Your Favorite Boondocking Pics

RFOneWatt wrote:
@camperfool - Great point & idea. I'm unemployed right now so our trips this summer are most likely all going to be in Michigan. (Which is fine by me, I've seen more of what's out West than I've seen of my own state, which is actually kind of sad.)

Anyways, I am from the Detroit area but have a summer house near Gaylord, MI and that's where I plan on keeping my trailer parked this year. Our place is about an hour away from the bridge for when we want to take longer trips into the U.P. And for shorter trips around Gaylord, we're right in the middle of TONS & TONS of secluded places off of MILES of two tracks. By parking the trailer up there it would save a few hundred miles of fuel for every trip! (Not having to pull it from my house.)

I feel your pain on the 7 MPG. I think we averaged about 8-9 MPG our whole trip out West last year. We've since upgraded the tow vehicle to a 2010 F250 SuperDuty 6.4 diesel so hopefully we'll be getting a little better mileage from now on. (And certainly the torque to hammer the mountains when we need it, which is actually why we bought it!)

@ReneeG - After the fact I did a bit of research and found that regardless of brand, a gas generator is the best for high altitudes. However, even some Onans, Hondas & Yamaha's have issues when you are playing between 6000-10,000ft. (Unless of course you've made some permanent adjustments) This is for another thread, but if anybody can educate me a bit on the subject I'd really appreciate it. I am using chinese junk @ moment. Although I have zero complaints aside from the altitude issue and the fact that it will most likely die a premature death.. it was CHEAP, has many, many hours on it and still works great. We haven't had a problem with the refrigerator. (yet?)

Here is another spot in Utah we stayed at for three days. Not my favorite but I was tired of driving and we were really in the middle of nowhere.. Didn't see one person the whole time we were there.

The wife took this pic when we stopped and I thought I would give the generator another go. The magic number ended up being 4000ft. :)

Beautiful spot RFOneWatt - love boondocking! We have an F250 V10 and average 9.5 when towing. Oh well, that's where the most expense goes when we travel with TT in tow. We also have a Mister Buddy propane heater - the small single bottle one and it warms up the inside nicely when early winter camping.

@camperfool - Great point & idea. I'm unemployed right now so our trips this summer are most likely all going to be in Michigan. (Which is fine by me, I've seen more of what's out West than I've seen of my own state, which is actually kind of sad.)

Anyways, I am from the Detroit area but have a summer house near Gaylord, MI and that's where I plan on keeping my trailer parked this year. Our place is about an hour away from the bridge for when we want to take longer trips into the U.P. And for shorter trips around Gaylord, we're right in the middle of TONS & TONS of secluded places off of MILES of two tracks. By parking the trailer up there it would save a few hundred miles of fuel for every trip! (Not having to pull it from my house.)

I feel your pain on the 7 MPG. I think we averaged about 8-9 MPG our whole trip out West last year. We've since upgraded the tow vehicle to a 2010 F250 SuperDuty 6.4 diesel so hopefully we'll be getting a little better mileage from now on. (And certainly the torque to hammer the mountains when we need it, which is actually why we bought it!)

@ReneeG - After the fact I did a bit of research and found that regardless of brand, a gas generator is the best for high altitudes. However, even some Onans, Hondas & Yamaha's have issues when you are playing between 6000-10,000ft. (Unless of course you've made some permanent adjustments) This is for another thread, but if anybody can educate me a bit on the subject I'd really appreciate it. I am using chinese junk @ moment. Although I have zero complaints aside from the altitude issue and the fact that it will most likely die a premature death.. it was CHEAP, has many, many hours on it and still works great. We haven't had a problem with the refrigerator. (yet?)

Here is another spot in Utah we stayed at for three days. Not my favorite but I was tired of driving and we were really in the middle of nowhere.. Didn't see one person the whole time we were there.

The wife took this pic when we stopped and I thought I would give the generator another go. The magic number ended up being 4000ft. :)

Hey RFOneWatt - we've dry camped a lot at 7k and have had no problem with our eu2000 Honda Generator. Since you're a newbie, FYI some propane refers have problems at high altitudes, but we haven't had any. Our refer is a Norcold.

camperfool wrote:


These one track roads are the best.


Heres a pic from a nice dispersed camping spot my son and I were at last summer located by Hopkins creek. We like trout fishing so these are the locations we search for. Since it is easy now to find these places in Michigan I will do all dispersed camping this year. My wife will give it a shot as well. It cuts down on campground costs and with the solar panel who needs a fancy stay also this it true camping. My biggest cost is the gas to get there at 7 MPG it is a cost to deal with.

Sure looks nice, & it may be ok for a 5er, or a high riding TT, but I've seen some Class C's or B's that might leave some low hanging parts laying in the tracks.

These one track roads are the best.


Heres a pic from a nice dispersed camping spot my son and I were at last summer located by Hopkins creek. We like trout fishing so these are the locations we search for. Since it is easy now to find these places in Michigan I will do all dispersed camping this year. My wife will give it a shot as well. It cuts down on campground costs and with the solar panel who needs a fancy stay also this it true camping. My biggest cost is the gas to get there at 7 MPG it is a cost to deal with.

Thanks Camperfool! We certainly have no shortage of pictures. Both my wife and I are wanna-be amateur photographers so we take quite a few.

Yes, a decent size solar system will be installed, hopefully this summer. Fortunately I was able to top off the house batteries (three) every couple of days using the truck alternator, which got us through our stay. It probably wasn't very good for the batteries but I was careful to not shove too much amperage down their throats too fast.

Here are a couple of pictures from a spot we found in 2008 @ the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula. (U.P. Michigan) -- This was actually our first trip ever with a travel trailer and the week the propane control valve decided to die. Thankfully we had the generator and an electric space heater. This also led to the purchase of a Mr. Buddy propane heater that will never leave the trailer. (I'm learning fast )

-T

Great location. Dry camping is the best. You might consider purchasing a solar panel system. It works great. Nice pics

This was one of best places my wife and I have ever run across out west, and it took a bit of scouting to find. We were somewhere in Wyoming on a mountain @ 7000ft. We never marked the exact location of the site but it was sooo desolate and we had a VERY,VERY SLOW time getting here:







Being a newbie, we assumed our generator would run - so we were expecting to have power for the whole time that we were there. Unfortunately due to the altitude, it well.. yeah... (sigh - inexpensive 3500 watt propane - Works great below 4000ft).. Anyways, since we needed some juice I spent a bit of time converting the trailer to run off of a large inverter I happened to have. We didn't get A/C, but we certainly had coffee and other amenities. ;)





We had a great time and it was our first time being out west not sleeping in a tent.

-T

Very nice dry camping. It is the best isn't it. Enjoy !!!

Tystevens wrote:

Eurocamper wrote:
Dry camping at City of Rocks National Reserve in southern Idaho.

Wow, that looks cool! And only 3 hours away from us in SLC -- looks like we have another place to put on our list to visit this year. Did you boondock in that area, or were you required to use one of the designated campsites? I've been on their website and can't find anything except information about the campsite. I guess I'd be surprised if you could just camp anywhere in a National Reserve, but ...

Thanks to all for the great pictures!

We went there for the first time last summer and boy what a revelation it was. This place is really cool, and like you say, it's not too far from Salt Lake. There's no boondocking, but there is a great variety of primitive campsites, ranging walk-in tent sites to pull-throughs suitable for RVs. Many are very private and most have great views.