Quote:
Originally Posted by dutchmensport
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Every State Park I've ever visited (and we have visited hundreds) ... all say it's against the rules to gather firewood, it need to stay on the ground to help rebuild the humas and keep the wooded areas as natural as possible.
Maybe Michigan has a different set of rules, but if Michigan has a "no gathering fire wood rules." Then maybe there is a hard-knocks lesson to be learned here that if they would have followed the rules, they'd never have been in that position to begin with...
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In Michigan, there are National Parks, National Forests, State Parks (with state park campgrounds) and State Forests (with state forest campgrounds).
State Parks and State Forests are not the same thing and have different rules.
In most State Park campgrounds, there are paved roads to the campground and usually paved roads inside the campground, usually with either partial or full hookups, bath houses and often with formal "ranger supervised activities". The are usually crowded, busy and many feel they are "mobile surburbia".
Most State Forest campgrounds are in remote, hard to access locations, usually down long, winding gravel roads and often so far from "civilizaton" that there's no TV and no cell service. No bath house, no flush toilet, no running water (maybe a hand pump well if you're lucky) and usually not even a barrel for your trash (bring it in, you're expected to take it out)...
In most State Park campgrounds, there's NOTHING laying around to pick up, so looking for firewood is prohibited because people tend to "fudge and make deadfall when they can't find any".....
In most State Forest campgrounds, there's so much deadfall laying around that quite often, early in the camping season, you'll need to clear it away from where you want to camp, just so you can find a level site to park your trailer. That "deadfall" is not only a fire hazard, it makes using the campsite difficult or impossible. Obviously the rules about gathering deadfall to burn in the fire pit (usually made from gathering large bolders to place in a circle where there is what looks like a "burned out spot from last year) makes for a much more lenient rule. In most areas in Michigan, firewood can not be transported from one place to another, so "logicallly" (for what that's worth) if you don't gather firewood in a State Forest campground, you won't have a campfire because the closest place to buy firewood is potentially 15 miles away or even further. The State Forest campground we go to every year (best fishing in the northern UP) is 11 miles down a gravel road that turns to a "two track" about half of that distance. Every year, the scrub brush grows a bit taller and bushier and it's just a matter of when (not if) the road becomes too narrow for us to drag the fifth wheel to our "favorite campsite"... Last year, we went three times and all three times, we were the only campers in the campground which has 14 campsites, which are actually 14 signs nailed to posts spaced somewhat evenly around that "two track circle"....
That family's "firewood gathering expedition" is a common activity and where that campground is located, if they didn't gather wood for their campsite fire, they'd be sitting in the dark, eating cold, mushy bacon and raw eggs for breakfast.....
The only "rules about gathering firewood" in that type campground are "don't bring in firewood from another location" and "don't you dare cut a standing tree" !!!!!