Dry Camping for weeks

[kempert]

I'm giving the TM a big test. I took on the task of campground host on the Grey's River in western WY. After over 3 weeks all has gone well with the TM (5 weeks to go). I use the pit toilet (usually not smelly unlike back East) most of the time as it's 14 miles on a dirt road to the nearest dump station. Since I'm in the forest, I thought that solar panels wouldn't work so I use a generator about every other day because of the furnace at night. It has rained, snowed, and sleeted more than once and more than 24 hours at a time. I do get a slow leak out of my AC every now and then but no big deal. We got hit by a big wind storm on Wednesday while I was away and the only thing it did was move one of the supports to my awning (which I do not attach to the side of the TM). All around the TM there were trees over 12" in diameter that had snapped!

The scenery here is awe inspiring and there is lots of wildlife. Gotta go running out of time on the net.

[kempert]

Well, I got back to Richmond just as it got into the upper 90s with high humidity. Quite a bit different from the dry, coolness of the mountains of western WY. My 2 months of dry camping on the Grey's River was a pure pleasure. There are not enough words to begin to explain what it was like there. The Grey's is about 60 miles long and you can drive the entire length on a dirt road that is now in pretty good shape for the entire distance. Not to mention the many side roads that lead to idyllic places.

I was a campground host for the USFS at Murphy Creek campground which is 14 miles upstream from where the Grey's flows into the Snake at Alpine, WY near the eastern boundary of ID. The Forest Service is pretty laid back with people who are great to work with. The only hook-up that I had was water which I put in the storage tank. I decided not to use the city water connection due to the extremely high water pressure. It was a gravity fed system that came from a spring that was almost a mile away, several hundred feet higher in altitude. When I hooked up a garden hose to the campground spigot, I could shoot water over 75'.

I used propane for the frig, cooking, and heat (it was below 50 every night but 3) but didn't use my TM tanks most of the time. Because of the horizontal tanks on my 2720SL, I unhooked one hose and connected it to a tank on the ground. When that tank ran out, I switched over to one of the TM tanks until I replaced the one on the ground (which I only had to do 3 times).

I used my generator about once every 3 days to recharge the battery which ran the lights, water pump, and furnace fan. As most people have noted, the furnace fan is noisy but after several weeks, I finally got to where it didn't wake me when it came on.

I used the toilet in the TM very little as the vault toilets were clean (my main duty which was very easy to do). I only used my toilet when I woke up in the middle of the night. It never got over the 3/4 mark and an odor never developed. I used 2 packets of the Thetford blue powder. As a matter of fact, I went to Yellowstone for 3 days and when I opened the door on my return, the only thing that I could smell was some apples that I forgot were in the storage area under the back bed.

I'll fill in more details and try to post some pictures when I get a chance.

[B_and_D]

That sounds like a wonderful camping experience. Please post pics when you get a chance. Sounds like somewhere we'd like to go. 60 miles of dirt road! Awesome!

Thanks for your post, Kempert - someday we want to try camphosting for the Forest Service, so I found it very interesting.

Not to get too off track here, but given that you were the host of a campground, perhaps you could enlighten me on the rules/ethics of dumping gray water into the vault toilets. I have been to campgrounds where this was specifically allowed, most do not mention it, and at one they actually requested that we dump our gray water at the bases of their newly-planted trees (and this was in Colorado!).

What was the policy where you hosted, and as the person in charge of the vault toilet, do you see the extra water as helpful because it liquifies the vault contents or a problem because it fills it up too quickly?

Again, I hope this isn't too off-track, but it is a boondocking question that you may know quite a bit about. And don't worry - I realize that you do not represent the USFS and that your answer is not legally-binding.

[kempert]

B & D -

There are a number of side roads that are not as well-maintained as Grey's River Road but offer spectacular scenery. Some are dead end roads such as the roads up Blind Bull and Deadman Creeks. Others such as Sheep Creek Road lead out of the National Forest lands to outside communities.

[kempert]

utahsue -

Good question - the short answer is that I can't imagine any problem with putting your gray water in the vault toilets. One of the senior FS workers told me that he had never heard of there being a problem with a camp host letting it trickle slowly into the ground. Again, I found most of the officials in WY to be very laid back.

I greatly reduced the amount of gray water by taking outdoor showers. This was easy to do most days as the campground was empty most afternoons and I had plenty of direct sunlight at that time (for warmth). I bought a 10 gallon blue tote but never used it.

Thanks for the input, Kempert. As I said, I have seen a variety of regulations on it, but most of the time it is not mentioned at all, so I always wonder what to do.

I do know that if bears or skunks are a problem it may be a bad idea to dump your gray water too close to your camp because of the food and toothpaste residue. I have also heard that some soaps can kill the beneficial bacteria in the vault toilet, but having lived with a septic tank for a good part of my life I find that one hard to believe.

Anyway, I'm glad to hear that hosting with a TM was a good experience, and also that you only ran the generator once every three days. I have been running mine an hour a day, but I don't really know if that's the right amount because I just got it and am still experimenting.

As for outdoor showers, been there, done that, BEEN SEEN. It never fails that someone will show up as soon as I try to get away with something like that. Just ask the hot air balloonists in my last neighborhood (those things are really quiet).

[kempert]

I hadn't thought about hot air ballons. I had to watch for rafters and kayakers. They were very interesting in that some came down the river making a lot of noise and others could only be seen. I'm sure that some went by that I never saw.