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Old May 25th 07, 01:29 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Wolf Leverich
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Posts: 43
Default Euphemism for Illegal Mountain Bike Trails: "Gray Trails"

On 2007-05-24, Bill wrote:
Wolf Leverich wrote:
snip

Depending of the state, the land may have to be fenced, posted at
specific intervals, or the landowner may have to order folks off
the land to make presence constitute trespass and be subject to
civil and criminal penalties.

California requires, IIRC, at a minimum of posting every third of
a mile along a property boundary plus posting at all places where
roads and trails enter the property.


Wrong. I live in California and the rangers will give out a ticket even
knowing they are wrong. They play the odds that you won't plead not
guilty. I came down off of an unmarked fire trail once, not even sure
which park I was in, and the ranger wrote me a traffic ticket for riding
on a non-bike trail. I ate the ticket and then it showed up on my
driving record.


Oops, my bad.

I was responding to MV's apparent assertion that riding on
private property was automatically trespassing. It isn't.

I wouldn't be terrifically surprised, though, if riding
closed-to-bike trails on public lands is a citeable offense,
even if the trail isn't marked where you got on it.

One of my pet peeves is that if you're the CEO of Enron, the
government has to fly up its own arse to prove you intended to
break the law (though it's obvious even to the village idiot).
But if you're an ordinary Joe who gets screwed on something
like this, the fact that there was no reasonable way for you
to know you were in the wrong place isn't a defense at all.

This sucks.

###

This is kinda important to hikers, or there would be even more
access problems than there already are ...


May be some of us in California should write about bad rangers.
Bill Baka


Not a bad plan. Might at least get the trails marked better.

Cheers, Wolf.


--
Dr. Brian Leverich Co-moderator, soc.genealogy.methods/GENMTD-L
Angeles Chapter LTC Admin Chair http://angeles.sierraclub.org/ltc/
P.O. Box 6831, Frazier Park, CA 93222-6831
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