Caught nude by a forest ranger
While living in Florida, a great nature retreat was to drive a few miles to a pristine crystal clear creek and skinny dip during the hot summer and breathe in the spicy aroma of the Sweet Bay trees. About 20 yrs ago I was just getting out of the creek and up comes a ranger out of no where. I grabbed a towel and covered up. He asked "Why are you naked?" My first response was to say "Why not!" But I said was cooling off and didnt have a swimsuit. He kept asking if anyone else was there. Seemed weird. At least twice he asked. "Are you sure you are alone?" That was all, was respectful to him and he left.
I was camping on the lower Wekiwa River in Central Florida. I didn't know Wekiwa State Park had been extended to include the lower river. I had hung a sign on a tree next to my boat that said Nudist Area Today.
A female ranger was patrolling the river and stopped at my boat. I was behind my tent away from the river reading in my lawn chair. She called for me, and I said I was nude before coming around the tent. She said that didn't matter, but I needed to take my sign down from the tree. (It was hanging from a branch with string - no nails or anything). She said I could display it from my boat, but not from the trees. She really seemed totally unconcerned with my nudity
There were 2 instances about 25 years ago when I lived in Central NY State. First one was at Six Mile Creek / Potters Falls in Ithaca,NY. There were about a dozen people hanging out nude on the rocks by the falls when we heard a bunch of clanging noises. A woman that I was chatting with said "Cover up quick" Within a minute or 2 a female Ranger shows up. She stands there with her arms crossed and scans the area. She says "Good, you are all behaving, now I am going to walk to the other end, then come back and then I am going home for the day. Make sure you are all behaving " She then walked off and about a minute later everyone stripped down. The woman next to me said the Ranger does that all the time. Because it is technically illegal to be nude, if she caught someone she would have to ticket or arrest them. She obviously did not want to hassle the nudists.
The second one was at a beach on Lake Ontario that has been an unofficial nude beach for decades. It is about 50 miles northwest of Syracuse. There is a State Park, Southwick Beach with campsites, and to the southwest is about 5 miles of undeveloped beach called the Lakeview Management area. I used to go all the time when I lived in CNY, and always visit when I am in the area in the summer. We would construct small surrounds out of driftwood so we could see anyone coming before they saw us. One time when I was there I dozed off and the next thing I know there is a park ranger standing next to me. He started hassling me about being nude and threatened to march me nude down to the office at the park. I said "Please don't" while thinking please do! He gave me a written warning and left. I talked to another guy a few hundred feet down the beach and he said he got one too. He said he has received about a dozen of them over the years. He told me that they don't want to arrest anyone because then the word would get out and more people would go there to get nude. Surprisingly very few people in the area know about that place and the rangers would like to keep it that way. Makes for a nice private quiet place. Usually on a weekday there may be about a dozen people there, maybe twice that many on a weekend. Real nice place, but you have to cover up if you see someone walking up the beach from the campsites. When I lived there I got to know who the regulars were that I did not have to cover up for.
Very early experience being nude at a beach. It wasn't the first time I was nude at a beach -- maybe the second.
I didn't know anything about the laws. This was in California. I went to a state beach -- because they all have paved parking lots. I walked well past where anyone one else was and spent the day nude by myself. An occasional person walked by and saw me nude. No one said anything about it.
Even when I wore clothing to a beach, I always stripped nude at my car, used my towel to knock all the sand off, and then pulled some shorts on before getting into the car and driving home.
Since I had been nude all day and no one had said anything about it, I figured I could just walk nude to my car, towel the sand off, put some shorts on, and go home. If someone said something as I was walking back to my car, I could always pull my shorts on. I walked behind the crowd. I'm sure some people saw me, but no one said anything.
When I was about half way across the more popular area of the beach, I noticed to state troopers looking at my from the parking lot. It didn't bother me at first -- I figured they'd seen a lot of naked people in their lives. But they just kept staring at me. The made me feel like maybe something was wrong. I stopped and pulled my shorts on.
When I got up to the parking lot, they said something like, "We'd really appreciate it if you'd be sure to wear clothing while you're on a state beach." I explained that I certainly did not want to be in trouble with the law and asked how I could know for certain whether I was on a state beach or not. They said essentially any map would show the boundaries of state beaches. All I had to do with be certain I was not on a state beach and there would be no problem with being nude.
At some point much later, I found out about the Cahill Memo. Mr. Cahill was the head of Parks and Rec in California. He'd written a memo that said, in essence, leave nude people alone unless someone else complains about it. If the nude person puts clothing on right away when asked, let that be the end of it.
This happened to my wife and I in Yosemite National Park. We were canoeing a lake and found a beautiful creek feeding the lake with some incredible swimming holes. We swam and played in the cold water for about thirty minutes before realizing a forest ranger was watching us. She approached us after we put our clothes back on. She was very pleasant and made no mention about the skinny-dipping. She showed us a rustic cabin nearby that Ansel Adams used to stay in while photographing the parks beauty.
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