Forum Index > Public Lands Stewardship > 12/4 - Dumpster Diving & Access Issues
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Bramble_Scramble
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PostSat Dec 05, 2020 7:35 pm 
Just throwing this out there, obviously I have no proof but the property owner has a California address. Maybe they're hunkering down during the coronavirus and don't want outsiders coming through. The signs are new as of 2020 according the Summitpost. I don't necessarily believe this but it's a theory.

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treeswarper
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PostSat Dec 05, 2020 8:34 pm 
chandlerhaberlack wrote:
In this case I don't care that it's gated. I'll ride my bike up no problem. You didn't read the post. I wouldn't call it a chunk either, rather a sliver.
Ahhh, I did read your post. I got the idea from your post that you did not know who owned the land, and sliver or not, if the road is on that sliver and there is no right of way deeded, you are breaking the law bike, walking or driving. That's the way it is. You are "poaching". You are now determined to break a law that you don't like. Once again, beware. There are a heck of a lot of guns out there and people who live in such places for a reason. My friend will scare the heck out of you--he looks the part, but he'll likely call the sheriff to come out. You could get locked behind the gate. When that happens, the owners might not be in a hurry to unlock the gate and if you vandalize the gate to get out, well, you've added another charge. I'm telling you something that you don't want to hear, but what I am saying is just the way it is. Change the law if you don't agree. Otherwise, you are a "poacher" and I hope you can afford the fines.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities

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altasnob
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PostSat Dec 05, 2020 9:21 pm 
Yes, trespass is a crime. But it is way, way, down the list of crimes to prosecute. In this case, it doesn't appear the private land is developed, and it is surrounded by public land. Walking or biking up a logging road is much different than driving up. I am sympathetic to the idea that the public should be able to reasonably and respectfully access their public land. It should be an implicit easement. Washington has the same problem along its coastline. Unlike Oregon, Hawaii, and California, the beaches in Washington can be privately owned. This article is about a guy who knowingly trespassed his way around the perimeter or Bainbridge Island and wrote a book on his experience. He was not arrested or prosecuted, but had he been, he was prepared to argue the "Public Trust Doctrine" as a legal defense. The Public Trust Doctrine stems from Roman and English Common Law, and historically is focused on the public's right to cross private property to access navigable water ways. But you might be able to stretch the defense to mountain streams since the public has the right to drink water from DNR lands.

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Sculpin
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PostSun Dec 06, 2020 8:22 am 
altasnob wrote:
If it is a privately owned road, and the owner doesn't want the public to use their road, there is nothing preventing the owner from blocking access or putting up no trespass signs even it that effectively cuts off access to the DNR land
You're a lawyer right? I am not, but it is my understanding from reading about this that your statement is misleading, and the situation described in this thread may be a perfect example where it is not correct. There is public land beyond the private land, and people have been accessing the public land through the private land for decades. The owner never provided permission (that's a good thing for a public easement). Furthermore, there is no other reasonable access. Under those conditions, I think the public may very well have a de facto adverse possession easement on this road. If you think otherwise, I would love to learn why because these issues are important to me. I say your statement is misleading because sure, anyone can put up a sign or a gate, but can they legally block access?

Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
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Malachai Constant
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PostSun Dec 06, 2020 10:51 am 
Sometimes this sort of thing is Greenmail the property owner blocks access to a swath of public land in the hope that the state or a conservation group will buy them out for an outrageous price. Condemnation proceedings are complicated and expensive. I am not familiar with this area, however. An alternative is publishing plans to conduct an environmentally irresponsible project on the land.

"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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altasnob
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PostSun Dec 06, 2020 1:10 pm 
I am not a land use attorney but I consulted with my in house land use attorney. In Washington, it is possible to obtain a prescriptive easement across private property. Unlike a normal easement, a prescriptive easement is not recorded, so it is not something that is written down and can be looked up. It is something created by the particular facts. The only way it is put in writing is if there is a court case establishing the prescriptive easement. To establish a prescriptive easement over the land of another person, the claimant must prove her use of the other's land has been open, notorious, continuous, uninterrupted, over a uniform route, adverse to the owner of the land sought to be subjected, and with the knowledge of such owner at a time when she was able in law to assert and enforce her rights. The claimant must do this for at least ten years. So in the current situation, if, for ten years, you have been hiking up this road to reach Stimson Mountain, and previously, there was never a no trespass sign, you might be able to argue that today, the property owner cannot prevent you from continuing to hike across their land to reach Stimson Mountain. In reality, the only way any of this matters is if the county prosecutor decided to criminally prosecute you for trespass for walking across the private property, which is extremely unlikely to occur (but not impossible). If that were to occur, you might be able to argue you have the prescriptive easement, which would be a defense to a criminal charge. If the county prosecutor refused to bring a criminal charge, the private property owner could sue you for civil trespass. This is also extremely unlikely because they have to prove damages. If you are guilty of civil trespass, it is presumed there are damages, but it could be as little as $1 for simply walking across the land. You may have to pay the private property owner's attorney fees, however. But who would sue for $1? Treeswarper points out that you might be shot or held at gun point. This, of course, is a possibility. But the property owner would be committing a crime against you if they did this (for just walking across the property). I noticed at least one of the no trespass signs has DNR's label on it, so I assume DNR agrees the public should not cross this land. But I wouldn't say that guarantees the public has no right to cross the land (DNR probably has not looked into whether there is a prescriptive easement or not). If loss of access was a major issue, and the private property owner refused to negotiate, you could always preemptively sue to try to establish this prescriptive easement that allows the public to continue to travel across the land. I assume this road was built to log the DNR land above the private property. So I would assume that DNR has an easement to cross the private property to log the land. And if DNR has an easement to log, why would the public not also have an easement to travel the road to DNR land for recreation? You would have to find and review the actual easement to answer these questions. I'd be interested in how these private property islands came to be? There are other situations like this where private property is surrounded by DNR land. In National Forests, the private property is normally mining claims that predate the National Forest. And the mining claims are normally not a perfect rectangle in shape. But I noticed most private property islands in DNR land are perfect rectangles. I have no idea how these islands came to be?

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Malachai Constant
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PostSun Dec 06, 2020 4:26 pm 
With DNR anything is possible. Tiger and Squak for example have small rectangles on the summit which were conveyed to corporations to build towers. It could be a well connected individual just wanted to close the road and bought the land for the gate. Mining claims are usually strips over a mineral lode.

"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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chandlerhaberlack
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PostSun Dec 06, 2020 7:38 pm 
I think for Stimson it may just be easiest to walk around in the woods for 100 feet or so until you're passed the house. Ebey you'd have to push your luck and hope you make it past the houses without some crazy finding out.

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RodF
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PostSun Dec 06, 2020 9:20 pm 
altasnob wrote:
I'd be interested in how these private property islands came to be?
Of the ~3.5 million acres of State Forest Lands managed by DNR, "About 546,000 acres are State Forest Transfer trust lands that were acquired by 21 counties in the 1920s and 1930s through tax foreclosures." If taxes were paid on a parcel, it was not foreclosed, it remains an "island" of private property surrounded by trust land. Or if the county sold an enclosed parcel at auction after foreclosure, it created an "island".

"of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt" - John Muir "the wild is not the opposite of cultivated. It is the opposite of the captivated” - Vandana Shiva
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Eric
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PostMon Dec 07, 2020 12:50 am 
There's that but also a century of various land swaps, exurban sprawl, and haphazard land policy plus the complexities of timber cycles and cash flows for the schools all overlaid on the original state lands. Then the federal and private timberland is also incoherently owned due to the 19th century checkerboard mess which still persists. Anyway, back to the original topic. Stimson is signed and regardless of the legal fine points regarding easements, realistically someone does not want people walking through their property so it's not a viable recurring paraglider site. If you do choose to visit, you would need to look into it on the ground, do the research on the property access, and verify with satellite imagery. But at a glance, it certainly looks like once you gain the DNR land a person could in theory leave the road going NE and go N and then up through forest to hit the next switchback and do so entirely on DNR land. That's an option, but an untested one that looks like it might (or might not) work if you're so determined. Stimson

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Eric
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PostMon Dec 07, 2020 1:05 am 
chandlerhaberlack wrote:
I think for Stimson it may just be easiest to walk around in the woods for 100 feet or so until you're passed the house. Ebey you'd have to push your luck and hope you make it past the houses without some crazy finding out.
To each his or her own but personally I would take a less pleasant route that avoids residences over a roadwalk with confrontation risk. Especially given the current environment with COVID, the economy, and the partisan rancor of the current world jump amplifies the risk. And you gonna park on Trafton or Ebey Mtn Road? Consider parking near the bridge on the highway over the Stilly and go from there until you either reach signage, residences, intolerable bushwhacking, or the summit.

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treeswarper
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PostMon Dec 07, 2020 6:34 am 
Dog Mtn. (above Riffe Lake) requires users to sign a waiver before getting a key to the gate. Folks used to hang glide off Burley Mtn. A club owned a chunk of land in the Cispus drainage. Those are two alternatives, I'm sure there are more--like smoke jumpers used to (I'm using this term too much) ski off Little Buck Mtn. and paraglide a bit. That's on public land and you can ride a chairlift up when the Loup is open.

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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Sculpin
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PostMon Dec 07, 2020 8:34 am 
altasnob wrote:
I consulted with my in house land use attorney
Thanks for doing that and writing it down for us. My thought here is that there are entries on Summitpost/WTA/whatever going back more than 10 years showing that the public has been accessing that peak using that road.

Between every two pines is a doorway to the new world. - John Muir
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altasnob
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PostMon Dec 07, 2020 9:51 am 
I am still confused on this island of private property. Hopefully my public records request will answer my questions. The island parcel on Stinson has a home on it, 2284 square feet built in 2005. In 2019 it was sold to a person living in the San Francisco Bay area for $850,000. The last real estate listing boasted of its "secluded Wilderness above the Clouds. Incredibly special, 20 "no neighbor" Acres on Stimson Ridge." DNR (Washington tax payers) presumably pay to maintain the road up to the island property, through DNR land, and after the island property so that DNR can log the land. This map suggest the DNR land surrounding the private property was original DNR state trust land acquired by the state in 1889. It is true that DNR can do land swaps, and even sell property. But DNR claims they only do this if the land is not suitable for timber harvesting. This property is forested land surrounded by clear cuts on DNR land. Because the land around this property was original 1889 DNR property, RodF's suggestion that DNR acquired the land around this island through tax foreclosure sales doesn't seem to explain it (maybe the map is wrong and all this DNR land was purchased by DNR at some point?). You would hope that whenever DNR relinquished ownership of this land they would have included a public easement across the property. I am very confused why a) there is a no trespass sign on the private property boundary, and b) the sign has DNR's name on it. The only time I have experienced DNR land being closed to the public is if there is an active logging operation going on. Maybe that is occurring somewhere up on Stinson?

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treeswarper
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PostMon Dec 07, 2020 11:36 am 
If you want to find a real answer, phone the landowner and DNR. Assumptions can be wrong. For those of you who justify trespassing, think of what you'd do if a stranger drove over your yard, or pooped in your garden, or....

What's especially fun about sock puppets is that you can make each one unique and individual, so that they each have special characters. And they don't have to be human––animals and aliens are great possibilities
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