Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire scattering ashes - legal?

I have respect for your conviction here. I'd be much the same way.

My Dad was a Tin Can Sailor in the South Pacific. He loved the sea and wanted to be buried at sea. We "buried" his ashes off the Coast, my Mother is with him in the same spot.

I have a nephew who sprinkled some of his son’s ashes on Lambeau field while taking a tour. Had cut a whole in his pants pocket and casually spread them on the field kinda like Andy In Shawshank redemption.

Me, my urn will be a .50 cal ammo can with my name stenciled on the side and a list of places my family should disperse. Deer stands, lakes, duck blinds, and a campsite in the Uintas.

We scattered my mother and father in law’s ashes in Rock Creek outside Jackson WY. Sorry EPA.

Dad went into his favorite spot on his favorite trout lake in the White Mountains, AZ.

Some of Mom's went under the dirt next to the headstone of her dead brother (he died at 7 yrs old) back near Chicago.

Didn't ask permission for either. That's what they wanted, and we got it done.

Just before Mom passed, I asked her about where she wanted her ashes. I'd asked her before, but she was non-committal and again said "as long as it's not on the water." Knowing the time was nearing, I knew I needed a better answer, and I had an idea. I asked her if she wanted some of her ashes spread with her brother, and she said "oh, that grave probably isn't even there anymore." (he passed about 80 years ago). I told her it was, I'd located it a couple years earlier, and described the headstone to her. Her eyes got wide, and she said "that's it." I asked if she wanted some of her ashes there, and all she could do with teary eyes wide as enthusiastically nod "yes."

No way in HELL was that not going to happen, cemetery rules be damned.

The rest of her ashes will be near Dad (off the water), with her Mother and Father at their graves, also at our long time family campsite in N. AZ, and finally at her favorite remote Indian ruin and artifact exploration area in AZ.

FS and tree cops can kiss my azz. That you can "legally" spread them over a national forest via an airplane, but not spread them at a specific location is about as stupid as it gets.

When the time comes, you make the deceased last wishes happen, and fugg .gov, and everyone else. They're ashes for fugg sake.

Fug the beaucrats. I'll have mine scattered where I choose, unless the scatterers choose otherwise.

I be dead. I DGAS! Which in itself, may be the outcome.

Back in the 90's when the Cornhusker's actually had a football team there was a radio show in Omaha that had a daily caller. I'm pretty sure the guy was an addict, but he was funny as hell and a die hard Husker fan. Anyway, the guy died at a young age and really had no family so the hosts of the show paid to have him cremated.

Memorial stadium was under renovation at the time so those crazy bastids donned hard hats walked in like workers and spread the ashes in the North end zone. All was well until they went back on the show and talked about it. As I remember the University of Nebraska filed charges against the radio show for everything from trespassing to improper disposal of a body. I never did hear how it came out in the end.

Some people are born pricks. Some achieve prick-hood by dilegent effort.

Who GAF about a few inert ashes?

Don Sheldon took a guy up to scatter someone's ashes in the air above McKinley (Denali) Mt. Opened the side panel, popped the lid, and they had ashes all over the inside of the Cub- in their hair, their mouth, their teeth.

Fuggin cannibals!

Hiking in Smoky Mt NP my wife and I found a small brass plaque nailed to a tree as a memorial to someone whose ashes had been spread at that spot. A year or so later we were in the same spot and the plaque was gone. I wouldn't have gone as far as placing a marker on public land.

We've told our kids to wait until we are both gone. Mix our ashes and scatter them. Have not listed specific places yet. The money not spent on an expensive funeral is meant to fund a road trip to spread the ashes. The road trip will be our last gift to our kids.

I got curious and took a look at SMNP's rules on scattering. I found this:

I didn't look up that section of code, but I'd bet that no markers are allowed. Also, possibly they didn't get the permit. I'd bet that the permit is just a way to get people to follow their rules, whatever they are. I wouldn't bother with a permit and certainly wouldn't post a marker.

I've ashes from our last dog, and a friend. Not decided yet to where to spread them, but they'll likely go together.

Steve would approve. He was easy like that. Never knew the dog tho... but what the hell- he flew Outside to drive my wife north to Alaska when i could not, about 40 years ago..

And came on our sheep-hunt honey-moon with us. She and he got full-curls too.

Could I do less?

Any marker is defiantly a no go. I have a friend whose wife’s ashes were put at Spence field in the Smokey Mountain National park. He got a permit and had a memorial with a bunch of his AT hiking pals. He has already got the permit for his friends to spread his ashes at the same place when he’s gone.

I know I don't want to be buried...

Its not reality, its Hollywood.... but I always thought the ideal way I'd like to go, was when I saw the Star Wars Movie when Yoda passed..

Just laying there... breathe his last and just slowly disappeared...


so for me, it will be cremated.. then either one of two places for me to have them spread...

either no the Pacific Coast at Cape Blanco Oregon... the farthest western point in the Continental USA...

or on Cape Breton Island, on the eastern shore of Nova Scotia...

I want no grave that can be defaced or dug up sometime later...

I also don't want any record or remains I was ever here on this planet... because the human race just sucks....

God and Jesus will know I lived, and that is good enough for me...

The Frio River, north of Leakey Tx. for me.

Many things are illegal...

Man's "laws" mean very little to me...

Most are written to heard sheep efficiently.