American River-An I was there comment

["guest@endurance.net" <guest@endurance.net>]

Jessica Tuteur jessicat@napanet.net
Ok guys...

The facts are this. When we ARRIVED at the campground 
we were told by the ranger (there were also signs posted
everywhere) that we had to be self-contained. We were 
so they let us in no problem. Several of our friends 
were not and were told they could not camp. Fortunately 
for them we had room in our camper. 

The ranger came to the ride meeting well before dark 
and WARNED everyone again. Ride management seemed to 
leave the whole responsibilty to the rangers. They never commented on it ONCE. I was there last year too and I 
saw the rangers making people in tents pull up camp and 
leave. So it happened before and it was communicated to 
ride management and they chose to do nothing. How hard 
is it to make 200 phone calls on Wed before the ride to 
INFORM people of the rule.

I really think this is a case where AERC needs to be 
the "enforcer". As Barbara McCrary said she will be looking 
into the matter. Ride managers have to be responsible for
setting up a safe and accesible camp for ALL participants.

Whether or not the rangers abused their power can 
be argued til we are all blue in the face, what is 
more important is the fact that countless people were 
FINED and countless others forced to pull up camp in 
the middle of the night, admittedly for not heeding 
warnings we all received upon arrival and at the 
ride meeting.

Obviously ride management has choosen not to join this discussion so we will not get their side of the story in this forum. It will be a shame to lose AR, it is a great ride. 
But obviously there are some communication gaps that must be
addressed.

I hope that AERC and our sanctioning director will 
follow up on this issue and try to prevent this kind 
of disaster from happening again.

Jessica Tuteur