Squatting in a state park?

MarkyFart

MarkyFart

New member
so a few friends and i have this idea to establish a permanent residence and small farm in a local state park. i was just wondering if anyone can point me to some info or maybe share some anecdotes on state park squattting.

the specific park we're looking at is double trouble state park. if ANYONE has ANY sort of info about this park regarding legalities and such, please share. if there's any extra info needed, just lemme know and i'll supply it best i can.

(N)
 
yeah, i remember there used to be a really, really nice kitchen squat set up in the woods around the santa cruz college campus, and they would move it every few weeks. they got caught a bunch of times by campus police, never ticketed to my knowledge, but eventually they just gave up.

i don't know anything about the park you're looking at, but unless it's a truly massive area, i would say your chances of getting found are pretty high. i guess i'd just try and find some kind of terrain that will hide your space (i.e. hills on all sides, at the top of a heavily forested hill, etc).
 
Yeah squatting a state park seems a little like asking to get caught. If you were just living out of a tent it would be one thing but don't get your hopes up about establishing a house and garden. If that's what you're looking for you may have better luck finding a remote abandoned cabin or something.
 
shit, lemme rephrase that "permanent residence" idea.

we're not necessarily intending to build a fucking house complete with bedrooms and shit. it's more like a small, discrete campsite that we can go back to every now and then to tend to our garden/mini-farm and hang out for a few days. and of course environmental impact will be considered, i'll make sure of that.

but why would camping out in a state park be such a trouble magnet? is it cuz it's so small or what?
 
because when you stay in one spot, on a long enough timeline, your chances of getting caught, kicked out, and/or losing all your hard work are pretty much 100%. isn't there somewhere else you could go that doesn't have freddies roaming all over it?
 
state parks are intensely patrolled and usually smaller tracts of land. some have overnight camping and some are only day use. either way, unless its a huge chunk of land that you can establish is NOT heavily patrolled then don't do it
 
Your best bet with a State Park, from my experience is to keep as low a profile as possible, you gotta go Hobo Ninja with that shit!.
#1. Keep your campfire very small and don't keep it burning all day and night. The flicker of a small fire is harder to see at night, especially if you dug a pit for it. Use wood that won't give off a lot of thick smoke which will cause your spot to be revealed by day when someone either sees or smells the smoke... NEVER use Pine wood, burn leaves or burn trash.
#2. Keep the noise down, music, yelling, general camp noise, etc. You would be surprised how often noise will travel. When camping with other people in such a location I will sometimes do a security check which consists of concealing myself along the closest road or path, and just listen, smell and look for the next half hour. If you can't hear, smell or see any movement from your camp... you're completely hidden.
#3. When selecting a site stick to the borders or fringe area of a Park. People often seem to have the urge to go deep into a forest to get away, but in this case, unless the Park is massive, you are more likely to get caught. The Rangers or Park police will patrol the main roads going into the heart of a Park, that's also were "nosey yuppies with cell phones" will be hiking. Also the border and fringes of a Park are a much larger and spread out and nearly forgotten area to patrol, and the lines between Park land and private land get blurry... blurry can good. You may still encounter hunters on occasion, both in and out of season. But they are usually pretty chill and respect here is a two way street. Keep your camp clean and remember to tell the ones who are hunting out of season that "hey I never saw you."
Another bonus is that sometimes you may find an abandoned farm or house in the border area. The border and fringes often provide a longer stay. The smell and smoke of your campfire will also raise less alarm in this area.
#4. Avoid State Parks with established camp grounds. These have a stronger presence of Rangers/Park Police who patrol more often. You won't have the maybe get out of a ticket excuse of "hey, there was no place to camp".
#5. If you are gonna go deep into a Park to camp move your spot every other day or at least twice a week. If you stay put, sooner or later some unwanted visitor will stumble onto your camp.
#6 Never take the exact same way into your camp repeatedly, if you do you will wear a path leading right to you. So many people make this mistake.
 
some really worthy info.
about staying on the fringes of the park -- if i were in a larger park than double trouble, would it be safer/smarter to stay along the fringes as well or should i go towards the middle?
anyway, i don't think my sense of smell is that keen yet. lol maybe after some training it'll get there. i'll probably have to develop my ability to hear too. i used to be a drummer and i never wore earplugs so my ears are completely shot almost all the time.
also, matt: you're right. i think i'll talk my pals into moving the sleep/campsite every now and then so avoid detection. but the small farm will still be priority. i suppose keeping close by would be a little dangerous too, wouldn't it?
 
state parks are bad news unless your standard couple with 2.5 kids all new equipment in a clean SUV and all wear brand new ll bean clothing.

then you go in and set up a tent and throw some wood in a fire pit and pretend you are a wilderness family for two nights.


national forests are much, much easier to camp discretely.
 
you could not get away with stealth camping, at a state park, out here. the state parks are very well patrolled. but there are lots of areas designated as "state recreation areas" and "wildlife habitat areas". that are not patrolled much, have a much lower attendance and usually have areas that the casual fisherman wont go. national forests are usually the best. it all depends, the easier it is to get to, the more people will get there.
 
Matt Derrick said:
yeah, i remember there used to be a really, really nice kitchen squat set up in the woods around the santa cruz college campus, and they would move it every few weeks. they got caught a bunch of times by campus police, never ticketed to my knowledge, but eventually they just gave up.

i don't know anything about the park you're looking at, but unless it's a truly massive area, i would say your chances of getting found are pretty high. i guess i'd just try and find some kind of terrain that will hide your space (i.e. hills on all sides, at the top of a heavily forested hill, etc).
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duuude. there are such amazing dwellings/tree houses/squats in the forest surrounding campus Camper Park!
 
janktoaster said:
Come up my way.. all the parks around here have abandoned buildings with little to no park rangers patrolling
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Yeah, I hear there are a few good spots up there which have not been blown up yet. You probably don't have to worry about your fire as much up there. Down in the Pines a fire can get you caught if you don't know what you're doing. The smell of fire deep in the woods there makes people a bit nervous, due to all the forest fire isues. My State Park advice posted here was mostly for the South Jersey Pine Barrens, where the original poster wanted to wilderness squat. Some places its probably easier other places its probably harder.
 
Yeah, houses are more spread out here, and the forests are big and no one cares about fires really. So many spots here that haven't been blown up, you're right. I understand the forest fire issue though, make sense. Watch out for the Jersey Devil too
 
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