Category: Primitive Camping

St. Joe’s National Forest, Idaho

With the help of the rangers at the Avery ranger district in the St. Joe’s National Forest, we found an awesome boondocking spot off FR 456. It is only 4 miles up 456 after you turn left onto it from Avery. We had no problem getting to it in our 35 foot fifth wheel, even going through the one lane tunnels. This road used to be a portion of the Milwaukee Railroad.

When we finished setting up camp, we went on a bike ride up FR 456. There are multiple tunnels along this road that go through the mountains. They are really creepy to drive through, but even more so on foot or on bike. When you begin to go through, the tunnel is so short you can see the light from the other side. But as you get more in the middle, the pitch black darkness consumes you. Even though you can still see a little bit of light from the other side, it can be disorienting. The walls of the tunnel disappear along with everything physical about you. All you can do is focus ahead and quickly follow the light…While riding we found trail head 196 at the Telipah campground (called North Fork campground in the atlas). The next day we explored this trail that hiked to Big Dick Point (not kidding on the name). It was a difficult 11 mile hike with a 3,000 foot elevation gain and max grades of 34% and -32%. Bring your hiking poles, or find a good stick.

After boondocking a few days we went to a little town in Idaho called Wallace to do laundry, re-up on supplies and take a much needed hot shower (not that we can’t shower in the RV, just better to save water when boondocking). We stayed at the Wallace RV park for $25 a night, full hookups. There is a nice restaurant/brewery on the property. After a hot shower and a flight of beers with fish and chips, I was one happy camper.

One of the things to do around here in the summer time is biking the Hiawatha trail. This 15 mile path used to be part of the Milwaukee Railroad. It’s in St. Joe’s NF and northeast of where Tim and I rode bikes a couple days earlier. The trail is pretty fun, there are multiple trestles and tunnels to go through. In fact, the start of the trail is a dark, wet and coooold 2 mile tunnel! It was really creepy to go this seemingly endless tunnel. The price to ride the trail is 10 dollars a person and if you don’t have a helmet and light you have to rent them. You are supposed to wear this equipment at all times. However, at the halfway point I took my helmet off since I HATE helmets. My philosophy is if I ride off the cliff I’m dead anyways so I might as well feel the breeze…I digress…For the most part, the entire trail is at a 1.7% downhill grade, meaning you don’t have to pedal hardly at all. Then you can take the shuttle back (for an extra fee $9/pp). We opted to ride the bikes back since we were already annoyed they charged us to ride on a bike path in the first place lol. I will say- it is a really awesome bike path.

Soon we will be heading to West Yellowstone and hope to find a boondocking spot outside the park. Thanks for reading. 🙂

Took that midnight flight to Georgia!

After finishing my 9 week assignment in Seattle, Tim and I embarked in the ol’ fifth wheel to the Olympic National Forest. We found a nice, big open space to boondock off Forest Road 2270. We explored a couple trails and found a few waterfalls. It was nice to get out into nature again after being cramped in the RV park in Lynnwood. We had to cut the trip short unfortunately since we were having electrical issues with the batteries not charging. We moved to the KOA in Seattle for the night so Tim could work on the batteries. (If interested please ask, I won’t bore with the details.)

The very next day we all flew to Atlanta (Marilyn too) on the red eye 0050 am flight. I didn’t get more than 10 min of sleep when we arrived in Atlanta at 8 am eastern time. We rented a car and stayed with my good friend, Shadee, for one night. She is 8 months pregnant, and we were also tired, so we ordered a bunch of pizzas and watched the movie Alive. Good thing we watched this movie AFTER flying lol.

After a much needed good night’s sleep at Shadee’s, we drove our rental to Tim’s old stomping grounds, Athens Georgia. Tim’s good buddy Justin was getting married in a little Baptist church outside of Athens. Tim and I will use any excuse to visit Athens. We started our relationship here. In my last semester in college I would drive up to visit him and ended up living with him for a couple months after I graduated nursing school. Athens nightlife is very fun and alive. The campus is always open and makes for a romantic stroll at night…despite having to dodge huge roaches every other step (this is the only thing I DO NOT miss about home lol).

After the weekend in Athens we drove to see Tim’s family and my brother for a little vacation on Lake Murrary in South Carolina. It has been a family tradition for Tim’s family to visit Lake Murrary every year. Tim’s dad rented a pontoon boat and we had a great time swimming every day in the lake. My Seattle white body finally got some much needed vitamin D.

Three nights came and went by at the cabin before it was time to leave for our ultimate destination…home. Savannah, Georgia is where we call home. It was so good to see my mom and dad again. My nieces and nephew are growing so fast. Full time traveling sounds fun, and it is, but you sacrifice one big thing- family. I hope they know how much I love them but that I am happy. Maybe I will soil my roots again one day but for now I am a free bird.

When we fly back to Seattle we are going to embark in the RV to Yellowstone, WY. I will post the itinerary soon.  Enjoy the pics, I hope you all continue to follow us!

 

Grand Canyon National Park, AZ

Whelp, I’ve slashed off another item off my bucket list. Before I go into the details of the awesomeness, let me tell you about where we camped. Man I’m glad we have the means to disperse camp, because the campgrounds around here are pricey and fully booked! We camped right outside of Tusayan in the Kaibab National Forest. We drove up Forest Road 302 a mere ¼ mile before we found a bunch of nice options to choose from. It was the perfect spot, only a 5 minute drive to the entry gate of the Grand Canyon National Park AND we were able to pick up wifi and cell service since we were so close to town. The only thing, (as there always is one thing) were the helicopters constantly flying to and from the airport. They make quite the business from paying customers who want to see the Grand Canyon by air. However it wasn’t a big deal because we spent the days out and about anyways.

When we approached the gate there were 5 lanes filled with cars. It felt like going into Disney World. Once again our America the Beautiful pass got us in for free, otherwise you have to pay $25 per car/7 days. The park attendant hands you a worthless map and you proceed to the visitor center. I say it’s worthless because it doesn’t give any detail about roads or trails. They pretty much herd all tourists to park at the visitor center and utilize the buses to get around. I guess this is efficient to prevent traffic jams within the park. At the visitor center there is information about the trails and which bus to take to get to the trail heads. The trails range from easy paved ridge walks to extremely difficult. Tim and I agreed on the Bright Angel Trail to Plateau Point. A 12 mile round trip classified as extremely difficult with a projected 8-12 hour finish time.

So now the climatic moment of my first view the canyon. We took the blue bus to Bright Angel TH. As I ascend up the hill, my eyes eagerly focus ahead for the first glimpse, my foot steps carefully approach the railing and then….it’s there, stretching to the horizon. I initially had to hold on to the railing to fully take it all in. It was so beautiful it didn’t feel real, it seemed like I was looking at a large beautiful painting on a projector screen. After a few moments I said, “okay lets go” and we descended into the canyon.

Down, down, down we go, passing by heavy dry-mouth breathing, red-faced hikers of all ages and sizes coming up. I started to dread the return trip. I pushed the thought behind me and focused on my footing. Two hours later we reach the campground where we had lunch in the oasis. Beware of the squirrels! They are cute indeed but they are very aggressive. While Tim and I snacked on Cheeze-Its, they creeped up and stared, expecting us to throw one. Tim had to stomp to make them run away, otherwise I’m sure they would of jumped us. After lunch and evading the squirrel attack, we proceeded to plateau point. It…was….hot…. No shade, no water, be prepared if you plan to do this hike. It was very rewarding as you get a spectacular view of the roaring Colorado River. They are plenty of opportunities for cool pictures if you are brave enough to stand on one of the rocks that jut out into the canyon. Ascending the canyon was a grueling 3000 elevation gain. It took us 8 hours to hike the whole trip. I must say this was probably THE most difficult hike I’ve done.

The next day we were both sore and exhausted so we did the easier South Rim trail. It’s paved, easy, has many awesome viewpoints of the canyon, BUT – this is where all the tourists come since you can access the trail from the visitor center. If you walk a mere 100 feet from Mather Point, the tourists thin out significantly. Dogs are allowed on the South Rim Trail, so Marilyn got to enjoy the view too.

We have officially hit our one month anniversary for full-timing (que applause). We’ve had a few hiccups, but we are still truckin’ to Seattle. Next stop, Sequoia National Park.

Gila National Forest, New Mexico

After having our LP blue flame heater installed in El Paso, we were ready for our first attempt at boondocking. (The reason we needed this “Blue Flame” heater for boondocking when we already have a furnace is because the furnaces that are built into RV’s use a lot of electricity to run their blower. When we’re boondocking it would quickly burn through all of our batteries. The link below is the one we purchased. -Tim)

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What’s cool about staying in a National Forest is you have the option to boondock where ever you want. The park rangers call it “dispersed camping.” The first night at Gila (pronounced He-la), we stayed at the sparsely populated Mesa Campground for 15/night for water and electric hookups. Tourism doesn’t pick up until May in this part of the country since it still gets really cold at night in April, hence why we needed the LP heater. We decided to go ahead a pay for one night so we could fill up our water tank to prepare to boondock. The next day we went to the ranger station north of Mimbres to inquire about our options for dispersed camping with a large fifth wheel. The ranger suggested going up road 150. When we approached the road there was a sign warning proceeding with vehicles over 20 feet in length. After contemplating a few minutes whether to go back to the ranger’s station to ask him again or just go for it, we decided to go for it. It turned out that he was right. We easily made it up the gravel road to our sweet spot on a little plateau off the road. We had an almost 360 degree view of the forest. It was a little windy since there wasn’t much tree cover, but the old Yellowstone held up quite well against the gusty wind. To get the trailer leveled was a bit of a challenge. Up until now, we hadn’t really needed to try and level it. At first we tried to use those plastic orange levelers, but after a couple attempts and breaking one or two of them we determined that trying to back onto them with double axle wheels on rocky ground wasn’t going to work. The orange levelers worked fine on the front two legs and we ended up using wooden 2×4’s to level the wheels. If anyone has advice about this please comment below.

The next day, we drove over to the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. It’s a scenic drive with lots of places to pull over and marvel at the mountains and cliffs. When we arrived we realized dogs are not allowed on the trail to the dwellings, so Marilyn had to wait in the car. One lady couldn’t help herself and brought her Boston Terrier in a bag. It looked ridiculous with only it’s head popping out of the bag. As the tour guide explained the dwellings, the dog obnoxiously whined and eagerly licked the woman’s allowing hand. It was only slightly distracting. We hadn’t planned on doing a tour but when we got to the dwellings one had just begun so we merged in with it. It was interesting because the tour guide pointed out things I wouldn’t have noticed. On the way to the dwellings I noticed a canyon ridge that I thought would be awesome to hike. When we drove up to it on the way back, I told Tim to pull over. It was the first off trail hike we have done. I was constantly looking for rattlesnakes or arrowheads. I thought to myself how the Apache would of probably used the ridge for hunting, taking advantage of the high ground. It was awesome because I’m sure not many people have walked down that ridge and seen the views of the canyon from that perspective.

On our departure, we decided to take a different route leaving the forest. Since we had to drive out of the way to head to Mesa campground to dump our tanks we decided instead of going back the way we came we would make a circle taking 15 South, thinking we would save time. Boy was I ever wrong. We ended up going down an extremely steep and treacherous road that took 2 hours to go 20 miles. It was stressful on both of us. We had to pull over twice to let the transmission fluid cool. (Lucky I had purchased an OBD II connector that let me view our transmission temperature on my phone or tablet, along with other important data, super useful. The one below is what we have, it’s only for android but there ones for IOS also. It works with most cars made in the last 20 years or so. -Tim)

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Our lesson learned?? Be more specific when asking the ranger on what roads to avoid. Poor Oso (our truck).