El Portal Morning Honker

scottthelen wrote: You people are the problem 

So first Jeff was the problem, now everyone here is the problem. 

I wonder where all those tourons driving Juicy Cruise America RVs got the idea that it was okay to camp on the side of the roads leading into Yosemite?

Not very "stealthy" if tourists have picked up on it and are doing the same thing you are.

#vanlife is the effing problem

I remember the morning honker over 10 years ago, back when we could still bivy at the sand lot... ya'know back when bandit campers actually had some common sense and consideration. 

As someone who worked as a river guide on the Merced for a few years and literally lived right off of the 140, the honker is old news.
Multiple people do it, mostly park employees commuting into the park (or the waste-treatment plant) for work. The shit-factory dude used an actual airhorn and would honk us at 5:45 AM Monday thru Friday. We did deal with him though heh....
It's annoying as fuck, especially for those of us who actually lived and worked right off of the highway for part of the year.
I also get it, cause people that park outside the park boundary leave shit, trash, and even unattended fires/grills! The sandlot (the guides called it the cat box...) was a literal shit show and I'm not surprised they closed it off. Camping in/around Yosemite is going to continue to be the crux of anyone visiting the park, and I believe the trend is heading towards decision making by land managers that simply have their hand forced. Honking is just a reaction from 'locals' to a more systemic issue that there just isn't space in the Center of the Universe for everybody :/
The raft stand isn't located at the old spot right off the highway any longer, but for a time I did get to live in a van down by the river outside of Yosemite legally... 'twas a dream.

calvino wrote:
If we flip this scenario, how would you respond if people couldn't find an air b'n'b or hotel in your neighborhood and rather than changing their plans, decided they would just sleep in front of your your home, probably leave some trash, and bury a couple piles of shit in your front yard ?

Haha this is exactly what goes on in my neighborhood except they don't bury their shit.

As everyone knows, there is a huge imbalance between park visitation and park camping+ hotel spots... until that imbalance is rectified, the problem will get worse. Probably some mixture of restricting park access and increasing park accommodations makes the most sense to me... 

Matt N wrote: I wonder where all those tourons driving Juicy Cruise America RVs got the idea that it was okay to camp on the side of the roads leading into Yosemite?

Not very "stealthy" if tourists have picked up on it and are doing the same thing you are.

#vanlife is the effing problem

I blame Valley Uprising showing Honnold camped his van right outside the gates.

Danny Herrera wrote: literally a whole fn mountain to camp on, but everyone wants to be 20 min away not 45.

enough of that....just stop!

on further inspection I may have located the mysterious honker. Max R is holding possible offender.

England wrote:

enough of that....just stop!

on further inspection I may have located the mysterious honker. Max R is holding possible offender.

My horn isn’t working currently :(

A friend who lives in a van in Mountain View, CA says this is common there. 5AM wake up there.

Given the recent explosion of vans in El Portal, I'm really surprised local law enforcement agencies have not been tasked with ticketing (many easy thousands of $ of in tickets in a hour or two). It could be local workers would be caught up as well?

El Portal is a diverse town full of NPS, Aramark, and park partner employees, semi nomadic nature lovers, river rats, climbers, birders, fishing people, and just about every other type of recreationalist you can imagine.
People live, have careers, raise children, and generally try to live nature-centric lives.

It doesn't matter if your rig says Juicy, or Cruise-America, or Petzl.
It doesn't matter if it's a Winnebago, a mini van, a Subaru, or the ubiquitous white Sprinter.
You are all tourists.
And you shit...somewhere.
It might be on the rip-rap right next to the river, it used to be in the little zone right of the rock, it might be at the hotel, or the gas station.

Obviously the honking is the locals way of saying "don't camp here."
Do you really need someone to stop and tell you this?
It is legal to sleep there.
Leaving your chairs and tents set up for the day is not.
Leaving your shit on the side of the road is lame and illegal.
If you don't like the honking, don't sleep there.
Simple.
I don't honk.
I'm the rig that runs over the bumps in the he middle of the road (a subtler version of passive/aggressive).

I've personally never had an issue with sleeping there. I piss up in the bushes on the north non river side of the road. I always hit the restroom at the 140 park entrance on the way into the park for anything else. I'm usually in late and always out early. I don't care about honking or running over bumps. I hope the spot lasts as a car bivy without too much bad behavior. If it doesn't I'll use one of the other 50 options. 

The issue of human waste continues to confounded me.

A solution that has worked for me: Buy wag bags in bulk on amazon. Take shit in bag in comfort of your van. Dispose of bag in one of the numerous  free dumpsters provided in America.

If you can afford the van and gas, you can afford some wag bags and decency towards the environment and community. 

Interesting honking story with more history to it than I would have imagined.

6:15 am isn’t early.

Wakey bakey, sunshine.

Colonel Mustard wrote: 6:15 am isn’t early.

Someone needs to invite Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis to the sleepover.

Woo WOO

PWZ wrote:

Someone needs to invite Bubb Rubb and Lil Sis to the sleepover.

Woo WOO

What you supposed to be doing in the morning? Making breakfast!

i smell a leo 

Did anyone else crack open a beer halfway through this thread?

Max R wrote:

My horn isn’t working currently :(

Really??? Isn't that some form of duck your holding there? geez

Reviving an old thread with a new twist. Must be tourists, I know climbers would never do this. Notice the magazine left out to make people think this junk show belongs to a climber. Clever work.