agesilaus

Utah Hwy 95 from Hanksville to Blanding Utah (and then to Cortez).This is east exit from Capitol Reef via Hwy 24. Spectacular canyon thru red rock walls that equal Capitol Reef. Turn offs to Hite and Bull Frog Marina both have fuel, otherwise it's 125 miles of no service. I just noticed on the map that this borders the new Bears Eyes NM which is on the east side of the road. Also goes by Natural Bridges. East end is part of the Trail of Ancients with some ruins. Also Hwy 261 to Moki Dugway branches off with many boondocking spots for many miles of road. Including one of our top five spots. Bottom of Moki is Valley of Gods and road to Mexican Hat/Monument Valley and to Goosenecks SP. Bears ears is on our todo list. 2) CO Hwy 141 which comes off of Hwy 50 south of Grand Junction running west then turning south to Naturita CO. Continues south but we did not go that way. This is not really a road to anywhere but is is bordered by a large river and giant cliffs to a mesa on the south side of the west leg. Cliffs reminded me of Yosemite and we drove it in a light rain and there were many waterfalls off the mesa top. There are reportedly many camping spots on top of the mesa which is NF land. Some NF camps and boondocking. South side of mesa is a uranium mining district with active mines. You can get to the top of the mesa via several access roads, which we did not take. It's on my list of spots to revisit.

Hard to believe that they cannot do that now in most states. The owner demands that they leave and the police will escort them off the property. Like the couple in CO who got the bums rush for having a package delivered to the park.

OK we are back at our home base for three weeks for the grandkid hit. That's in North Florida. One the way back we spent a night maybe seven miles from the shore in Gulfport Alabama area, and then spent three days on the beach on the Florida panhandle and could have spent a month. This place was a five minute walk from jumping in the water from the white sand beach. And a shell covered mud bottomed beach was maybe two minutes away. And for those interested Mexico Beach seems to be fully recovered but St Joseph Peninsula SP is not even close, just a beach open there, the rest of the park barricaded off. And out going in mid June I have reservations at a Georgia State Park, and then three COE cg, and could have camped inside Mammoth Caves park except they have a 25 ft limit on the open sites. Normally I do not make reservations but do for state parks and COE sites. And mostly do not even try NP. Georgia State parks seem to be fairly open. Cannot say that for Florida State parks tho, they are almost always full. Snowbirds in the winter, residents in the warm season. Most cg had lots of open spots. The one near Gulfport, Azalia something cg was maybe 1/4 full. It's a nice new camp with lots of room between sites. For our 7000 mile spring loop we almost never had any problems getting a spot calling ahead an hour or two before we got there. Maybe two or three times we got the we are full answer but always got the second choice. So the crunch is, as always, around National parks and popular state parks like Custer in SD. And almost always you can boondock around those

Anyone using the Spot-X or other system and how do you like it. When I looked at the Garmin a couple of years ago it had lackluster reviews, lots of people saying it didn't always work. That may have changed tho. After our night out in Bryce we are beefing up our emergency gear.

Think this was discussed months ago but now it is going into effect, for an indefinite time period: Park Access until rescinded

When you lie down with dogs, expect fleas.

I bought 15 ft of extension cable from amazon, there are several different types so compare the photos with yours and buy the same type, or buy it from the manufacturer of your system. I don't think attenuation counterbalances increased height, it didn't on my system.

We were in Cortez a week ago. You are experiencing late spring in the mountains nothing surprising. Do you have a cell phone booster with an external antenna? Ours is on an extensible pole but we have not had to run the pole up yet. The antenna is about 11 ft up in the lowered position. Have had a cell phone signal everywhere we stoppeed so far, including rather surprising spots.

We had 3 inches of sleet/hail yesterday in northern NM, the cg folks here in Amarillo said they got it here too.

Yes we know there were restrictions but they did not seem to be in effect when we were there several weeks ago. They just waved that big toy hauler thru. I just did the obvious and looked at the Zion page Tunnel Restrictions And they seem to be in effect but were not on the day we were there. That toy hauler is 13'5" high but that page says: So too high and at 36 ft long plus 20 feet of truck probably too long. No measuring occurred by the friendly park ranger either.

We spent a week back there and there were maybe 20 campers in the first mile or so. We stopped there and had a large area off the road with us and two others. Not overcrowded.

When did that happen?

On our way out of Zion a couple weeks ago we got behind a huge Attitude fiver toy hauler, looked like it was 15 ft high from right behind, but is only 13'5" according to the specs. Anyway I thought we would have to wait for the trafffic stopping and escort rigamarole but no the ranger just waved him thru. The ranger said to us as we passed her: "I hope he makes it!" Have they done away with the tunnel restrictions? They were doing one way traffic both coming and going but that fiver did not hug the center line. He wizzed around the turns and almost ended on his side once when he hit the curb and kicked up the right side of the fiver once but made it down OK.

I think that is a major factor, in some states school is not in session and has not been for months. And we see a lot of school age kids camping in some areas. Hopefully the return to normal with put them back in school and out of the campgrounds. We saw one full in the FL Panhandle when we set out in mid March but I thought it might be the snowbird migration going back north, found a spot a mile down the road. Yeah going thru Valley Of The Gods in UT we saw all sorts of car campers, newbies in tents, I assume. But they are finding out prime camping areas somewhere. We had several show up every night at the top of the Moki Dugway. They aren't well educated in camping protocol.

LP runs $2.59/gal in central FL. I fill a 30# tank at about 7 gal at around $18. Kirk if you 30# tank holds that small an amount iot probably need to be vented. The guy who fills the tank back in FL gaive me a lecture about the evils of carrying the tank on it's side which he says causes air to get in the tank and reduces capacity. At least that's how he explained it.

Well I must have missed them on the way up, did not see one grade sign. I didn't notice their lack until later than. @will There are scads of Boondockers, went thru Valley of the Gods a couple days ago, I lost track at 25. And never saw more than one or two before. I wonder if we are partially the cause, I know me and others have been mentioning VOG as a camp here. So have we lured them in? Most other boondocking sites have been semi mobbed this year. But we have had no problems getting a spot so far this trip. CG are full but the often are. But then we have spent more time outside big NP this trip. But I have become much less willing to share sites unless they are well known already. We are off to "Whittington Center" in the morning for two days. Reviews are glowing. On our way back east for birthdays and appointments for two or three weeks. Then off to the Escapade.

We are sitting in a campground in South Fork CO and as of now we are the only RV in the place, and driving thru town, which has an extraordinary number of campgrounds, most seem to be darn near empty. I guess there must be a camping season here that is just starting up tho there is no snow in sight. Plenty up Wolf Creek Pass. Speaking of which I diod not see one 'grade sign' all the way up and down. You know 8% grade ahead. So I assume they engineered it to be 4% or less. Quite a mild pass compared to lots of others. We spent 2 weeks here last June and the place was anything but empty. Just overnight now.

I'll say we often ran into volunteers on many trails over dozens of parks we've been in. Andf they also frequently do the trail interpretive trails talks too.

Right now as I have mentioned before, most of the Ranger staff is vanished, the only two places that you may see one or two is at the entry gate and the visitor center, if it is open. In weeks at South Rim, Zion and Bryce we never once saw any Rangers other than those two spots and at South Rim the visitors center was manned by ONE ranger at a table outside the closed Visitor Center. And we also visited other smaller parks like Saguaro and Guadeloupe with likewise no rangers in sight. I am certain that there must be dozens of Rangers assigned to those major parks, plus summer volunteers (who may well be laid off) but where they were hiding is an open question They admitted that trail hasn't been visited by a ranger for 9 months. Throwing money at bad management does not fix any problems. The rule in business and the military is to reinforce success and starve failure. And the NPS in many ways represents the latter. Once again I'll say that my errors were the major issue compounded by the park's. Hopefully the admin being forced to drop masks will return park life back to normal.

I suppose you could put it on a flatbed semi, but normally people pay someone to drive it.

Really? I made a reservation for a non-NM COE park sitting at the check in station in my car but I guess rules may vary.

OK we scouted out the major Bryce Canyon west side boondocking areas. Starting from the west: 1) Losee/Casto canyon rd: The report on FreeCampsites suggest using a gravel pit on the left. We looked in and would not use that, there are heavy equipment parked in there and it seems to be in use. Continue down the road and you will see some areas on the left that are being used. FR121: There are some sites maybe a half mile down the road but they are busy, after the first couple of sites the road deteriorates but there are folks camping down there. May want to check it out first FR117/Toms Best Springs RD: Drove in about 3 miles, this is the most popular road right now. Lots of campers but lots of room too. East Fork of the Sevier: Near the beginning of this road into the NF there is a block of BLM land, I suppose you could camp there if you found a spot. Otherwise the NF has provided marked and numbered Dispersed Camping sites. The first on is way back down the road 6 or 7 miles. We drove down to site 4 and gave up, there are ten in all. Four is excellent, right on the creek but is somewhere around nine miles back, I lost track of the odometer. Good spots but way back. The road is a good gravel road tho. I saw a lot of campers parked in various turnouts on Hwy 12 they seem to be camped there. Note Sunrise CG in Bryce is First Come, you may want to check that and the NF Red Canyon CG is open too. FR 117 probably the most promising Note the land west of Red Canyon is all BLM land but there seems to be limited access.

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Get Freecampsites.net and that will show you a number of good boondocking sites. I will say that boondocking is getting very popular this year, big crowds in many of the publically known spots. We have camped outside both Tetons and YNP in the last two years. And probably will do so again this summer after the Escapade. You may want to look us up at the Escapade..

Who are you people addressing this to? I freely admit my errors, and the only change I called for in the trail was the addition of one single sign at a four way intersection. I never called for handrails, pavement, or the installation of a ranger post to guide wayward hikers. One sign, 'Swamp Canyon Loop' and an arrow. Geez. We had already completed 2 1/2 miles of the 4 mile hike and that one little sign would have pointed us on towards completion of the last 1 1/2 miles. Especially since they knew there is a problem. ++++++