HikeArizona.COM

Is camping in a ruin illegal?

Good question Joe, it is obviously frowned upon by some. Even if it were legal, I wouldn't attempt it out of respect for those who once lived there. Our intent was to hike to the areas West of the ruins above the falls and camp at the base of the mountain. After discussing it with my hiking buds, that's what we are doing.

joe bartels wrote:Is camping in a ruin illegal?

It's tough to tell > http://bit.ly/1O00mR5

I, for one would not 'mess with the mojo' of camping in a prehistoric ruin unless in a freak blizzard or other emergency.

(on-box) Sell-out McCain did more damage with the pen recently regarding Oak Flat than what an army of backpackers could do. Not to mention the litany of gub'ment types that voted in all the dams that destroyed tens of thousands of prehistoric sites. (off box)

Good point Kurt, mojo, that's like a Blair Witch Thing right? Joking aside, I am skilled enough with primitive camping
that even a storm wouldn't force me into the ruins. I'm a novice to organized hiking, not survival.

Digger (Mike)

I asked a drunk archaeologist about this issue once. He said fires were definitely off-limits. Eating inside ruins sites is considered poor etiquette because it can contaminate the site for future research. As for sleeping inside a ruin or using it for shelter, he said "they're shelters, man. We do it all the time in the Middle East." Of course, there's a difference in a professional doing it a couple times and a ruin becoming a campsite every weekend.

@hikeaz

hikeaz wrote: 'mess with the mojo' of camping in a prehistoric ruin

I think it's called hantavirus.

I have a friend who introduced me to the term "situational ethics". It's pretty cut and dry that in most places hiking with a dog off leash is illegal. And yet an awful lot of us choose to ignore that particular law because it really wasn't written for the situations we are generally in when we choose to ignore it. (Not to hijack this thread ... opinions on that can be discussed here: viewtopic.php?f=75&t=3917&p=86401 -- just using it as an example).

Every HAZ hike that has the word "ruins" in it auto-populates with the following two links:
http://hikearizona.com/article.php?ID=24
http://hikearizona.com/arpa.php

ARPA covers the federal laws. State laws and local forest ordinances may be more specific. There are some ruin sites that have very specific signs posted. Others have none.

I can't find anything in federal or state law that specifically prohibits eating, sleeping, camping, or even living in a ruin site on public land. Provided you aren't excavating, damaging, otherwise altering, or defacing the place. I suppose it could be argued that simply putting a footprint in the dirt constitutes "otherwise altering". In that case, nobody should ever get within 50 feet of a ruin -- an idea I bet you could find plenty of people who support!

UGHH!
NEVERMIND!

Interesting. I always thought it was illegal. Aside from that issue it can also be hazardous to your health to camp in a ruin. Part of the structure could collapse on you and rodent feces in the air could sicken you.

It would be pretty difficult to camp in a ruin without causing damage to it. That said, simply pitching a sleeping bag somewhere to get out of the rain is a lot different than setting up a campfire and ring where one didn't previously exist, moving around rocks to sit on, moving stuff around to flatten out a place for a tent, etc.

Since most people leave a pretty significant footprint behind after camping somewhere, I would think it is not encouraged, though perhaps not illegal in the letter of the law. I would suggest the rule for ruins be "if you are not leaving them like you found them you are defacing them."

Edited to say: And the law does say that damaging/defacing a ruin is illegal.

I imagine most people with any sense would just not camp in one.

I'm trying to figure out why anyone would want to camp in a pile of rocks. It's not like there is a nice flat soft spot to throw your bed roll.

chumley wrote:Every HAZ hike that has the word "ruins" in it auto-populates with the following two links:hikearizona.com/art ... D=24hikearizona.com/arp ... .php

From the first link

Don't walk through the midden
The midden is the trash pile, usually located in front of a cliff dwelling. On surface sites, it can be harder to detect. The midden is usually where the residents burried their dead, and tossed away their broken pottery...

Seriously, does anybody review this stuff? Talk about throwing out the baby with the bath water. Reminds me of a certain Monty Python movie.

Tough_Boots wrote:Eating inside ruins sites is considered poor etiquette because it can contaminate the site for future research.

It could attract rodents, too. Apparently there's a possibility of them digging underneath the walls, so says NPS.

It is not uncommon for human burials to be in cliff dwelling ruins as well as built up ruins. A number of infant children burials have been found in the walls in ruin sites in Arizona and a backpacker from New Jersey found a human jaw bone in the ruin in Rogers Canyon. I would never consider having a fire, eating, defecating or urinating within a ruin. I would however ask that drunk archaeologist if he knows where the Cave of a Thousand Eyes is that Wally keeps looking for in Haunted Canyon. Who knows he just might know! ;)

History has taught us that humans will ultimately destroy everything they come into contact with, the ruins at Pueblo Canyon are no exception. The relevance and historical significance of any ruin is ultimately up for debate. One mans treasure is another's junk pile. The mines in the area that destroyed some of the ruins illustrates this. Every time we share a hike, or post a picture, another stone is pulled from the wall of a Pueblo Canyon somewhere. In time, all will disappear leaving only a few with the memory of what once was. History is supposed to be shared and not hoarded by a few. We should debate it, and protected it when possible for future generations. I guess history will record whether we have been successful custodians of our past.

I can't believe no one made the following joke: "No, but it will ruin camping for you".

I spent the night in Barstow. Does that count?