How to tag areas where camping is prohibited?

Posted by valhikes on 3/15/2023

I expect this is only a problem in those places that have wild camping allowed as the norm. Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service lands fall into this category and cover a lot of the western United States and a little of the eastern ones. I’ve failed at finding an answer via search engine. There could be something on the wiki for the tourism=camp_site tag, but it’s not there now.

For me, this question has come up specifically in mapping backcountry (hiking) areas where camping is generally allowed wherever a person might want to settle for the night, but there is often a lake where camping has been banned outright. This is more than the usual banning of camping within 100 feet of water that is often found in Congressionally designated Wilderness areas. This is for singled out areas.

Some examples:

Sheep Lake in West Elk Wilderness. (38.7534N, 107.2366WSee rule 6 here.) No camping within ¼ mile.

Gilpin Lake, Gold Creek Lake, and Three Island Lake in Mount Zirkel Wilderness. (40.7825N, 106.6793WSee here.) No camping within ¼ mile.

Shadow Lake in Ansel Adams Wilderness. (37.6946N, 119.1243WSee here.) No camping at the lake or between the trail and creek.

Thousand Island Lake in Ansel Adams Wilderness. (37.7202N, 119.1796WSame link.) No camping within ¼ mile of the outlet.

Lower Golden Trout Lake in John Muir Wilderness. (37.2410N, 118.7207WSame link.) No camping within 500 feet of the lake.

Crystal Lake in Hoover Wilderness. (38.0003N, 119.2454WSame link.) No camping at lake. There’s quite a few more at this link, but this covers all the wildernesses represented.

Geneva Lake (and many more) in Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness. (39.0969N, 107.0775WSee here.) Camping in designated (numbered) sites only. Sites have been marked at Geneva Lake, but not at Capitol Lake, for instance. Included to show a less restrictive case.

While I wouldn’t expect to see the blanket regulation (no camping within 100 feet of water) represented on the map, I would like to see these special cases.

As a second subject, it would be nice if larger areas could be marked for camping or no, particularly when the answer is an unexpected one. Bureau of Land Management generally allows camping wherever you like, but the Lacks Creek Management Area (boundaries seem to be unmarked currently) only allows camping in designated sites. The Forest Service also generally allows dispersed camping, but not in particular areas like the Turquoise Lake Recreation Area (another missing thing). My local California State Parks are pretty clear: only in designated sites, but the National Parks can get a little complicated. Usually it is a no. Nearby Redwood National Park is designated only except for seasonal dispersed backpacking camps on Redwood Creek gravel bars. Congressionally designated wilderness areas of Sequoia National Park, Kings Canyon National Park, and Yosemite National Park all do allow dispersed camping (with various restrictions like those above). Death Valley National Park gets complicated. There’s no dispersed camping in the parts that were National Monument, but the part added when it became a park, very roughly half the area, does allow dispersed camping. It certainly would be nice to be able to add that blanket information to the boundary relation.

But I’m mostly interested in the very small areas where camping is prohibited in an otherwise permissive area. tourism=camp_site, access=no? And then I get a red area marked with a tent with a circle and a bar through it on my map?