It's common for people to take a relative's ashes out to a favored spot and scatter them over the land or in a river. But, is it legal? I read an article that puts a lot of it in question. Each state has it's own rules. The BLM says that scattering on their land is subject to state law. The Forest Service prohibits it, saying "placing cremains creates a “perpetual occupancy,” and may be “incompatible with the purposes for which the lands are managed." Some Nat. parks allow it but only with a special permit.
Putting them in water is usually prohibited even when scattering on land is allowed. The US Clean Water Act prohibits ashes from being put in any water less than 3 nautical miles from any land. Permits are required almost everywhere.

Idaho is quite liberal. There are no state rules or permits required. Only the rules imposed by the controller of the land apply. Ashes can be scattered by plane as long as the urn isn't tossed out, too. I don't know if loading the ashes in shotgun shells qualifies as aerial scattering. Since the BLM goes by state law and Idaho has no applicable state laws, ashes can be scattered all over southern, ID. We also have 20 million acres of Nat. Forest where it's prohibited according to what I've read.

Scattering on private land is legal in most places with the landowners permission. Whether a permit is required is up to the state.

After all is said, do they really think that all the rules and permitting is going to keep a family from scattering Grandpa over his favorite fishing stream? Not likely. All the rules are totally unenforceable and I'll bet that 99% of them are ignored. How would the USFS determine that a bag of ashes is 'perpetually occupying' the forest if they can't find the ashes or prove who they belonged to if they did find them?

Good question. My own opinion is scatter and remain silent. Part of my brother's ashes is in our CRP field. I found some really nice wild flowers and put him to rest.

kwg

Well I figure to have my ashes poured out where all my dogs are buried. Legal or not. For a long time I wanted to send them off into the wind from a ridge behind Superior Wyoming but home is where your dogs lie.

My mother was a WWII veteran and loved pink. Her ashes are planted by the flag pole under a pink rose bush.

There's a friend of mine "perpetually occupying" a place in of a certain park in Cali where the Dwyerville Giant is now laying on the ground. And he's in the Pacific from a spot near Shelter Cove.

More than one of our dogs is scattered in various places around.

Then again, I've been known to Question Authority at times.

I've been told, only on private property. Most of the stories are true.

A member from Colorado asked me, and I checked it out.

Right at the top of the Who Gives a Fugg what the government says list.

Classic example of "don't ask, don't tell."

Since I worked at the plumbing trade for 50 years, I’ve left instructions to be take to the old El Paso tower I worked on as an apprentice. Take me to the 50th floor, dump me in a toilet, let it rip. Hell of a last ride. Eventually hit the San Jac river, head out to sea. Fitting end to a damn old plumber, don’t ya think?

LOL, that is some funny stuff right there. Makes me wonder where an OB/Gyn would want his ashes spread.

This. I don't think even most of the gov't weenies would care.

Been telling my sons for years that I want them to load mine into a cannon on Little Round Top and let ‘er rip.

Might not please the Park Service, who IME can be kinda cranky…..

Mom said [just yesterday]
1/2 to either Nags Head or Hilton Head Island shoreline, 1/2 to my stepfathers farm by the existing cemetery.

This

Is it legal? SMDH

I told my wife to spread mine in a sand bunker at the golf course. I’ve spent enough time in it, so it’s already like home

We cremated my father, at his request, after lung cancer took him. Before he died he asked me to place some of his ashes in the places he liked to hunt, fish and camp. He gave me a list of 11 places. It took me 2 years but I buried a small amount of his ashes in the places he asked. I did not ask anyone if I could do it and I wouldn't have cared if anyone had told me I couldn't. Pop wanted to be there and I made sure he is. Screw asking permission, I'll ask for forgiveness if caught.

Depends on each states' regs.

One thing I would advise, DON'T SCATTER ASHES INTO THE WIND..don't come home with them in your mouth, eyes, and ears. Upturn the container and tap any remaining ashes out...let the wind and rain scatter them.

Absolutely!

My wife's first husband, aside from being a physical abuser of the highest order, was a high roller.
His kids very discreetly sprinkled some of his ashes on the carpet under his favorite gaming table, and the rest in the ocean.

Satisfying to know some of him rests in a landfill after being vacuumed up! A fitting end to a real a-hole.

And no, there was nothing legal about it.

My father died at the peak of the COVID restrictions, so I sent his ashes to be buried with his late wife. He wanted the ashes of his four cats buried with him. I asked the cemetery manager about it and was told to send them, but not to indicate what they were in any way. I said they’re “keepsakes” right? “Right”, she said.

He was such a dick for most of his life I was tempted to put all of the ashes together and shake well, and see what Jesus could make of the mix in the next life.

Government won't dictate to me what I do with my loved one's ashes.

I want to be on my elk stand. 11,500' high in the San Juans----the 1st rays of the morning sun hits it. Most beautiful place

You want to get flushed into a sewerage treatment plant?

Welp, If it's a crime to do it in Colorado, I guess I'm a criminal. We put some of our youngest sons ashes in the Yampa River & some up on Rabbit Ears Pass in 2020.

Cousin’s wife asked if I reloaded. She said my Cousin wanted his ashes loaded into shotgun shell and shot across his lake.
Glad I only load for rifles and handguns. She made his last wish come true. Hasbeen

My brother asked to be sprinkled off the point where we used to duck hunt. I have no plans to ask permission from anyone.

Mine are to be dumped in an elk wallow on wilderness land where i shot my first bull elk with a bow.

I think I could almost guarantee you that anyone that would need to ask for permission to spread somebody’s ashes is most assuredly jabbed and triple boosted….

Yeah….

But you gotta post it to FB for it the be legit……..

It is not "their" lands. The citizens of these United States own the public lands. The attitude of the BLM has long been that they own the land and we, the public citizens are trespassing. Same with the ultra liberal, Forest Service.

If I want to scatter ashes of my loved ones on public land, I will do as I please.

When JFK Jr. was killed, his Uncle Ted or possibly Bill Clinton wrangled a ride for his ashes on a U.S. warship to be scattered at sea. Pretty high honor for one who never served, nor held office, and who pretty much died of arrogance if the reports are to be believed. Wonder how much that ride cost the taxpayers?

At least some of mine will be mixed into a pound of Tannerite and placed at the 200 yard line of our private shooting range. My son has agreed to be the trigger man with one of the Mausers we built together.

I worked on the Sims bayou plant it will go into also. I’m gonna be in heaven or hell, so it don’t matter.

Speaking of ashes, this one brought a tear to my eye

My boys aren't getting off that easy, I've got more than one place they'll need to hike to.

When I was younger I thought it would be cool to give my best friends a little part of me and put my ashes in their favorite places. Whether it was a mountain, deer stand or best fishing spot. Now that I have a family, not so sure anymore.

Me too

Rock Chuck: I have NEVER heard of a charge being brought or of a prosecution for "spreading loved ones ashes" on public or private lands!
And "I" been around.
Even the demonrat cretins who spread the ashes of the animalistic mass murderer known as ted bundy, out the window of an airplane over my beloved Cascade Mountains was NOT charged or prosecuted!
SO... no charges - no prosecutions - no worries.
Technically legal or not no prosecution then no punishment or worries.
Do not let the sound of your own wheels drive YOU crazy!
Don't worry, be happy.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

My SIL's husband was a bit of an A-hole and she'd considered divorcing him many times. He died in his 40's from an aneurysm. He'd been very ill anyway and requested that his ashes be tossed to the wind from the top of Flattop Mtn near Anchorage where they lived. She climbed up there and gave him a toss. A wind blew the ashes right back up in her face. Most of him ended up going down the shower drain into the Anchorage waste treatment plant. This was before I met my wife so I didn't know him but from what I've been told, it was a fitting end.

Told the kids, toss the box into the nearest dumpster on the way home from crematorium.

I will no longer exist at that time and will not care.

The kids already have a grandpa and a grandma sitting on a shelf. They are getting tired of looking at the urns, but can not seem to figure out how to dispose of them.

That's my whole point. It's regulations for sake of regulating. None of their rules are enforceable. 1st they'd have to recover the ashes for evidence, then they have have to prove who it was and who scattered them. Totally impossible. Nobody gives a damn about their rules. When someone dies, the family has enough to worry about without contending with some stupid permit or rules. Screw 'em.

I’m with Mackay_Sagebrush; it ain’t their land! It belongs to the public. I also don’t like the fact that they consider all the wildlife that inhabits my land is theirs to regulate. How about they loaning me dozers and tractors, fuel for them and my chainsaw? They could pony up some cash for seed and fertilizer for food plots too. Or even a tax break for such items instead of giving this country away.

Besides, its gonna be pretty hard to fine you after the fact.....


( read that to mean I don't give a phouc what they say, Me and my dogs will be scattered at the place oof my choosing)

The charter boat captain next to my buddy’s boat on Lake Michigan tells the story of the family wanting to go out on the boat and spread their dad’s ashes. Before the captain could position the boat they threw the ashes up wind! Big mistake because they all came back wearing lots of dad’s ashes.

What they don’t know, ain’t gonna bother them one bit!

I look at it a little differently. You'll actually be a few pounds of soil nutrients. In the places I've been fortunate enough to take big game animals, returning those nutrients to the soil where their offspring eat is kind of a full circle thing.

That is a TALL elk stand!

Sorry, I tried but couldn't resist!

Why yes, I am easily amused... Why do you ask?

/John

I'm a fish dude, also love wildlife.

I'd really like to go out somewhere in the wilderness, and not be found until the critters and elements had properly disposed of my "nutrients". Perhaps I can make that happen, if I'm still in good enough shape to get to such a place the trackers won't find me or can't get to me, when it's my time to leave. When I was a lad, and doing the partying thing, it was made known to my friends that should an "accident" occur they should take me to the backcountry and deposit me deep in the chaparral in a big canyon where the 'yotes and such could reduce me to what nature makes of most things in life.............fertilizer of one sort or another.

As that may not happen, I'd next prefer to be buried at sea, wrapped in an old canvas, tied with hemp rope. Let the aquatic critters I made a livelihood from reap some of the benefit of my good eating.

If it’s illegal, what are they going to do? Sift the ashes out of the dirt and make you take them back? This is one of those things that while it’s illegal I don’t see how they would ever prove it happened unless you announce it

Spread some along the Thorofare in the BT

Who cares about ashes being scattered? Get a life.

Who gives a crap, what are they gonna do, make you pick them up?

My FIL and my wife's grandmother are at a spot overlooking the upper Owens Valley. It's beautiful spot. We intend to leave our ashes there. DGAF what Forest Circus says about ashes. FFS, we're not putting bodies there.

An interesting sideline of scattering ashes is the old practice of burial at sea, especially in the sailing ship days. They had no way to preserve a body so they put them overboard. It was an interesting ritual.
They didn't have coffins available and sail cloth was precious so the body was sewed into the man's own hammock as a shroud. If he died of a serious disease, his clothing was sewn in with him to get it off the ship. 2 cannon balls or other heavy weights were tied around the feet to take it to the bottom quickly. As the shroud was sewed shut, the last stitch was through the nose. The idea was to make sure the man was dead. They figured that a large needle through the nose would wake up anyone was still alive. Medicine being what it was in the 1800's and earlier, live burials were in everyone's mind and everyone feared it. This nose thing was more than just making sure that didn't bury someone alive. Sailors have always been very superstitious. They believed that if a live man was buried at sea, his spirit would follow the ship and bring terror or death to those aboard. Likely the ship would never make port again in one manner or another. Sewing through the nose had another practical aspect - in case the body should come out of the shroud on the way down, it was still attached and guaranteed to sink.

Never ask any questions that you do not want to know the answer to.

RIP Dad, enjoy that last resting place in Big Sky.

And a dead skunk 20 ft off a trail at Jellystone NP is not an issue.

But someone's ashes spread on the downlow is a hideous thing.


🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

My Great Aunt waited in a closet at my mom’s house for 23 years for me to fulfill her wishes

I like that and will direct that mine are scattered in the Russian Olive grove, where my many old friends are buried.

A friend of mine wants his remains scattered across Disneyland, but he doesn’t want to be cremated.

Old70

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.