This run wasn't a felony, but it was a Class C misdemeanor. Ticketed with warnings were Chicken Choker, Bare Ass Burn, Thai'd One, Road Kill, and S.O.S. The rest of us were unindicted co-conspirators in the mass trespass along the bayou east of the Hardy Toll Road.
The run wasn't up to Worm's usual standard; it was actually much better than that. The length was reasonable, about an hour for most of the pack, nor was the terrain too difficult, although it was impossible to finish the trail without considerable exposure to poison ivy. The nicest part of the run was the ripe, black dewberries along the trail. After the initial part led south through some woods, I managed a shortcut that paid off along the road to the west. I was quietly picking and eating the dewberries when Gonad, Shut Up Chuck, and Balut came out of the south toward me, having overshot a false trail and come back to rejoin the pack near the backcheck just before we crossed FM 1960. The trail led along a power distribution line on the back of subdivision, so I shortcut through the subdivision up to a flood control ditch. There really was a sign advising everyone who can read English that the area was POSTED NO TRESPASSING DAMMIT, but I suspected correctly that the hare blithely ignored such considerations. As I crossed onto the trail on the south bank, JusTits, Goes Both Ways, Bare Ass Burn, and Morgan came running out of the east complaining that a man was chasing them.
This asshole in khakis bitched that we were trespassing, which was evidently true. P.P. asked him what harm we were doing and the asshole's non-sequitur answer was, you're trespassing, that's the harm, and did not explain what was so harmful about jogging on the bank of a bayou where there was already a path. So, we ignored him and proceeded to try to solve the water check, which was a needlessly difficult and long one with at least three false trails. John Boy splashed up one branch of the tributary until he found the false. I scaled the bank of one of the bayous, which meet at that point, hoping g to see yellow tape from above. No dice. By now, the pack of fugitives from justice had crossed the main stream and was searching the north bank fruitlessly. Well, not completely fruitlessly, there were the dewberries. We were on the point of abandoning the trail, when PeeWee discovered a carefully hidden true trail in the woods on the north of the bayou, so we headed east along that trail.
That part of the run was when we came upon a big, dark coiled serpent on the trail. I thought I saw the arrowhead-shaped head of a pit viper and didn't want to get close enough to make sure. JusTits and Bare Ass Burn circled even farther around the big snake. But, Goes Both Ways had brought a new boot, Morgan, who identified the snake as a rat snake, or false rattler. She explained that this type of snake will coil and wag its tail at you to mimic a rattlesnake, but it hasn't got a rattle or venom. As far as I was concerned, if the false rattler was trying to intimidate us by mimicking a real one, it was successful on both counts. We steered around it and stayed on trail up through the poison ivy and briars up to the Hardy Toll Road.
By this time, the asshole in khakis had dialed 911 and the local cops, who know who votes in Spring and who doesn't were writing warning tickets. The miscreants who got away were getting fooled by the long false trail on the east of the toll road before we found the on-home a quarter-mile away to the south under a railroad trestle. There was a little sandy beach there, so the hares provided some tropical fruit drinks along with the dark beer.
If the trail is clearly going through an area that is marked NO TRESPASSING, should you go through it? That depends on whether you think the ban on trespassing is or is not going to be enforced, which it usually is not. But, when you are scouting or laying trail, you have to remember that a pack of fifty runners may attract the attention of an asshole in khakis after he has failed to notice, or failed to object to the passage of two hares.
Some forms of trespassing are so inconsiderate or thoughtless that they amount to poor sportsmanship or unacceptable risk. You shouldn't lay a trail through a golf course or across a field of crops, nor run there whether there is trail there or not. It is unsafe, and probably illegal to run across an airport runway even if that runway is turf instead of pavement. You have no assurance that a landing airplane can avoid you or that the pilot even sees you. If a construction site is fenced, there's probably a reason for it so it's better to avoid running through constructions sites that are fenced.
The best way to avoid such problems is to exercise good judgement. I concede that it is futile to say that to the Houston Hash House Harriers. If they had good judgement, would they be hashing?
Your Faithful Scribe,