Reporting Illegal Activities

How do I report an illegal activity? I raise this question because many times over the past few years I have reported an illegal activity and nothing becomes of it. Who do I report it to, and how much do I have to be involved in the situation before it is resolved? I have three examples, each a little different, where nothing became of the criminal in the case.

Example #1.  I found an abandoned vehicle about 300 meters off a road. It had been burnt, but was obviously abandoned. I reported the vehicle to the District Ranger, giving him the gps coordinates and how to access the area. That was four years ago, and the vehicle is still there. I would try hauling out parts of it every time I walk by it, but I consider it a crime scene and don't want to disturb any evidence.

Example #2. Bovines. This really annoys me. There never seems to be proper policing when it comes to domestic livestock. Nearly every year I find cattle in sheep allotments, or livestock in "vacant" allotments, or cattle on the allotment long after they should have been removed. Every year. One year I reported four bovines in an allotment on the Umatilla National Forest in the middle of November. I asked the range person for that district when the cows were suppose to be removed, and she told me she couldn't reveal that information to me unless I submitted a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request.

Example #3. While hiking in one of the Wilderness Areas on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest, I encountered a hunter who was using a chainsaw to clear the trail. I talked with man, and got his name and filmed him with my camera while he was telling me he knew he was in wilderness and what he was doing was illegal. When I got back to the trailhead I wrote down his license plate. I gave all this information to the Law Enforcement Officer (LEO) for the Forest, and he has subsequently ignored doing anything about it. I had the perp's name, license plate, and a video the the criminal, and nothing became of the case.

Here's the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCDkxaCOYvs

What am I doing wrong? Am I reporting these crimes to the wrong people? Should I go straight to the State Police, or the FBI, or what? Do I need to follow up on these things?

The Four Summits

Occasionally, I have been known to hike to the summit of nearby peaks. Not sure when I got the notion to summit more than one peak in a day, but I started thinking that a self-imposed challenge would be to summit four peaks in one day.

The logical place was in the Anthony Lakes area of the Elkhorn Mountains of northeast Oregon. I had been on a couple of the peaks separately, but never more than one on any one day. I think the very first year I did what was to become The Four Summits was in 2007. I figured I could climb Gunsight Mountain, hike the ridge to Angell Peak, along the ridge to Lees Peak, then drop down to Hoffer Basin, climb up the ski run known as Avalanche to the ridge, pick-up the trail and follow it to the summit of Lakes Lookout.

In October, 2007 I attempted the four summits, hiking with Maia the dog. She was perfectly okay up Gunsight, but then climbing up the ramp to Angell, she would walk in front of me, then lie down, right in my way. She did this numerous times, so after we topped the second peak, we called it a day and headed back to the vehicle.

Angell Peak, Gunsight Mountain, Lees Peak and Lakes Lookout from Bear Butte

A month later I soloed the four summits, as planned. There was a trace of snow, but no other hinderances. Gunsight. Angell Peak. Lees Peak. Lakes Lookout. Like clockwork, I completed the four summits in six and a half hours. There was 1,002 meters of elevation gain over the 10.7 kilometers. Not bad. I did the four summits once a year, usually in the autumn, every year since. Only once, in 2012, has anybody gone with me. Not sure if it was inexperience, or the unknown, but in 2012 my daughter decided to go with me. She seemed to enjoy it.

This year the notion entered my mind that there were other summits that could be done in groups of four. 17.9 kilometers and 1501 meters of elevation and eight and a half hours later I had completed the four summits in the southwest Wallowa Mountains.

I left the trailhead at Buck Creek and was on the summit of Burger Butte within two hours. The weather was nice, a typical early fall day, crisp but sunny. I wandered down and over to Sand Pass, then up the trail to Mule Peak, where Riley was staffing the lookout. About a half hour later I was on the summit of Granite Butte. Then down to Burger Meadow, up to Burger Pass and over and up to China Cap. From China Cap it was all downhill back to the vehicle.

Now I'm contemplating other Four Summits. What could it be? Where will it be? If past Four Summit trips are any indication, they will invariably be solo trips. Time to get hiking.

Carpe Hikem. Seize the hike!