I’m not a huge fan of official campgrounds. I prefer dispersed camping. Then again I’m not picky. Sometimes good enough is just fine.
I often want nothing more than a place to sit for the night and a place to have a little campfire. Here’s some life advice from the Curmudgeon; never let the desire for “awesome” stop you from having a “not so bad” trip.
Sometimes it’s just fine to park my ass at a campsite and forget all about the glorious, multi-week, outback trip that ‘aint in the cards at the moment. So, campsites have a place.
I bitch about the $25 (or whatever) fee but it’s worth it. I can set my tent up in 90 seconds (not exaggerating!) and my cot and mattress are the kind of luxury no backpacker has ever seen. I’ll grumble about a crowded campsite and then half an hour later realize I’m fat and happy sitting a tree somewhere and it’s all good. (With the exception of Yellowstone National Park. The cretins that run YP Campsites are just plain assholes! I dunno why that particular place sucks so bad? I assume they they breed their parkies in a pit of smug. A haughty obnoxious breed; formed from the clay of failed dreams and beaten hourly with a book of regulations regulations, they’re simply detestible in behavior and attitude. Yellowstone unleashes the most sexually repressed, humorless, badge sniffing, power tripping, fucknuts they can find. On who? On poor innocent tenters who just want to look at the pretty scenery. If all the parks in the Nation got together and had a competition over who’s staff had the most humorless pretentious fucksticks… the Yellowstone guys would be out in the parking lot writing up parking tickets.)
Anyway, parks generally don’t like you bringing your own firewood and I get that. It’s one of the few rules I actually accept as not some evil illuminati plan to rule the world. They’re attempting (mostly futilely) to cut back on invasive pests in forestland. No shit, that’s a thing. Historically it’s stuff like Dutch Elm Disease, Chestnut Blight, and White Pine Blister Rust. For those, the horse already left the barn. Right now, at least out East… there’s Emerald Ash Borer. I seem to recall a pine borer in the Black Hills too… though I forget the entomology at play with that one. Anyway, shit happens when you pick up stuff from one place and move it somewhere else. I don’t want to cause it.
I’m old enough to remember parks just having a pile of wood hanging around. Detritus from whatever landscaping and hazard tree removal they’d done. That was nice. “A tree fell across the bike path and we chopped it up. There’s a pile out yonder. Grab what you need.” My youth must have been an innocent time because that’s long gone. Now, parks charge ridiculous fees for a little bit of wood. Seven bucks for an armload? The market rate is $150 a cord! Seven bucks for a handful of sticks when a C-note will buy a chest high wall running 16′ linear feet? The mind boggles. Camping is historically supposed to be a good option when you’re poor; count on bureaucracies to mess that up.
I found a personal solution. I started by rooting through my scrap heap and found kiln dried dimension lumber. Aint’ no bugs in that. I also scrounged some pallets (which are also kiln dried and milled). This is all (as far as I can tell) totally allowed.
Here’s some scrounged raw materials:
Pallets pretty much suck in raw form. You need to disassemble the mess and get all the nails out without somehow stepping on one and getting tetanus. Good luck. I figure about 1/3 of the pallet stock was just too messy. I chucked that portion back in the pile. For the rest, I whacked the pallet stock into nice little chunks; carefully removing any hint of a nail. They’re all bone dry. There’s not a nail, nor a staple, nor anything else left. Any hint of crap and the piece got chucked. I wound up with perfect little bits of fuel for a Curmudgeon looking to percolate his coffee.
I sprung for a clean new trash can (park people are tense about such things so I’ll keep everything real clean).
I’m not sure how to strap the can in my truck without having the lid blow off. I’ll improvise and report back if it worked.
It ought to be enough for several little campfires. I’m feeling pretty clever about it. Now I’m off to kick back and read a book by the fire. Where? Anywhere but Yellowstone, because fuck those guys.
Poor ol’ Yellowstone has those bison thingies that stick people and make them dead. And no shortage of shithole hive swill tourists who think they are pets! So of course those park rangers are a little “special”…
Ever think of doing a shout out to your readership to see if anyone has private land they would let you camp on? Also, look at regulations on BLM and State land near you. In a lot of cases they are less crowded, can be just as beautiful and while you should follow any rules concerning overnight camping, the likelihood of anyone checking up on you tends to be remote.
Bonus for flat wood: you can write nasty things on it about the Yellowstone thugs and burn it ala Gaia-huggers making spiritual offerings.
I left Yellowstone early after being threatened with still another $100 fine the last time I stayed in the park. Now I camp outside and go into the park to see the sites.
What the fuck is wrong with Yellowstone? It’s like the worst badge sniffing fucktards were organized by Dolores Umbridge and shipped to Wyoming.
I just spent a few days in a generic state park and I didn’t see an employee all weekend. Proof that Yellowstone is over staffed. At the basically unstaffed state park, everything was fine and everything worked and everyone was happy. You can’t spend an hour in Yellowstone without an official sticking his nose up your ass.
From someone who’s hauled a lot of garbage- run a good bungee cord (I said GOOD. Not one of those rubber abominations) over the lid, through both handles and hooked together, again over the top of the lid. Then tie the can upright into a corner of the truck bed. Don’t use rope to tie the lid down; if the lid can get loose at all the wind will do the rest.
That should take care of you.
I did a 3 day test run with cheap bailing twine. It worked but I’ll seek to upgrade.
Your knot tying ability must be superior to mine lol.
I don’t know about that. I could be lucky.
Easiest way to deal with pallets is to just use a circular saw and cut out the clear sections. Save the gnarly nailed parts for your own backyard firepit.
It’s also an easy way to process pallets for shelving. Cuts the planks into about 18 inch pieces, perfect depth for garage or (building) shed shelves.
For heavier wood for actual construction, equipment pallets will give you 2×4 or 2×6, but you have to deal with the damned nails.
As to Yellowstone, maybe it’s because they’re just all the assholes that got kicked out of all the other park ranger positions but couldn’t be fired?
I used a radial arm saw to lop out the nail laden parts. It’s pretty quick that way.
Either a good bungee as stated before, or those plastic “zip ties”.
I always have a bunch of those around
I surprised myself with an experiment. I ran 2,000+ miles and the lid was tied down with a scrap of bailing twine. I expected it wouldn’t work. I was shocked to see that it worked just fine. I’ve no idea if that’s a reliable solution or I was lucky.
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Australian reader, so things are slightly different here, but our bureaucrats use the “lived experience” of their overseas counterparts as training manuals . . . An odd anecdote – for some very strange reason, we seem to have a lot of American females employed as Rangers and field officers in our National Parks service, especially the National Parks close to the major cities. My goodness, they tend to be arseholes too.
Regarding pallets – ours are treated with some pretty hideously toxic compounds to prevent insect & fungus attack. Unless you wanted to grow a second head, don’t burn Australian pallets !
I check pallet wood carefully. Some is treated but most isn’t. The danger is the million ways to get stabbed by all the staples and nails. It is easy to fill my traveling trash can with plenty of very useful wood but I’m picky. I toss about 50% of the “raw” pallet wood I start with.
I have a bad attitude about “rangers” but I’m noticing fewer and fewer of them around to hassle me. With online registration it seems like they’re less “necessary”. Twice this year I’ve camped a plain vanilla campsite and never interacted with a single human being on any payroll. I’m liking that new angle on things.
If yer up to the trek thru Canaderp, I’ve got 40 acres you’re welcome to camp on anytime.
Thanks! I’m avoiding borders until both sides calm the fuck down but I will someday camp in Canada again. Y’all have better fishing!
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