trail camouflage

anyone here have any tips, tricks to hiding your trails and paths? I have a few that have worked well over the past for both vehicle and foot paths.

I like walking and driving in streams personally. to cover up tire tracks in dirt I usually spill a jerry can full of water over the entrance areas, they usually dry up in less than an hour if in direct sunlight. I've made faux bushes out of fake xmas trees to hide the clearings too. I find juniper bushes to be great trail coverers. they're prickly so nobody likes walking through them and when you drive over them they spring back to their normal position showing no trace that anything ever disturbed them.

just make sure you got enough clearance so a branch doesn't catch anything underneath. once a branch caught my fuel line and stalled the truck out. I did end up driving it out but that's another ingenious story

I don't do much to actually conceal my trails, but I do take pains to make them less obvious. Of course, there's the old trick of never taking the same path into your site twice. But I also make sure never to come out the exact same way I came in, and when walking in tall grass, lift my feet up very high on each step so that I'm not snowplowing the grass flat as I walk over it. That can make a huge difference in how much of a trail you leave behind. I'll also use game trails whenever possible. But take care not to leave footprints if the soil is wet, because game trails are typically bare dirt and footprints in the mud really stand out.

Another trick I use is something I call "counterintuitive routing." Most people, when they're walking in rough country, follow the easiest path - sticking to the low points, the flatter areas, avoiding thick brush, etc. And by the same token, the human eye naturally looks to these areas when searching for other peoples' trails. So I do the opposite. For example, instead of following the low contours between ridges, I'll go up one side of a ridge and down the other. Instead of skirting around thick brush, I'll head straight through it (taking care not to break any branches). In fact, on my final approach to my sites, I'll almost always come in through the thickest brush i can find, so that it's far less likely that anyone will stumble across a piece of path that leads directly to a half dozen marijuana plants.

I also do a lot of zig-zagging. I seldom follow a straight path directly from Point A to Point B. I'll head through one patch of thick brush, meander off at an angle to the right, zig-zag through another patch of brush, angle off to the left, etc. This is especially important for patches that are close to waterways, as most of mine are. I never go straight from the stream to the patch. I'll always angle inland quite a ways, zig-zag around a bit, then approach the patch from the inland side. Nothing stands out from the air more than a path leading from a stream to a grow site in the middle of nowhere.

In fact, paths in general are the biggest danger for people who are concerned about aerial surveillance, in my opinion. It's extremely difficult for someone in a helicopter to spot a half dozen marijuana plants growing in the middle of a couple billion other plants, but a path through the grass in the middle of someplace nobody ever goes stands out like a bonfire on a moonless night. And I think most people would be quite surprised to know how easy it is to make a path. In some terrain, just following the same route every time on three or four trips is enough to make a path that will be visible for weeks. No sense in making it any easier on Leo than it has to be.

Good thread, guy. You and I seem to think alike a lot. Good luck to you in your grows this year!

thanks, skunk, (isn't you a doobie bros?) unfortunately I'm no green thumb, I usually leave that to my partner, but one thing I know is guerilla warfare. and that is what my partner counts on me for. he's now in jail and now I'm solo.

one of the reasons I joined RIU is to learn more about growing and so far you guys have done me well (my babies ain't dead yet) so in return I thought it'd be nice to show all y'all a few things I learned out in the field. 8 years growing and 20 years as an outdoorsman. I've grown in all different types of places. one of the biggest threats to a grow op is your trail. if ppl see any type of trail, clearing or opening in the bush they fill follow it. same goes for aerial surveillance. I've found other grow ops this way myself. (no I don't steal them) simply cuz I spotted their trail in. some ppl are dumb enough to plan not even 10 ft off an ATV trail. I once found a patch growing males n females together in an open field (those I pulled, they were a threat to my girls)

ppl here grow near foundations or on small islands and insist it's the best spot ever. but if an area has a POI (point of interest) there will be at least one person who'll go out of their way to check it out. anywhoo, I hope to be of help to anyone looking for advice.

google earth is your friend, look for elevation drops and rock patches (up here in canada there is alot of exposed rock otherwise known as the 'canadian shield'). stay on rock trails, they go undetected, scale a steep mountain or cliff, not many will see or follow you if you do make a noticable path. leave no garbage and if you find some take it out with you. those orange ribbons you see on trees are put their by hunters and/or surveyors prolly not a good place to grow if you see em but if I insist to grow their I'll remove them and or tie em up elswhere as to throw them off into another direction.

if I think of more, I'll be here

good call on setting up fake trees 4cyl5spd i never heard that before but i might try it!! but driving over bushes does that really work??? usally i drive close to my crops and then run to my crops up and back around from behind, running just make the tracks more spred out usally work but i'm not sure about this year cuz i'm going to try and grow more plants then i have ever done so i might need to be a little more attentive so i wont be seen. thanks for the couple ideas tho i think it really might help me

only works on juniper bushes, that and my truck is really light, no lighter than a big ATV

yeah good call on running, I too got a big leap when I run, I'm gonna try that next time

I have had a horrible experience from trails, and have learned from it! My very first outdoor bagseed grow, i ended p with one beautiful female plant, in the middle of russian olive trees, shortly from a swamp pool, well i planted in april went fanatastic and i learned so much about growing in those months. It was October 13 and I was down at my spot checking her and making sure i could come back the next day(trying to be patient) and harvest her. She was about 5 feet tall, sporting massive buds the size of corncobs, a mostly sativa of some kind that smelled very pungent and skunky. I came back the next day, called in to work and everything just to pull her up. SHW WAS GONE!! I was irate! 6 months of work going back 1-2 times per week was wasted! I knew it was because of the wide open trail eventually made by me.

So get this, the very next year i tricked the theiving bastards, and some of the bushes around here in the Pacific NW (SW WA) are hundreds of years old, i managed to harvest 2 very potent plants 10 feet off either trail because i had cleared a spot in the middle of the 5-7 foot bush and was about 7-10 feet drop off to the trail below and couldnt see it from the top trail either. growing right under peoples noses have given me the greatest satisfaction
Find fields with hundreds of these shrub type tress and just find the perfect one, youll be suprised!

Also for those of you with trees in your area, try some hanging buckets. but be careful of the wind...


Anyone have any stories of your experiences having plants stolen???

when i use a main trail i try to look for a fallen tree that i can walk on to brake off the main trail with no entrance point in the surounding grass. when you walk on a trail and see slight trails that brake off the main trail you have to think is there plants in there???