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Comment by jmspring | Hacker News Reader

Also, you leave out (which the comment you mentioned does) - please respect local rules. For instance, in Death Valley, you can free camp most anywhere (refer to NPS guidelines) two miles off of a designated roadway.

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Yes - 100%. There is zero excuse for not knowing/abiding by local rules/regulations. The USFS, BLM, and others have troves of information posted online.

A local area has gone to great lengths to put up signage stating that unlicensed off-highway vehicles are NOT ALLOWED to travel the main stretch of USFS fire road. So what are people doing? Screaming up and down that very road on unlicensed off-highway vehicles at 2/3x the posted speed limit. Shooting is supposed to be confined to specific areas with backstops - instead you've got dingbats firing off hundreds of rounds into valleys with NO BACKSTOP and they aren't even cleaning up their brass.

It's a goddamn shit show.

To add to all of this great info, to any prospective dispersed campers: please use high-quality, recent, ideally official maps of your choosing to ensure you're on the sort of land you think you are. Boundaries can change and notes on spots aren't always up to date. My area involves a mix of national park, national forest, DNR land, and private land, and I regularly see dispersed campers getting ticketed for unwittingly setting up on the wrong side of the (unmarked) park boundary. That's tame compared to what can happen if you're trespassing on private land.

That's a really good point. Although not every agency produces good dispersed campsite maps, they typically do have at least boundary maps on their website.

Avenza (iOS/Android app) has done all the heavy lifting - you can download area maps and your position will be shown correctly on the map if you allow location services. Most of the BLM/USFS land I've been to recently produce compatible maps.

The keyword (primarily for federal land) is MVUM. It stands for Motor Vehicle Use Map. It will be an awkward PDF. Green dotted will indicate trails you can drive on. If you can't pull off all trails to camp little dots will indicate where that's allowed.

BLM and USFS websites have horrible navigation. Just Google the name of the forest with "MVUM". You might also need to first Google forest name + district map and then Google MVUMs for the specific district.

Another option is the MVUM layer in CalTopo (the name comes from the fact it started as just CA, but it's national nowadays)

But try to be aware of what you're signing up for: Death Valley Germans [0]

[0] https://www.otherhand.org/home-page/search-and-rescue/the-hu...

For the curious, the subject area: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=14/35.9193/-117.0431&laye...

I spent 10 days in death valley offroading. You aren't signing up for that if you stay on trails, even ones that are marked for 4x4s. We did 700 miles INSIDE death valley, yet all on real dirt trails. Would I leave an official trail in death valley? No. Is it perfectly safe as long as it's not 110+, even if you have a mechanical failure? Yes.

If you've got water and shade, someone knows where you are, you don't have any underlying health problems, and you're not exerting yourself, then any dry heat on earth is survivable. The saddest thing about cases like the Germans in Death Valley is how most of the mistakes were made before they even entered the park, and how easily they could have been fixed.

You did read the bit where they believed they were on an official trail, right?

I've spent two weeks combined solo off trail just wandering Death Valley, and will say I could have gone much longer. There's a lot more water back there than people realize, and parts of the year are colder than they are hot. HOWEVER, as a close friend of a friend of the superintendent and someone privy to SAR details, I'm telling ya, even on trail (on road) it's just not a safe place for most people once it's over 95° or so. Forget 110°! Many people suck at decision-making, and even more so once warm and suffering electrolyte imbalances. The Germans were some of _many_ to perish in Deva.

That was a great read, thanks.

I’ve been going to DV for over 25 years at this point. Mostly backroads exploration. The moral of most of these tragedies is know what you are doing.

Even as late as the last couple of winters, idiots follow GPS guidance (Waze, google/Apple Maps) onto closed roads. Again, know your environment. If a major highway is closed, likely the minor side roads are as well.

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