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Portage Valley Boondocking
We had a gloomy rainy week in Portage Valley, but I won’t complain. As I write, the town of Jasper and Jasper NP in Alberta are burning in a horrendous wildfire, the Alaska Highway is closed in both directions in BC due to flooding and washout, and the road in and out of Skagway in SE Alaska is closed in both directions due to a landslide. We’ve been incredibly fortunate so far. Portage Valley is a small part of the almost 7 million-acre Chugach National Forest that stretches from the Kenai Peninsula to the Copper River Delta past Valdez. We were about 15 minutes from the Turnagain Arm, so we…
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One Week of Summer in Cooper Landing, AK
We spent what was possibly our only week of summer weather hiking and paddling near the little town of Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula. The shorts and sandals even made an appearance. Being near the confluence of the Kenai and Russian Rivers, Cooper Landing is known for fishing. But a boondocking spot on Upper Trail Lake brought us to the area. Alaska is very boondocking friendly but most boondocking sites near tourist areas are just roadside pullouts. That’s fine for a night, but not what we want to do for a week. Upper Trail Lake was off the road and lakefront and big rig friendly. We were entertained by…
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South Dakota’s Badlands & Black Hills
We had two great weeks in South Dakota. The weather has a huge effect on how much we like an area and it was absolutely beautiful when we visited in mid-September. We started out in the town of Deadwood in the northern Black Hills, dry camping Saturday night in the Days of ’76 museum parking lot which was not free but was within walking distance of all the action. Deadwood is an old mining town notorious for its lawlessness and is still packed with bars and casinos. We watched an entertaining show at Saloon No. 10, where Wild Bill was gambling the night he was killed. The show ended with…
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Twin Lakes To Dillon Lake, CO
After our stay in Colorado Springs, we moved back into the mountains just ~35 miles north of where we’d been previously near Buena Vista. I found a boondocking spot overlooking Twin Lakes that is going to be hard to beat. This was free dispersed camping in the San Isabel National Forest off county road 24 at an elevation of 9,700ft! We had unbelievable views of the lakes and the highest peak in Colorado, Mount Elbert (14,439ft). The flip side was this was the worst spur road we’ve ever taken the trailer on and I spent the week wondering how we were going to get out. But of course, Michael maneuvered…
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Boondocking In Buena Vista, CO
We spent the workweek before Memorial Day boondocking in a meadow in the San Isabel National Forest. Our spot was on Forest Road 274 between the Arkansas River towns of Salida and Buena Vista. This was an ideal spot because the road was in great condition (in terms of Forest Service Roads), we had an open sky for solar and Starlink, and we were minutes away from hiking trails and cute towns. And until the views that we have at our current spot, these were some of the best views we’ve ever had from a campsite. We could see two snow-capped 14ers, Mount Princeton on one side and Mount Antero…
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Enchanted By Santa Fe, NM
Santa Fe is the place we’ve been most excited to visit in the “Land of Enchantment” state. I was probably primed to love Santa Fe by my Grandma. It was one of her favorite places and she even decided to become Catholic while visiting one of the churches as a young adult. Now that we’ve visited several of them, I wish I could ask her more about it. We spent the second week of October boondocking in the Santa Fe National Forest, a mere 15 minutes from downtown. This free spot seemed almost too good to be true. Santa Fe is such a beautiful, historic, and multicultural city. Its Pueblo…
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Finding Fall In Southwest Colorado
Visiting Mesa Verde National Park, located in the southwest corner of Colorado, was a last-minute idea. I’d been researching our 2023 route, which may include a late spring visit to Colorado, and realized the ranger-led tours of the cliff dwellings would not yet be open for the season. We found a great boondocking spot on Forest Rd 316 in the San Juan National Forest, halfway between Mesa Verde NP and Durango. It was the first week of October and the little oak trees around us were turning colors and we could see snowy peaks out in the distance. Unfortunately, it rained almost the entire week, which kept us stuck inside…
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Capitol Reef National Park
Capitol Reef is located in the red rock country of south-central Utah. We think its remoteness, rather than lack of beauty, is what makes it one of the least visited of Utah’s 5 National Parks. Several people have told us it’s their favorite in Utah (we struggle with ranking them but think it’s our second, behind Zion). We scored a fantastic free boondocking spot on Beas Lewis Flat Road 10 miles west of the park’s entrance. We visited the 3rd week of September and had perfect weather temperature-wise, but were a bit too early because of a persistent monsoon season. Some roads were closed from a storm the weekend before…
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Death Valley National Park & Mohave National Preserve, CA
On the last Friday of January, we headed to Death Valley National Park. We had inched closer the night before and stayed an hour away at Preferred RV Park in Pahrump, NV to do chores. Knowing there was no internet, we only planned to stay for the weekend and explore the popular Furnace Creek area. The highest temperature ever recorded on earth was 134F at Furnace Creek, so January was a good time to visit. Neither of us had heard much about Death Valley and we didn’t have many expectations, but we really enjoyed this park! Death Valley didn’t end up being as scary as it sounds, but maybe that’s…
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Lake Mead, Las Vegas, & More Red Rocks, NV
There are a lot of camping options of every type at Lake Mead National Recreation Area. We settled into a spot at Government Wash, a popular and free (with a National Parks Pass) dispersed camping area close to Las Vegas, planning to stay for 2 weeks. In Nevada, we are now on Pacific Time and will be for the next few months. Michael works Eastern Time hours. This works perfectly for us since we are morning people anyway and this schedule gives us enough daylight hours to explore in the afternoon before the sun sets around 5 pm. The first thing we had to do was check out the Hoover…
