Park Rangers,Cops in the Woods?

“This thread shares the title with a Discovery channel program I saw last night.

There was a "typical day" with a Ranger in the PNW prolly WA. His area of operations was near the Canadian border in the Cascade Range. Anyway,on his patrol he spots what he calls a "suspicious vehicle". A jeep cherokee parked at a trailhead. He calls in the plate and procedes to check out the car. As he peers in the windows he lists off what he sees...a cooler (GASP!)...a sleeping pad (EGADS!)...and horror of all horrors a SLEEPING BAG!!!!!!! He brilliantly deduces that someone slept here,SHEER GENIUS this Ranger. He thinks the are smugglin' dope from Canada so he grabs some gear and starts down the trail. He dazzles(attempts to anyway) the audience with his tracking skills. He guesses a man and woman.

He cant find em so he heads back to his car,and dresses in head to toe in a camo outfit,with a tactical vest and an M-16 with scope. He crosses the road and hides in the underbrush and waits...its now 10 degrees. He tells the camera that no one camps in this type of weather,I chuckle. All told he spends 12 hrs watching this jeep and walking trails looking for the "suspects". After his second trip in the woods he returns to find the vehicle gone. He proclaims this to be a mystery. Cause he thinks that they were on the trail he chose when they were obviously on the one he never checked.

I just had to share this. So watch out for this "Dick Tracy" at your local trailhead.”

“BOL!
o-:3”

“He needs to be covered in fried chicken and sent to the Smokys to check out the campgrounds.”

“What scares me is that those bozos have guns.”

“Now I want to be a park ranger!!!”

“I thought you were a Recon Ranger.”

“Naw, I'm a lifer Cavalry Scout with 4 years to retirement. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.”

“Hyper, what agency did this guy work for? I've never heard of any NPS or USFS rangers being allowed to use an M-16. It almost sounds like he was with the Border Patrol?

It's only recently (last 10 years or so) that they've even been allowed to have sidearms and that is in response to the number of belligerent campers packing heat.”

“He wasn't with customs, or a US Border patrol agent. He was NPS, they spoke later on about people stealing indigenous plants/mushrooms to sell.And how the Nat'l Parks were the place of choice.”

“That's wild...I've heard of armed pickers out harvesting mushrooms and salal (used by florists). They get real territorial because of the demand and potential profit involved. I hope there's a repeat of the show soon.”

“Very weird! Discover Channel has been getting strange. A week ago they aired a show where Disney was promoting the new cartoon Atlantis. They claimed early on that they would announce that archaeologists had recently discovered new evidence of an ancient civilization believed to be the legendary Atlantis. They went into the history of the legend and after many zillions of cemmercials, finally briefly revealed the evidence that they were basing their claim on, that researchers believed that they had found the lost continent off the coast of Cuba. Half way through my husband said "Is this going to be like 'The Search For The Giant Squid' show, where at the end they finally admit they didn't find a live one?" I think that was another Discover show with a million commercials.”

“I wonder how many normal rangers Discover Channel had to go through before they found Ranger C.F. Rambo. If he even was a real ranger.”

“our rangers carry pencils and walkie talkies.”

“I saw the show, I thought it was the comedy channel, I was laughing so hard. They must've spent years getting enough film footage to fill an hour show.

Around here a dog off the leash is called a 'Park Service felony'.”

“We were out for a day hike near a large reservoir one fall. We took a break under some pines a short distance uphill from the lake. As we were sitting there, we saw a guy scooting between trees and hiding behind a rock apparently observing us. We were like "What the f---?"

As we went back out to the water?s edge and made our way along, we noticed that there were two aircraft circling the lake. At first we thought it was a plane towing a glider but realized they were too far apart and were flying in some odd formation. We continued around a bend where we first saw a group of duck decoys, then a bunch of guys in camo with automatic weapons crouched behind rocks. No hunting had been allowed here for a loooong time. There were 'No Hunting' signs right behind them and their unusual weaponry.

We bypassed them and came upon a young guy sweating profusely and sitting on a boulder. As we got near, he nervously asked if hunting were permitted here. We said never. He turned around and high-tailed it to the nearest parking lot. Not long after that a helicopter buzzed low overhead.

We arrived at that lot in time to see ?sweaty? pulling away in a car with NY plates (we were in NJ). A ranger on the road above used his loudspeaker to tell us the park was closing so we took a shortcut back to our parking lot where there were several police cars, occupants giving us a real look.

We guessed we wandered right into a stakeout for some marijuana growers in a National Park. Some city dwellers see a few trees and think they are in the wilderness. What a bizarre afternoon!”

“The Friendly Ranger is an "officer of the law", but she doesn't pack heat.

GA state parks are getting REALLY police-y. Man... you cannot park for two minutes w/o being approached by a freakin' cop-in-green.

My ex girlfriend and I met her sister at a SP a couple of years ago. We timed our arrivals to within three minutes of each other. We parked beside the sister's car and got out. The sister was a couple hundred feet away waiting for us in a shady area. I walked over to the pay box, and my girlfriend joined her sister. I paid for both vehicles, and proceeded to walk back toward the cars with the rearview mirror hangy things. There, blocking both cars, was a cop truck. The cop was proceeding to write tickets. I approached him with a "whattafuh?", and he informed me that we were illeagally parked in a pay area. I held up the hangy things and sad "whattafuh?" He made a not-pleasant ramark and drove away. What a dick he was!

Another time, when I arrived at a family camp-o-ree, I was waiting at the campground gate hoping that one of my family members would happen by. My intention was to see if anybody had gotten copious quantities if hangy things, and to get the gate code. Within ONE MINUTE a cop pulld up behind me with the blues flashing. I was parked is a designated parking pulloff, BTW. Man! Whatta dick this bozo was! He was not the LEAST BIT courteous, oh contraire... he was most rude. They think they're Wyatt Erp for cripes sake!

Boycott Georgia state parks. Go to FL instead. FSPs rule!”