State Park rangers in California have been required to be and are law
enforcement certified for many, many years. About 40 I think.

Changed sometime in the 60's when their jobs changed to controlling people
from protecting the woods and wilds.

Mike

On 9/29/09 10:22 AM, "Don Hanson" <dhanson928@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

> On Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 9:46 AM, Donna Skarloken <dskarloken@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>>   Yosemite, as someone mentioned, is just
>> too crowded.  I live in California, was born here, and don't expect to move
>> anywhere else except possibly Nevada, but as someone also pointed out, it
>> is
>> an extremely crowded state, depending on where you go, and I think there
>> tend to be more weirdos here just because there are more people.
>
>
>   California is very crowded.  Camping there in primitive settings isn't
> something I choose to do there very often.  Too many flakey people around.
> The state parks and formal forest service campgrounds are probably
> safer...Many of the 'rangers' I've talked to in California have had law
> enforcment training and are more like cops than forest rangers.  In Anza
> Borrego state park, for example, over New Years holiday they have 60,000
> visitors and 4 murders..They bring in Law Enforcement reinforcments from
> surrounding communities to supliment the usual park staff during "High
> Motor-head hollidays"
>   Camping backcountry or BLM you are likely to encounter homeless or
> illegals or some of the agricultural underground who grow dope in out of the
> way places around that state.  Weekends you will see innercity people
> invading the countryside with the false idea that they are "all alone" and
> can get really silly stupid...They often do just that, and can be pretty
> problematic.
>   I always travel California prepared to deal with confrontation..
>   Don Hanson