Long Shadows pointing east in Ashley National Forest.
Elk, Coyote, Deer and Moose were all spotted from here.
Left Starvation Lake SP (which was nice and clean, but not much privacy) and on to…well, to be honest, I’m not sure we even knew.
I know it sounds strange but sometimes that’s just the way it works. Not a lot, but sometimes we get up and we have a general idea of where we’re going, we pick of view places that we shoot for, and one of those might work out, or maybe not.
This was one of those moments. And this time, all of the planets must have been in alignment because though unintended, this spot was a little piece of heaven and absolutely perfect.
Fire Pit View. No problem finding firewood here.
While heading north, the views in this part of Utah were simply gorgeous. We were on the road for about 2 or 3 hours when we passed a sign that said, "Entering Ashley National Forest." Then we started to see forest service roads appearing occasionally. We both knew this might a great opportunity to exercise some boon docking skills.
We picked a forest road and started to explore. Almost as soon as we began, the road turned into a goat path, so we turned around and tried again. Wash, rinse, repeat. It took a few tries but on or about the 4th forest service road, we found a decent candidate and crept along for about a mile before breaking out into a gorgeous meadow. The presence of the occasional fire ring was a good indication we were looking in the right area so now where to choose? Many of the possible sites were extremely wet, still being soaked from the melting snows at higher elevations. At one point, we even had to back out of a service road branch as it turned into a mud hole.
We finally found a spot that was pretty dry and set up camp. The site was on a decent slope, so it took some effort to get the rig and the trailer leveled, but we prevailed.
Leveling the truck and trailer was challenging, but successful (and well worth the effort!).
Tracks and Trees. Seem like there are plenty of Elk and Mule Deer here. And everywhere smelled like Christmas!
This site was fairly open and gave us amble opportunity for utilizing the solar on both the truck and trailer as well as the auxiliary panel. We had plenty of power the entire time we were there. The openness also made for great wildlife viewing. Moose, Elk, Mule Deer and even a couple of roaming coyotes were spotted within the first couple of days.
It was very wet here so site opportunities were limited and not always level. We were able to make the most of our solar.
Early morning is always a great time to view wildlife, and this site was no exception. We witnessed a large heard of Elk roam through our site on more than a few occasions.
It was not uncommon for us to see this elk herd come through each morning. Yvette captured this footage from the upper bunk window.
Mule Deer where also frequent visitors.
Just a small part of Ashley National Forest. We were in luck when we chose this forest road!
Sometimes the roads are less than ideal. Gravelly streams in the middle of the roads increase the pucker factor at times. Wet conditions can keep some forest areas closed until late into the season.
Every night there was a campfire. Firewood, in the form of downed and somewhat dried aspen, was fairly available.
Usually a great sunset every night. But all things come to end sooner or later and it's time for us to move on.
Location Update:
Currently we are in Truckee, CA . A great house sit with a great dog. We'll be here about 4 weeks so don't be surprised if I pop out a new post every couple of days until we're current again. Also going to get some videos done and uploaded so stay tuned for that!
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