Mathews Arm Campground Shenandoah NP

[Ladyhawke91]

We are planning a trip to Mathews Arm campground in October but this will be our first time campings without water and electric hook ups. We will be arriving late Friday night and staying until Sunday afternoon. I'm looking for any tips, tricks, or advice for the newbie wannabe dry camper on this short trip.

We have led lights in the camper already so we may be one step ahead in that department. Going in October, it may be cooler and I understand that using the furnace may kill our battery sooner rather than later due to the fan (we only have one battery) so I'll be taking extra bedding to keep warm at night. I have a question about water...we will be traveling about 80 miles from home. I believe (and still need to research) that there are water faucets at the campground for filling up tanks but should we just fill up at home?

Again, any tips, tricks, or advice are welcomed.

[RGar974417]

The best thing to do is add another battery. I have done a week without hookups no problem with 2 batteries.Here's another trick to stay warm.Put a large pot of water on the stove and turn on the burner.The water will add humidity which will make you feel warmer.Crack a window or vent when doing so.

[Ladyhawke91]

Thank you everyone for your replies. Good advice!

[Sailordive]

The pads are all asphalt but many are far from level. Take time to pick a site which will make you happy.

[wbwood]

We are nowhere near experts on the subject and have only drycamped a couple times. But, as a somewhat newbie, I can say, don't worry about it. However, here is what I would do.

- Fill up at home. The extra weight is null, unless you are overweight on your setup or too close for comfort. What happens if you get there and the water is out or is bad? Some places have stinky water. Also look at your tanks. What size are they? Our fresh is 40 gallons and our gray and black are about 30 gallons each. So we will need almost 60 gallons of fresh when we empty. We can either add some extra to the tanks (more than likely the black) before we leave or we can carry some extra water in containers, which is what we do. We have a couple of 6 gallon containers that we fill up at home and take with us. With what's in the tanks already, we are just under that 60 gallons for dumping purposes.

- Take the extra blankets and use those as much as you can. Get something like a Mr Heater Buddy protable heater. Run it right before bed to warm up the place and then again in the morning when you wake up.

- Be careful with your electric usage, especially with just one battery. Even though you have LED's, doesn't mean you should run your lights and other things alot. The fridge panel requires some DC as does your LP detector. Take a multimeter with you and keep an eye on the level of your batteries. Make sure you have one of those 12 volt charts and don't go under 50% (12.06 volts). We just dry camped this weekend and have 2 batteries. Both fully charged. Only some lights (LED), waterpump (no showers at the time), fantastic fan usage (light) fridge panel and LP detector, we were down to 60% overnight. We have the generator and ran it for an hour or so in the morning and charged the batteries back up. The next night, we only ran down to about 80% because we didn't run the fantastic fans. We have a 100 watt solar panel suticase and wish we had taken it with us. The weather was nice. Was supposed to rain, but never did. We also have solar lights that we use inside. They work great and do not drain the batteries in the MH.

[RoyB]

We camp all the time up on the SKYLINE drive and do just fine. I am already setup however with additional batteries and will run my 2KW generator each morning when allowed to run it to recharge my battery bank. My battery bank drops down to around 12.0VDC around 8Am in the mornings after running a pretty heavy drain on then from the 6PM to 11PM time frame.

My trailer is setup with LED lights and has the smart mode PD9260C converter/charger unit installed to maintain my batteries. I plug the trailer directly into my 120VAC receptacle on the 2KW Honda Generator using a RV30A to 15A long adapter from WALMART.

We always camp at the other end of the skyline drive at LOFT MTN. The Big Meadows in the center wa always too full of people for us. Never camped at Mathews Arm but have visited it a few times. It is the smallest of the three main camping areas.

Another really good spot just off the Blue Ridge close to the SOUTH END of the SKYLINE Drive is a place called SHERANDO LAKES that is a really great camping spot. It has both NO HOOKUPS and also electric sites...

All of these places were first built for TENT CAMPING along the SKYLINE DRIVE and BLUE RIDGE PARKWAY and for me I'm glad they have stayed with the NO HOOKUPS. We are avid TENT campers from back in the early 60s and this is where we go to do this style of camping.

Our back up heater for the POPUP is one of those MR HEATERS propane canisters type. As long as you use this in a vented fashion they are safe to use. I crack open the sky VENT on my POPUP trailer and it sits right under it on a shelf arrangement. I also have to sit it in a metal tray of some sort as alot of water gets generated from burning the propane. Some folks will not even think about using the MR HEATER Propane heaters as they are dangerous to use in an air tight trailer. You just don't wake up the next morning...

You will be just fine with blankets... we enjoy that as well...

Makes that first cup of good ole fresh ground and brewed BEAN COFFEE taste sooooo good...

Roy Ken

[dahkota]

We fill up at home but there are water spigots in the campground.
Chances are, at that time of year, you will need your heater in the morning. If the worst happens and you kill your battery, you can hook the 6 pin up to your tow vehicle and run that briefly.
There are a lot of trees in Matthews Arm but if you have a choice, pick the sunniest spot you can - the sun will heat up the tt nicely in the morning so you would need the heat less.
Take some firewood - you can always sit around that in the morning.
We used to camp in Shenandoah a lot during October with our tt (before fulltiming). Absolutely beautiful and worth it. Just use your tt as a fancy tent.:)
I hope you have a great time!