I am new to overlanding but a long time backpacker. The only epic campsites that I know involves hours of hiking. It would be nice to have a thread that compiles great campsites and the trail leading to it. I know finding a route and a campsite is half the fun but for a weekend overlander like me, this information would be so valuable. Especially if it includes trail data (whether it can be traversed by 2WD/4WD/or if a high clearance, heavily modified vehicle is needed) and location.
Is this reasonable? Or do people keep “epic campsites” secret to keep it “epic”?
The problem withwhat you ask is that we gather here from all over the world. Digging through posts to find that one "Epic" campground that you can actually drive to on your weekend would be very time consuming. There is a section broken down by region for trails, with gps cordinates, waysites, and gps markers wich making finding that "Epic" trail possibble, then you find "your" perfect camp spot. What is epic to you might be less than perfect to me.
Story time:
I am anvid weekend back country explorer. During the summer time you only find me in civilization on the weekend on my restocking weekend (usually the 1st weekend of the month), the rest of the time I am deep in the woods exploring some old logging road looking for that ever elusive "Epic" trail or campsite. Last summer I spent most of my time in one small area where I grew up elk hunting and exploring with my grandpa, while sharing my past with my wife, kids, and a family I was really close to.
The other family was going through a hard time, so they had all the time durring the week to explore. So they would go out every evening hunting mushrooms, berries, but most I portantly a place to set up a base camp for exploring on the weekend when we would be able to join them. Usually they chose decent, not perfect, but decent, camp sites.
On this particular day I though we were going to camp at the "Epic" camp spot we had found the weekend before. But as we were cruising down the road, we drove right on past the turn off. I got on the radio and asked why they had gone on past. My friend told me he found a "better" place to set up camp a few miles up the road.
After about an hour of eating dust, I round a corner and I cant see any vehicles or dust in front of me. He tells me to back up to the corner and look for the wood cutting road off to my left and fallow it to the end.
I turn down the old overgrown wood cutting road, bouncing over stumps, splashing through a couple of puddles, and climb a narly hill. The road was very fun to drive, but it ended at the top of the hill.
When I arrived, he had already got his tent set up and his little kids were out gathering wood for the cook fire. He was setting up the kitchen. I pulled my Bronco in behind his truck and my family got out to explore and evaluate where to set up our tents. I spent close to an hour walking the hillside looking for a levelish spot to put my tent with out big rocks, tree roots, or other back injuring debris to no avail. I ended up finding a spot that was level enough that my backpack only slid about 2 feet instead of 20 yards when I set it on the ground. Unfortunately there was also a huge rock in the middle of the spot, so down the mountain I went to retrieve the shovel out of the Bronco.
I got back up to the tent spot, spent about an hour digging up the rock and setting up my tent. The whole time complaining that this was an awful camp site. My friend and his wife kept raving about how great this spot was.
Finally after 2 hours I had a spot to sleep, so I could turn my attention to getting my teen aged wolves (children) fed. Only to find my cooler ransacked by creatures with little hands and feet. His kids had gotten into all the coolers and dumped all the drinking water out, grubbed on raw hotdogs, and spilled chips everywhere. The onlything untouched was the oatmeal.
So what does a good dad do when his family is hungry and the weekend food supplynis destroyed and the water is all gone? Why he grabs his .22 rifle and goes rabbit hunting. after a few short minutes I scare up a rabbit, and not to far down the trail I got a couple of squirls. I saw a streem on my way in, so I filled up my camelback full of water and returned to camp.
Back at camp my wife and I whent to work making rabbit and squirl stew. (Couldn't let my daughter know what we were eating though because shes a city girl and can barely stand eating chicken).
Finally dinner is served, the evening weens into night, the birds stopped singing, and the crickets start thier lullabies. This is my que its time for bed. We tredge up the hill to the tent and caalapse into our sleeping bags.
I wake up the next morning smelling rubber. I unzip the door to the tent and see a brand new 32" tire stairing back at me. We had slid all the way back down the hill to the bronco.
My back hurt like crazy, my wife's back wasn't much better. The teens were grumpy, (I found out later they couldn't get comfortable because of the rocky ground) and starving. We were going to scrounge up brakefast, but had to wait on my friends wife to get back from town. She was picking up some of her friends, along with more food and water.
The girls wanted to go swimming and I wanted to go fishing, so a plan was hatched to go to a swimming hole I knew of from being a kid. After brakefast.... try breakfast at 2 pm... we drive up to my hole. I tell the kids that bellow the road is swimming, and above he road is fishing. I set up my pole and statt my short walk into my old fishing hole only to find kids rolling rocks arround making a dam in my fishing spot. So like a responsible adult I head below he road only to find more kids being kids. Although my eldest daughter and my son love fishing so they had grabbed their poles as well and were looking for a place to cast their lines.
my family got bored real quick, and we wanted to go up the road to hole number 2, one problem...the other two familys parked in such a way that I was blocked in. So my wife, kids and I climed into the Bronco and took a much needed nap.
We woke up to the other two families stoping and yelling as they returned to thier vehicles. My friend asked if we were ready to go and I said yes. They tore out of the parking spot as if some one unloaded a shotgun on them kicking up rocks as they hit the road. My bronco wouldn't start. Tried calling out on the radio no reply. I opened the hod and looked around and couldn't see an obvious problem so climbed back in and saw that my ignition switch had come loose, so tightened it up and we hit the trail.
I drove like a mad man to catch up to the convoy, sliding and fishtailing around a few corners until I came to the main intersection. I slowed it down to reasonable speeds back to camp. But wait, I hit pavement. I drove 4 miles past my corner. I turn around and drive really slow back up the road to find the wood cutting road back to camp. I almost miss it a second time.
We get to camp, the cooking fire is dieing out, all the food is gone again. I habe had enough, pack my gear up, and headed home.
This was the ladt time I talked to my so called friends, and the last time my son was to ever go camping with us as a family. My wife refuses to camp now becausr of this experience and I dont know if my daughter will come out from Colorado to come camping with her dad either.
To this day, my so called friend still thinks this spot is "Epic".
