i did the backpack from staircase to dosewallips and the ranger told us to put our fire out at anderson shelter because we were over 3500 feet. oooops. he was a nice ranger, but ive run into some mean ones too, what is your worst ranger experience?

2 rangers showed up at my door and questioned me at lenght about a buncha shit that didn't happen till i had to ask 'em to leave - does that qualify?

I have meet some grumpy rangers when St Helens was open for climbing. Was more like passing airport security then checking for climbing permit. Mt Adams have some of the nicest Rangers around. They have always been nice and friendly.

At Yos my partner and I drank a bit too much the first night we were there. We hadn't reserved a site for that evening (we got in earlier than expected) so we decided that rather than drive drunk, we'd park in the big grocery store lot. We knew we weren't supposed to, but it was about 2am and we'd be up with the sun.
Actually, we were up with the flashlight. It belonged to a ranger who pounded on the VW we were in at 4am. We told him what was up. He wrote us a ticket each for illegal camping ($60 each) and told us we had to leave the park.
We drove, stopped alongside the road to puke, and drove some more.
At least he didn't follow up behind us to give us a dui...

My friend crawled into his back seat once to sleep off too much to drink -- a cop came and FORCED HIM to drive off, and busted him for DUI as soon as he turned the key in the ignition.

that's seriously f'ed up.

I'm no attorney, but I'm reasonably sure that a lawyer could have gotten your friend out of that rap. Isn't there something about an LEO making someone do something that the LEO knows to be illegal? TLG? mattp?

depends how good your lawyer is. unfortunately i think it'd be pretty tough to prove he made you do it.

Furthermore, he was underage at the time, so his credibility in the situation was quite compromised to begin with . . .

hmmmm. I, uhhh, see your point...

And also, he was drunk.

Sounds like he coulda beat it under both 1a and 1b. And under 2, the "merely afforded" was a "directed to commmit" by the LEO in goatboy's friend's case.

There! Now I'm now a lawyer! Thanks, Matt, for doing my research for me! Isn't that the sign of all good lawyers?

Great info - but how do you prove in a court that your word as a drunk underage punk is more valued than that of the esteemed LEO?

But how could you be dumb enough to start driving in front of a cop who knows you're drunk! That's your sobriety test right there. I bet the cop was real proud of himself too.

There's the problem.

Sobo, you are promoted from lawyer to judge. Good job.

Thank you. All rise!
Sobo will now retire to chambers (and try to get some work done!)

Surprised nobody has mentioned Larry the Tool yet.

Okay, back to rangers. A group of us used to have an unofficial unorganized run/walk from the Gallatin Valley in MT over Fawn Pass to the Yellowstone Valley. It goes through a corner of Yellowstone National Park that required permits for camping. Over the years as word got out it became more and more popular and the park circus caught wind of it. Finally one year there were at least fifty of us. At the end of the run/walk at about the twenty-one mile mark there were Park Rangers on horseback rounding us up and escorting us to the "finish line." The "Park Circus" rangers really were pretty amiable about the situation although, it was very strange being rounded up the way we were and made one think how bad it would be in a less friendly environment.

There were some lawyers in our group, one of them actually the county attorney from the county we ran from! It was a kick listening to them discussing (or is that disgusting) what the legal options were. The circus really didn't have that much on us as we were theoretically unorganized and not staying the night. Generally, we understood that they weren't crazy about a crowd of people running through someones pristine permit required wilderness experience. They tried to tag us with not being in groups of four in grizzly country, but how were they going to prove we weren't in groups of four?

They ended up fining us for conducting an organized run, which we felt we could also have argued as we really were just a bunch of people that happened to show up at the same time. They half jokingly gave us the option of fining each of us individually or just one. The one that took the hit was the pseudo-organizer and we all pitched in to a jar to cover the fine; he joked later about making money on the deal.

My best ranger experience was doing meadow restoration at Silver Lake, up by Poodle Dog Pass. For dinner, one ranger brought strawberry cheesecake in a box, and cooked it up for everyone to share. The other made hot snotties--hot tang with whiskey. Nice folks, those.

My worst experiences with LEOs were all the ones that gave me speeding tickets.

WTF? You guys got nothin' to be snivelin' about. I've got this one guy, Ranger "Dick" (ok, his name is Ranger Rick, but that's what BooBoo and I call 'im) who has been doggin' my ass for years.

Every time I sit down with a fresh pic-a-nic basket, here come dis muthafucker ta take the fresh basket of goodies away! BooBoo has never physically matured properly because of this son-of-a-bitch (my little friend gets mugged by marmots for God's sake!). Me and some of my griz peeps are gonna "do" that bastard one of these days.

Don't tell Huckleberry. That goody-two-shoes little prick will spill the beans to the pencilnecks at HQ.

Kinda like the fidosbitch post, although with far too few gratuitous obscenities.