The Perils of Guerilla Camping

The perils of guerilla camping

When I travel by motorcycle I often find inconspicuous places to camp - actually sleep- in public space. Rumors abound about the bad things that can happen but I personally have have never experienced this. My dad told stories of hobos getting cement culverts rolled on top of them in the pipe yard, of losing legs to trains, one friend got thrown in the Bernie, Texas jail for the night for trespass camping, another guy north of Edmonton got run over in the wee hours by a quad piloted by some bush party yahoos. Still, thousands of hobos, homeless, and tired motorcyclists must have learned something eh? Nice weather, starts out, no generators running . . . remote camping while enroute has its own appeal. Here is a saga from a while back where I was the interfering perp in messing up someone's stealth camp, albeit unwittingly. This is a completely true story too.

This happened while taking my black lab Dixie for her morning walk in the small park near our house. Dixie and I were playing our usual game of toss the stick into the bushes, send her for a retrieve to let her find and retrieve it. After the 3<SUP>rd</SUP> boisterous retrieve, she happened to flush a black and white cat from the south side of the copse of trees the local kids call &#8220;the fort&#8221;. It is the kind of place I would nominate as one of the top 10 sites for a kid to try their first cigarette, but I digress. She let out a few giant barks and the cat fled. The wind was from the southwest.

Bear with me, the details are important here. . .

Dixie predictably did her daily business, a giant stinky steamer of well processed Costco dogfood with a little grass mixed in for texture- typical, but PHEW!. I was drinking my coffee and fishing around for a plastic bag with which to pick it up. Did I mention the wind was from the Southeast? While I was bagging it, things got interesting - no, not interesting like an un-noticed hole in the bag as sometimes happens . . ..

Beneath the buush where I had just thrown the stick was something orange. There nestled in the ground cover was a body. A human body. With a red zippered bag for a pillow and an orange, medium-quality sleeping bag. Very well hidden. Good stealth. The mostly bald head swiveled nervously in that whispy Robert Picton (a BC pig farmer and mass murderer of prostitutes) sort of way -OK, that was gratuitous. He was about 2 meters DIRECTLY DOWNWIND of Dixie&#8217;s odiferous deposit.

I almost burst out laughing.

The poor sap had had a stick flung on top of him, a big black dog baking and leaping over the top of him while chasing a cat then the application of a malodorous aversive aromatherapy delivery system, followed by some guy with a cup of coffee peering and snickering at him.

Then it started to rain very lightly. What a bad morning!

It made me want to take him a cup of coffee and apologize because as mentioned earlier, I too am an inveterate guerilla sleeper when travelling cross country wherein no picnic table, hedgerow or even cemetery is safe from my naps or short over-nighters.

If he is a regular, maybe there is a problem but I doubt he will be back unless he is a real masochist. Heck, it could be someone's husband after a late night argument for all I know. It WAS a pretty good looking sleeping bag.

The upside of this was that it made some of my marginal campsites seem glorious by comparison.

I am keeping an eye out in the hood for a bald guy with a red zippered satchel. He&#8217;ll probably be wearing a clothespin on his nose.

Lee
​

All true stories begin with, "This is no shit..."

However, in this case, that rule is waived...

NFE

Several of my grandfather's relatives and he too rode the rails as hobos. He used to regale me with his stories of the hobo life mixed with what I'm sure where the standard jokes of the era. I think most were "Pat and Mike" jokes.

When I was a little kid i was a Hobo every year for Halloween. His stories must have made a big impression because when I got old enough I hit the road hitchhiking and working in Oregon, Alaska, and so forth.

I know a kid, a neighbor from Sonoma, who is doing the same now and has been for about three years. He's gone international and has some amazing stories. He often sleeps in bushes at airports if possible of which your story reminded me. He had alot of thinking into how to conceal himself.

Thanks for posting.

Awesome :)

I stealthed camped on a strip mall loading dock one night. Got woke up at 4am by what sounded like a chainsaw............I almost shit myself and felt like I pulled a muscle when I sat up. There was a husband and wife (I assume) running a leaf blower and weed eater cleaning up the paper and cardboard and weeds behind there. I was sleeping good till then after the adrenaline rush of thinking I was going to chopped into little pieces I couldn't sleep and got up and rode the rest of the way home lol

I slept on a couple of picknick tables in the past. They were in a national forest. Bike right next to the table. Ranger stopped by while I was packing the sleeping bag to check if I was ok.
There are some good threads about this with good sugestions on here.

I know a guy that used to hop trains, he got hit in the head by a dude with a machete back in the 80's. He didn't realize what had happened and beat the shit out of the guy. After the guy took off he realized his head was bleeding. He has a nice scar down the middle of his head now. Around that time there was a serial killer that would hop trains and kill people with a machete, could have been the guy that hit him who knows.

I have a buddy that while riding his motorcycle on long trips will sleep in cars at used car lots. He says it only really works in small towns. You find a used car lot and walk around until you find a door unlocked and sleep in the back seat. He found a motel one time and couldn't find anyone at the front desk. He found a room that was unlocked and slept there and left money on the counter at the front desk in the morning. He called later to make sure they got his money and told them he enjoyed his stay. He is an old dude so this was probably back in the day!

Yellow font + iPhone4 + TapaTalk = can't read squat

Don't know if this counts or not, but after one very late night at the bar I crashed on a park bench just down the street. I woke at about 09:30 with the beautiful small park full of young families and kids running around playing. I felt like a gigantic asshole when I realized where I was. Was probably snoring like a chainsaw and stinking like an alcoholic too. Did my own version of the walk of shame out of there in full biker regalia and way too long hair sticking up all over. Gives me the douche chills when I think about it now.

In 1978 on a trip to VA Beach a friend and I missed the entrance for our camp area where we wanted to stay. We were on the Skyline Drive and came upon the Skyline Lodge. Not having money to do that, we went to the end of the parking area, put down the drop cloth and sacked out.

At about 6 am we were woken up by the trash pick up guy. The guy came up to where we were. We told him of missing the camp area. He commented about bears and how they tore up a bike with bags trying to get to some cheese and chips in the bags. We had a bag of chips on the seat of my bike. When he left, we kind of nodded and commented to each other that he was just trying to mess with us.

When we rolled out, several hundred yards up the road we went past a black bear with it's front paws up on the stone wall at the roadside, looking at us... Suffice it to say, no more sleeping out where there is a woods and known bear inhabitation.

We did stop and sleep in a rest area on the way home. Won't do that again without a flash light. We were in the "dog walk" area. Fortunately we weren't "caught" by any "land mines" of the brown kind. Dumb luck. Next time, we'll do what the truckers were doing - lay out on a picnic table.

This thread is morphing but I'll ride it out. I am a wildlife biologist and I seem to have more than my share of wildlife encounters while motorcycle camping. Maybe they are getting even. I was camping in the Shennadoaha National Forest and had a steady rain of frass (caterpillar droppings) from a leaf-roller outbreak.

Here are a couple of links to my former, and still sometimes, home on the Chain Gang before I moved from an F650GS to the 1200GS:


This ride report has thundering elk interrupting my camping spot:
http://f650.com/Forum/showthread.ph...e-sex-drugs-and-country-music-on-a-motorcycle


This report has more bears and bison in it than humans but the #$*^!! mosquitos were the worst

http://f650.com/Forum/showthread.php?185602-Motorcycling-a-Different-North


This camping trip had snakes in my camping area:

http://f650.com/Forum/showthread.php?185446-Final-installment-Gnashville-to-Western-Canada

What I most fear though are farm dogs and drunk teenagers looking for a parking place in which to get some action while out in the boonies.

Ride safe
Camp safer

Lee

I've only "camped" once, I was riding to Beaufort SC to visit a bud in the Marines. I was somewhere in Tennessee when I decided to stop for the night. Having little money, I rode deep into some national forest where I stuck my key in my sock and slept in the grass. Nothing happened during the night, and I woke up in the morning covered in dew, cold and sore from no mattress, blanket, or pillow.

Brother... I don't know what you would call it, but that ain't camping. :eek1

4th of July weekend, middle of nowhere in the Mojave desert.

I passed a rest area that was closed for renovation. I figured no one would be working that weekend. So, I turned around, passed the barrier, and pitched my tent in between two bushes, hidden from view. As it was getting dark, I watched a van pull around the barrier, and park on the far end of the lot. A couple guys got out and started loading up copper and construction supplies. I laid low and watched. One of them noticed my motorcycle and drove their van around to the other side of the building as the other walked up to me speaking Spanish, asking me something about Victorville. I just made the face and they drove away. I went to sleep, but was wary about them returning. I drifted off at like 1am. At 4am, a diesel truck driving past wakes me up and I hear shuffling noises. I immediately start throwing all my gear in my bags. Another vehicle arrives, and another. It was a bunch of construction workers. They all looked surprised when the bush lit up and started its engine.

I pulled up to them, waved one of them over and told him about who was stealing his supplies. I then rode to the nearest gas station and laid in the grass next to the parking lot until about 8am.

I don't think I'll be doing that much any more.

I used to camp like this quite a bit. I preferred places near a road, but hidden by brush. There are many places less than a hundred feet from a road where nobody will notice you. My main riding jacket back then was OD green. I used to drape it over the bike to help hide it. No fires, no loud noise. Just pull off the road and sleep. Small animals woke me up a few times. It's not hard to be stealthy. Think about where headlights shine. Think about where people look.
A cheap hammock that packed to softball size, some rope strung above it, and two shelter halves over that rope kept me mostly dry. It wasn't as stealthy as sleeping on the ground, but more comfortable.
I miss being young and broke sometimes.

I tried tents, blow up mats, non blow up mats and rubber shells over bag..

All took to much room and weight on the bike and took too long to repack.

Then I tried sleeping on the bike at an entrance to a freeway with some truckers. When I would get tired I'd just pull off and snooze for less than an hour, with my head in the helmet, center stand down, key in ignition & legs hanging. Worked great, although the rain would get down my neck.

So I was going east to Bikeweek on 10, about 1am in west Texas (near Iraan). Temperature was dropping fast, they said it was 26 with the wind chill at the last gas stop. I had to reduce speed to about 75; even with my heated liner it was getting cold.

When all of a sudden.. Whop... my leg was twist driven into my hard case. Damn I thought my leg broke, but how... was there a block on the freeway? nah my foot would be broken.. I had to stop the leg was hurtin like hell, but not on the freeway (the semis were rolling pretty good)

Pulled into the next exit, parked & sat for a while. The hurt was lessening so I walked a little, until I got cold, then I figured I'd sleep till sunrise and leave as it warmed up. Jeeze I was really getting cold, I plugged in my vest.

At sunrise I tried to start the bike... no way... heated vest.. d'uh. I called AAA for service (lucky I had cell service)... they connected me to their tow vendor. They told me they didn't have anybody, but they would call me back. They did, they called a local sheriff and the sheriff gave a local to call. I did, a nice guy trailered me to his garage where he had a charger for his bike. While I waited I figured I should check my oil (after 2K), added a little.

I had lost 9 hours but was still good. After the charge I took off. At the Fwy entrance, I stopped to check my load. Got off and looked at my leg, it was full of oil. WTF. My oil cap blew off because I didn't screw it in right

Jeeze this was embarrassing, had to call for a tow again. I figured I wasn't going to search the 10 miles I had traveled to find the cap. Their was no BMW dealer anywhere close by. I had to call San Francisco to overnite it to me

Spent a couple of days in Iraan, a wildcatter town; real nice people to this alien from another planet.

What caught my toe? I ran thru a deer carcass. That Fwy had three carcasses on the shoulders when I got back on the road.

Ahhh... the memories

It could fall under the Guerilla camping header. A friend who was in VietNam recounted doing pretty much a similar thing when on patrol, which he did a lot - like three months at a time and three days back. They would go back in the brush or whatever, well off the trail, flatten a round area, tie their boot lace to the guy on either side of them, then go to sleep. Why the boot lace? They could silently wake each other up with the tug of a foot. He was in some bad ass territory.

OK Markk53, I;ll bite.

You wrote of Viet Nam vets sleeping out while on patrol in enemy territory who would would

Ummm - if I was an enemy soldier happening upon such a group I would be somewhat delighted. One shot then watch them all stand up, fall down, stand up, fall down.

This sounds as non-intuitive as a seatbelt on a motorcycle. If they wanted to silently awaken each other, how about the good ole' poke in the ribs?

Are you sure he wasn't pulling your leg . . . with a long boot lace?

Having said that, I have been so jet lagged in Heathrow that I put a strap from my computer case through my belt loop while napping on the benches. I did not get shot either.

Lee

I guerilla camp more often than not. I used to call it "renegade" camping 'til I read the real name here.
In Canada, we can camp free on crown land, which is not everywhere but there's still lots.

I've never had an "Adventure" but got moved out by cows once.

What I do:
Get off the main road.
Find another road off that road.
Find an 'out of sight' place to park and pitch the tent.
Make damn sure you're not on a trail.

My rules:
Don't camp in a business.
Don't light a fire.
Don't go through a gate.
Move on if there's a private property sign.

I've been a guerilla camper since way back. I love doing it and have been lucky to have some fun adventures and have yet to get shived.

Slept behind what I thought was an abandoned gas station just outside of Rijeka, Croatia (then still part of Yugoslavia) in 1985 when I was trying to hitchhike to Dubrovnik from Trieste. I was stuck in the pouring rain after having been passed by a hundred Volvos with roof racks loaded with windsurfing boards and full of giggling gorgeous Swedes and Danes (I still hold a grudge).

Imagine my surprise when the owners of said fully operational gas station found me snoozing amongst their used solvent drums behind the shop. I'd just spent the last couple of terms studying in what is now the former Soviet Union so I figured that I'd regal them with my knowledge of Russian since it was the Eastern Block (at least to an 19 year old American it was). They laughed and asked in just about perfect English if I was an American. I somewhat disappointedly replied "I guess so". They told me never to utter another word of Russian in Yugoslavia or to admit, under threat of dismemberment, that I'd set foot there as people were just as likely to slit my throat as they were give me the time of day as they were not all that happy with their big "ally" to the east. After we got that out of the way they made me coffee, tossed me a couple of rolls, helped me get a ride straight through to Dubrovnik.
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After spending too many days chasing those same gorgeous Swedes and Danes around Dubrovnik and Split in a quest to extract my revenge for leaving me in the cold by playing drinking games with their unsuspecting womenfolk, I meandered back through the rest of the continent where I eventually got stuck again north of London at a rest area on the M1 or M6 (can't remember due to the loss of brain cells at the hands of those evil Swedish and Danish girls who were way more skilled at drinking games than I). Managed to beg a ride in the back of a carpet van straight into London after about 12 hours pleading as I had a flight home the next day.

The carpet van driver dropped me off in a sketchy neighborhood on the north end where his warehouse was. I was wiped out and was going to sleep on a bus stop bench which he advised against because of the real possibility of waking up naked, penniless and dead. He lead me to a nearby bus storage yard where he showed me how to use the emergency door bleed valve (disguised as a petrol cap) on the municipal buses to open the doors so that I could get up on the upper deck for some undisturbed nappy time. It was perfect until the buses on either side of me pulled out about 2 hours later and I had to come barreling down the stairs and out of the yard with my backpack and blanket in my arms while the driver that was just starting the bus I'd been snoozing on screamed something that I assumed to have been "Have a nice day young man!", but the with his accent and a mouthful of roll made it sound more like "Get off my F-ing bus you piece of F-ing good for nothing Shite!"<o></o>

Ah...good times. Lots more stories like that here in the states

You're friend was pulling your leg, or FOS. Dismounts in a base camp or assembly area don't dig in and sleep elbow to elbow. They disperse in buddy pairs in a wide rough circle or triangle so that a single burst or mortar round won't do much damage.