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Comment by maxxxxx | Hacker News Reader

In CA when you go out to the desert areas you often hit fenced in areas you can't/shouldn't cross. This makes it very difficult to approach interesting areas. Sure there plenty of trails but I only realized how confined you are in CA when I got to Scotland where it's so much easier to roam around.

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A lot of desert ecosystems are incredibly fragile, and if just one asshole with an offroad vehicle starts doing donuts for fun on the weekend will get damaged in ways that can take decades to recover.

There are plenty of public lands in CA where you can walk around off trail.

>https://www.nps.gov/articles/seug-soil-crust.htm

Living soil which can be destroyed by footsteps. Cyanobacteria and lichens and algae. One of the oldest organisms on Earth.

Right to roam laws clearly don’t include the right to do damage by driving an offroad vehicle anywhere you like.

Yes, but the existence of jerks with offroad vehicles explains some of the fences.

There are plenty of places where just having visitors regularly hike across the ground off-trail does significant damage to the ecosystem, which is why fragile or popular parks restrict public access to marked trails and designated campsites.

I've stood on mountaintops in California where I couldn't see the end of the National Park I was in, past the horizon. Sequoia-Kings Canyon NP itself is half the size of Scotland.

California has 199,490 km2 of protected public lands, more area than 2.5 Scotlands.

unfortunately there are still many "land locked" public lands among those protected lands in california: public lands which are encircled by private lands, with no easement. in the sierra the access situation is generally very good, however there are definitely examples elsewhere which beg the question of what it means to be "public" when it can't be accessed.

for example, although the summit of berryessa peak is on BLM land, the only access is through private land. fortunately one land owner was convinced to allow an easement on a short section of trail to allow the opening of the berryessa peak trail, and access to this peak, but for years it was public and yet off-limits.[1]

on the west side of lake berryessa, cedar roughs wilderness, currently has no access. there are old roads/trails in there which are accessible from private land, but no public easement.

there was an article posted here last year about similar issues surrounding the crazy mountains in montana[2].

[1] https://www.summitpost.org/berryessa-peak/766290 [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-10-25/this-land...

Yes, there are national parks but if you are not close to one you are out of luck. Go out to the Mojave for example. There are huge areas that are fenced off.

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