick, but you can't do that today because there's ZERO land that's not accounted for by the government. You can't just opt out and go make your own way, so it becomes extremely unfair to justify controlling people with the "social contract" because it's no longer a choice in any meaningful way whatsoever.
Similarly with private property, there was a time when you could just avoid walking on private land so it was a reasonable thing to require: Just go walk on the un-owned land over there instead of walking on my land, easy! While today ALL land is owned by SOMEONE so you simply can't freely move around unless you're in a state park, and since everyone is sequestered into the same parks and trails it all becomes crowded and suddenly there's no such thing as an actual escape to nature.
I don't think there are any easy answers, but there have to be compromises that exist between the extremes of "all trespassers whether intentional or unintentional must die on sight" and "communist hellhole where private property literally doesn't exist." It's just not reasonable to enforce the most black and white extremes in a world where free land is literally nonexistent.
>Private property is one of the fundamental premises of the US Constitution.
Private from government interference, sure. The concept of common land was alive and well into the mid 19th century. The idea of simply trespassing on land being any kind of legal issue at all didn’t exist until the invention of barbed wire and Black Codes after the Civil War. In the late 18th century, trespassing laws were viewed as an aristocratic practice. But the first “no trespassing” laws didn’t exist in the US until 1865, 80 years after the Constitution was written.
>Private property is one of the fundamental premises of the US Constitution.
Most of the US used to have Right to Roam. Learn your history.
>Most of the US used to have Right to Roam
>150yrs ago
lol.
people should have the freedom to not be bothered by these requests or have to deal with them. if someone wants to allow people in they can advertise that themselves
why did you repost this?
>system is not set up so you can easily figure out the email address of the private property owner
Its very easy. county property tax info is typically freely available with all pertinent details- or get the ONX app and that also provides mailing address for each property owner
Stop living in a shitty state where everything is private property. Move west where the real mountains are.
You're gonna get shot, OP.
Hike the Appalachian Trail, the Pinhoti Trail or whatever trail is near you. There is a nonzero chance you will get shot and the shooting will never be reported to local law enforcement.
walking on private property in camo like that? theyre gonna be aggro because you'll look like a poacher who may be armed. also theres a lot of people growing weed out there. not as bad as wandering around norcal, but still. dont. theres tons of good trails that arent gonna make people think they have a wacko on their land.
dude do you really wanna get ventilated by some bubba just to hang out in the woods? idk man seems like its not worth it
I think it would be national news if that happened.
>rural shootings make national news
ya ok
if someone was killed simply for hiking through a stranger's property, yeah
Unless he's faithfully checking in with someone about exactly where he is and where he's headed at the beginning and end of every day, how would anyone even know it happened? More than likely no one would know exactly where he was and they wouldn't notice him missing until he was impossible to locate. If someone shot him on their land and buried the body somewhere deep he'd just vanish.
>1000s disappear every year.
>national news
bro that wouldn't even rate local news lol
Also trespassing is wrong, doubly so for regular peoples land. Go trespass on government land.
I have a family who cares about me and talks to me every day, I let them know where and when I'm going and share my mapped route with them usually when I go backpacking. If I disappeared it would definitely not go unnoticed. Whether that means my body would be found is a different question. I don't have a GPS/satellite device but will probably end up getting one at some point for off-trail navigation because I've had a few spooks.
That being said, I don't think I'm going to do this trespassing hike anymore. It is an awesome route but its not worth the risks. I will stick to public land trips. Looking to do a week-long thru-hike somewhere this winter solo because my backpacking buddy is a wimp about camping in the cold.
Memes and tough guy shit aside, if someone doesn't have fencing and/or keep out signs you'll probably be fine if you're being respectful and not acting suspiciously (don't go to great lengths to hide your identity from cameras, for example, it just makes you look up to no good). Jumping fences and ignoring signs is how you get shot, but otherwise people tend to be understanding or not even notice you went through as long as you're polite.
Anyone else do stealth camping on local hiking trails that officially don't allow camping?
i used to sleep in forest park in portland while traveling. usually in a tent or bag behind bushes. sometimes in the little room of that stone house
Around me theres a lot of land that has been bought by a trust for people to hike on. Some pretty awesome places, many I'd like to camp but I'd have to get dropped off at the trailhead or something.
hippity
hoppity
abolish
private
property
hippity
hoppity
restore
high-trust
society
That's the real problem, not the concept of private property itself. We need more respectful people and more ability to trust that people will be respectful so that strangers hiking through places don't have to be treated with suspicion and hostility.
I think its just about flexing power
Shit, I get not wanting people firing off random bullets on your land, but realistically hiking poses no threat to you, and I'm not talking about random hiking, but specifically people who own properties in places with scenic merit or that intersect roads and places with scenic merit, not just going on people's property for no reason
>I think its just about flexing power
Partially, but it also stems from people assuming the worst in others. Assuming they're there to vandalize, litter, steal, etc, etc. Not enough trust in strangers left these days.
no, fully, you can easily talk to people and ask why they are there, what anons want is to justify being violent and shooting without talking
the system is set up to make it as hard as possible to get permission to hike on private property and there's no requirement anyways
there are tons of countries where no permission is required to hike on private land, and they don't have massive problems somehow with tweakers or poaching
Shut the frick up man, it's private property. Move out west if you want to gander around wherever the hell you like.
I live on a rural farm and trespassers are 95% tweakers looking for something to steal, poors looking to consume substances they can't do where they live, or poachers, and when you have several hundred thousand dollars worth of livestock and a 20 minute police response time you're not gonna be terribly friendly to the stranger stomping around with a facemask and backpack
I'm glad OP realized the risk/reward ratio on this idea is trash, this something I would have done in my early 20s then keep thinking about how dumb it was when I can't sleep at night
Definitely follow the main ridge where the main game trail is going to be. Hunters definitely won't have trail cams up there.