Best Stealth Camping Stories?
09-30-13, 09:04 PM
#1
Senior Member
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jun 2012
Posts: 1,923
Bikes: Nature Boy 853 Disc, Pugsley SS
Mentioned: 7 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 251 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 8 Times
in
6 Posts
Best Stealth Camping Stories?
As a tangent of the stealth camping thread, I realized that my best stories came from stealth camping. A really good story can only be told with a beer in hand, so I'll list my favorite synopses.
-Accidentally stealth camped in the disputed Kahnawake Reservation south of Montreal, where a canadian police officer was shot and killed in a land dispute.
-Stealth camped in Fort Knox. No, the other Fort Knox, in Maine.
-Stealth camped at places called Bug Swamp and World's End.
-Stealth camped on a dirtbike track in Cape Cod. What? YOU find a place on Cape Cod...
-On top of a trail marker at the summit of the Hurricane Mountain Road in NH. It's stealth because it was illegal, but there's nothing stealthy about having a road bike leaned up against a tree at the summit of a 2-mile steep hike. We carried the bikes on our shoulders.
-Accidentally stealth camped in the disputed Kahnawake Reservation south of Montreal, where a canadian police officer was shot and killed in a land dispute.
-Stealth camped in Fort Knox. No, the other Fort Knox, in Maine.
-Stealth camped at places called Bug Swamp and World's End.
-Stealth camped on a dirtbike track in Cape Cod. What? YOU find a place on Cape Cod...
-On top of a trail marker at the summit of the Hurricane Mountain Road in NH. It's stealth because it was illegal, but there's nothing stealthy about having a road bike leaned up against a tree at the summit of a 2-mile steep hike. We carried the bikes on our shoulders.
09-30-13, 09:32 PM
#2
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: NE Tx
Posts: 2,766
Bikes: Tour Easy, Linear USS, Lightening Thunderbolt, custom DF, Raleigh hybrid, Felt time trial
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 0 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 0 Times
in
0 Posts
A bud and I stealthed in a perfect spot in central OK. Dinner and toddy finished, settled in our tents. Suddenly, a piercing, ungodly screeming and screeching erupted a few feet from our tents. I was on phone with wife. She could hear it. Went on for a couple of minutes, then all was quite again. Have no idea what, but that I'm typing this, was all bluff and no bite.
Many others, but that one will stand out forever.
Many others, but that one will stand out forever.
09-30-13, 10:18 PM
#3
Senior Member
Not exactly "stealth" in this case but at the end of a very long day coming through the White Mts. in N.H. I took refuge from a passing line of thunderstorms in the doorway of the county courthouse in Guildhall, VT. I passed the time cooking my supper. The sun had long since set when the rain and wind finally ended. I figured "what the heck" and rolled out my sleeping bag and spent the night there. The police station was next door. No one ever asked me to move. I was off early in the morning.
10-01-13, 01:21 AM
#4
Senior Member
After an exhausting couple of days of offroad touring, I stealth camped (well, not really) literally on a rail trail. No tent, just under a bridge. I was a bit concerned about being run over by an early morning commuter, so I stuck my bike upside down a couple of metres "upstream".
Sure enough, I was awoken around 6am by a WHOOSH sound, and sat up just in time to see a set of tail lights disappearing into the distance.
Sure enough, I was awoken around 6am by a WHOOSH sound, and sat up just in time to see a set of tail lights disappearing into the distance.
10-01-13, 05:12 PM
#5
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2011
Posts: 2,441
Mentioned: 0 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 33 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 4 Times
in
3 Posts
As a tangent of the stealth camping thread, I realized that my best stories came from stealth camping. A really good story can only be told with a beer in hand, so I'll list my favorite synopses.
-Accidentally stealth camped in the disputed Kahnawake Reservation south of Montreal, where a canadian police officer was shot and killed in a land dispute.
-On top of a trail marker at the summit of the Hurricane Mountain Road in NH. It's stealth because it was illegal, but there's nothing stealthy about having a road bike leaned up against a tree at the summit of a 2-mile steep hike. We carried the bikes on our shoulders.
-Accidentally stealth camped in the disputed Kahnawake Reservation south of Montreal, where a canadian police officer was shot and killed in a land dispute.
-On top of a trail marker at the summit of the Hurricane Mountain Road in NH. It's stealth because it was illegal, but there's nothing stealthy about having a road bike leaned up against a tree at the summit of a 2-mile steep hike. We carried the bikes on our shoulders.
I love hurricane mtn road, but only by car... Or maybe going down.
Stealth camping has nothing to do with illegal. It might be illegal, or it might be unknowable. A lot of land owners will ask you to leave property they don't own. Sometime they don't actually own the waterfront, or margins along HWYs, they know you don't know, so they ask you to leave. It's easier than rebuilding after a fire... And then there are security reasons for stealth. Also, I don't want other people seeing me and deciding they want to share the site. Maybe they are beer guzzling fire setter and are going to keep me up all night until we all get booted off. Unless there is some reason to draw attention to myself I would always stealth, just because if I have no reason to draw attention, there is really no upside to it.
Last edited by MassiveD; 10-01-13 at 05:25 PM.
10-01-13, 08:17 PM
#6
Banned
Didnt so much stealth camp as just stop and stay in pastures and roadside lay bys
ask permission if someone was there.. waited out a gale camped on the lee side of someones house
they brought a pot of hot tea out..
as the trips were in Ireland , Sotland and 'Urup .
Brits have some funny property rights issues fish in the stream are owned
and so even without any fishing gear couldnt camp there
Camped top of the hill above the Ferry port in the Inner Hebrides to make sure I'd be on it in the morning.
cool skinny dip in glacial cut ponds in southern Norway. top of a climb .. nice!
ask permission if someone was there.. waited out a gale camped on the lee side of someones house
they brought a pot of hot tea out..
as the trips were in Ireland , Sotland and 'Urup .
Brits have some funny property rights issues fish in the stream are owned
and so even without any fishing gear couldnt camp there
Camped top of the hill above the Ferry port in the Inner Hebrides to make sure I'd be on it in the morning.
cool skinny dip in glacial cut ponds in southern Norway. top of a climb .. nice!
10-02-13, 07:34 AM
#7
Senior Member
Join Date: Apr 2011
Posts: 782
Mentioned: 1 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 226 Post(s)
Liked 45 Times
in
32 Posts
I thought I was "stealth" camping behind the towns original "one room schoolhouse" in Ontario. Turns out someone lived in it. They just waved at me in the morning as I crawled out of my tent. They took no offence at my camping in their backyard. People are so nice to bike riders.
