long rant - Re: [pct-l] bear can regulations

[brick@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Brick Robbins)]

At 08:17 AM 1/23/03, CMountainDave@aol.com wrote:
>Since we apparently are NEVER going to get a clear picture on what the hell
>they want,

A few comments on the mix of bear can regulations.

First off, the folks who administer the wilderness areas in Inyo National
Forest, and to a large extent, the whole Inyo National Forest fiefdom are
quite unreasonable. These are the folks that REMOVED the bear boxes from
all wilderness areas,  some of which have the worst bear problems in the
Sierra.

These are also the folks who allow unlimited access to the horse pack
trains......

A few years back, it was decided by these folks that bear cans were the way
to go, and they are going to stick to that decision come hell or high
water. Back then, the ONLY way to go was the Garcia can, and everything
else was being rejected. I had a lawyer friend that specialized in Gov't
Contracting look at the whole thing, and he told me: 1) The way the law is
written, each forest can just about do anything it wants. 2) The way the
whole bear can approval process was being run (back then at least) was most
certainly illegal, but it would have been very expensive to fight, so
unless were a getting specs for a big $$ item like a fighter plane, it
wouldn't be worth it. As he said, fighting the gov't in court is like mud
wrestling a pig. You just get tired, dirty and frustrated., and after a
while you realize the pig LIKES it.

The $5000 number you see running around is the maximum fine for breaking
ANY reg in the forest. You could get the same fine for having your dog off
the leash. The ranger does not determine the fine, a judge does. Also, most
USFS seasonal rangers are poorly educated in law enforcement stuff, and
tell you what they think is the law, not what really is. Most USFS rangers
do not have the training to be law enforcement officers or be allowed to
carry firearms. NPS rangers, OTOH, are well trained, they don't have nearly
the same turn over, and *EVERY* NSP backcountry ranger you meet is trained
as a law enforcement officer and carries a firearm (much to their chagrin
at the weight.)

*IF* you get a ticket in Inyo and decide to fight it, do not accept a court
date in Bishop. There is no federal court on the east side of the Sierra,
so they have a little kangaroo court for the small stuff, like bear can
tickets, which is  presided over by a judge-pro-tem ( lawyer acting as a
judge ). The judge-pro-tem  will certainly side with the forest, since he
is a small town lawyer in an office across the street from the ranger
station, and probably has coffee with the ranger who wrote the tickets a
couple of times a month. Insist on a real judge (you don't have to accept a
judge-pro-tem) , and you will end up in the federal court in Fresno
instead. The ranger who wrote probably won't show up and you will get off.

You can't really expect any consistency from the USFS. The forest
administrations are really screwed up. Case in point: The whole reason the
PCTA started writing thru hiker permits is that the USFS region 6 (OR-WA)
would not accept permits written by USFS region 5 (California) - even
though entirely different agencies (State Parks and the National Parks)
*WOULD*.


--
Brick Robbins                       mailto:brick@fastpack.com