Dirtbag discussion

Nick Goldsmithwrote:

we are not even close to a free country. just try going camping pretty much anywhere in the NE that The Man has not designated  an official campsite and see how quick a bunch of up tight assholes will jump all over your shit. down south they don't fck around. they lock you up as a felon. for camping... 

Try finding a spot to camp in England, you might appreciate NE more!

M Mwrote:

Try finding a spot to camp in England, you might appreciate NE more!

I’m not surprised a country smaller than Louisiana doesn’t have a lot of camping options. I though all of the UK had “right to roam” laws though? 

Li Huwrote:

They suck too?   

Technically, they don't suck. Just swallow.

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This thread feels like a 'I'm more punk than you' thread
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Just thought I'd have fun sharing a memory that was jogged:

M Mwrote:

All I know is doing dishes and making the bed disqualify one from dirt bag status, you gotta be able to eat breakfast in the same pan you (cooked?) ate dinner in and you gotta sleep on the dirt without paying the man. 

We were woken up by federales in the middle of a dirt road. They left us alone. Then Mike started eating leftover potatoes au gratin and said, "This is chompin'! I should have heated it up!" Photo is after we found our way back to the gringo campground. We blamed the rain on the crest for not heading up Tajo.

Wade Bankswrote:

I’m not surprised a country smaller than Louisiana doesn’t have a lot of camping options. I though all of the UK had “right to roam” laws though? 

Biking and camping are banned by the king under right to roam go figure! 

M Mwrote:

Biking and camping are banned by the king under right to roam go figure! 

This is hardly enforced, biking isn't banned it just can be banned, you can bike most places unless it has a sign. I've camped in all sorts of weird places in the uk. 

oldfattradguuy kkwrote:

Not so fast….one rumor around the gunks in bill’s time was that he was related to Richard Ravitch of nyc transportation fame. He was also rumored to be a gear thief at times, I know someone who caught him red-handed with his guidebook. 

I remember Bill Ravich's tent with tarp over it as a fixture in Camp Slime in the early '90s when I began climbing. 

A climbing partner of mine told me he was mentored by Ravich for bit and that he was a gear thief.

I had a friend that shared a culvert with his climbing partner outside of Moab for a bit.  No car, no money.  His partner found a couch cushion beside the road that he carried around to sit on when belaying, but he wouldn’t share.  

Neither are dirtbags now but at that time I think they qualified.

Is dirt bag definition a human construction created within the context of relative values? I do prefer the old high top Five Ten dirtbags to quarter tops but I think it comes down to the sole durometer plus the high tops just have more stank

I'm ok w minimalism, but being cold and dirty constantly is NG. I climb better when pampered; not to mention esthetics. 

later

Russ Wallingwrote:

If you have a safety net, you are no dirtbag.  Van, no van, living in a box, who cares.  If it all goes South on you, and you can crawl back to your daddies McMansion, you ain't a dirtbag, yer just a poseur.

Define safety net. If a cataclysm wipes out our supply lines, and you must live off the land, harvesting food and water by your own hands, I'd say practically no person born in the hyper-dependent first world could survive that, and therefore has a safety net. The only true dirtbags are the likes of self-sufficient hunter gatherers and remote tribes of the Kalahari and Amazon.

Redacted Redactbergwrote: The only true dirtbags are the likes of self-sufficient hunter gatherers and remote tribes of the Kalahari and Amazon.

Reminds me of a young man who stayed in the Climbers Campground in the Tetons sixty five years ago. I called him Piltdown, but others called him Pigpen. I've mentioned this before, but one evening with temperatures in the upper thirties and most had retired to their tents, I watched as he - dressed in shorts only - spread out the warm ashes of the campfire and lay down in them. Pigpen was a math major at Reed College.