Camping on Public Land for Just One Night

   We’re still on our way to Seattle and then hopefully to Alaska but we’re not in much of a hurry so we’ve been taking some pretty remote back roads – Route 140 through northwest Nevada and south central Oregon and then north on Route 31 in Oregon-beautiful!. Almost all of the country that we’ve been traveling through is BLM or national forest land. Finding a camping spot is easy in the western US because so much of the land is public. The forests have plateaus and trees are widely spaced. There are dirt roads everywhere.

   But a few tips if you want to try boondocking. Get some good maps. I have a map published by the Bureau of Land Management that shows all of their land. It’s old and not very detailed. I really need to get a new one but it works for now. I also use a Rand McNally road map to locate national forest. This isn’t very good either. It would be much better to get maps at each forest’s visitor center especially if you’re going to boondock deep in the forest. Since we only want a good spot for one night my poor maps work fine. First I check to make sure that we’re on public land. Sometimes it very easy because there are signs! Other things to look for are forest road markers – little brown ones with numbers , gates with signs requesting that they be closed behind you ( BLM grazing land) and clues left by previous campers such as fire rings and clearings.

  Update -rules have changed. The forest service is closing many roads to motor vehicles and is only allowing dispersed camping in designated spots within a certain distance from the road. Here's a page of links to the opened roads in each forest- http://www.fs.fed.us/recreation/programs/ohv/ohv_maps.shtml

Each forest is working on a map with the camping spots identified. While looking through the information I found a great map with links to all of the forests and grasslands - Maps

 

   For just one night we rarely travel more than a mile from the main road. Most of the time we can see it from our camp space. When we decide to stop for the day we start looking for a good dirt road- one that is maintained to some degree ,wide enough with no low branches and we drive in until we find a large enough clearing. This might be just off the road or sometimes at the junction of two roads. We’re not too particular because it’s just for one night. Do not drive cross country as this is not legal. It tears up the land which can take decades to recover.

   Our spot for tonight(above) is just off of Route 31. There’s hardly any traffic on Route 31 and even that will disappear when it gets dark. We could drive farther in on the dirt road but it looks like it might rain and we don’t want to get really muddy so this clearing under the trees will be perfect.