Jim_Oker

Here's the site I scored the first time I stayed at South campground in Zion NP. It was on the edge toward the Virgin River with some widely spaced walk in tent only sites out below and toward the river(phone panoramic photo is distorted mainking a relatively straight road look like it makes a 90 degree bend). This is a really sweet site.

I've heard City of Rocks is lovely. I want to hit it sometime on my way down to UT but so far haven't been willing to divert quite that far off the superhighway. I've only been as far as Bruneau Dunes (no CG shot but here's a shot from the top of the dunes; the CG in October was very much "boondocking" in the sense used in this thread). As for the night shots, I am using a fairly new full frame low noise sensor with camera on tripod and a tack sharp prime lens with a big maximum aperture. There are some good online tutorials explaining keys to shooting the night sky (often focused on the mikly way but those tips will help with any star shots) including the "500 rule" and so forth. A full frame sensor is not a must but it helps to have a relatively new and not too small sensor so that it won't have an outrageous level of "noise" when shooting at high ISO (like in the ballpark of ISO 3200).

And back on dry camping at established sites, this is the middle of the South campground in Zion NP. I scored this site mid afternoon in early November two years ago. There's not much privacy there but the setting is stunning and it's super convenient to the shuttle buses that take you to the valley as well as to restaurants and other services in Springdale. I've also stayed a night in a well used dispersed camping spot twenty minutes east of Springdale which the info desk rangers there will happily tell you about. The next morning I got in a Friday before holiday weekend (memorial day, not my best timed trip to an NP ever but it was still a fantastic visit) line to score a site here in South which I used for four or five nights back in 2016. South has since been put in the reservation system I think.

Here are a few shots from a yearly group camp and ski long weekend with some ski touring buddies. We are at one of several dispersed camp sites along the North Fork of the Teanaway River just outside of Cle Elum WA. There's a good trailer turnaround at camp Wahoo a bit north of here and its also possible to turn around at the end of the road IF people haven't been parking like idiots there (which is sadly becoming more common in the Cascades). We had no trouble claiming this large site mid week in early May just after the road had melted out but competition gets more fierce in mid summer.

Here's a typical very campable roadside pullout in the Valley of the Gods in southeast Utah. There are also a handful of spur roads with quite sweet sites along them. Nearby Muley Point also has great sites though perhaps more appropriate for a camper van than for a travel trailer (when I was there two years ago I honestly didn't look with "travel trailer" in mind so I'm not sure - it's a funky road to get up there and I'm not sure what turnarounds are like at the top... BUT down in VOTG there are a ton of options and no sweat for any trailer setup that you're willing to take on a dirt road that gets a tad bumpy).

Yeah if I understand it correctly, it's all about getting past that peak startup load in the event that your power source - whatever that is - doesn't provide as many amps as the a/c wants at that peak.

Yeah I get it, and am playing along. I bring up the lexical discussion just in case anyone else has read definitions along the lines of what I'm familiar with, in hopes of helping reduce confusion. And yeah, now and then I end up next to hookups - in my camper van (from which I've removed the water tank in favor of using that under-seat storage space and instead using portable containers...) at most I'll connect to the electric post if I think my battery may not be full from driving. But for the most part those are the campgrounds I use while trying to make time from point a to point b. Most of the "destination" campgrounds I've used have no hookups - Deadhorse Point and also Snow Canyon in UT are among the relatively rare exceptions I can think of (both fantastic spots btw!).

Here's a shot of a "dry camp" site at one of the established campgrounds in Valley of Fire State Park in NV. It was really sweet, tucked into a very private alcove with the only sign of nearby campers around the corner being the light of their fire glowing on the red rock pillars as you see in the shot of the site. I arrived at the park early enough on a Friday to get one of the more sweet (for me at least) sites, even though the CG was already well more than half full. I'd just been in some more remote parts of UT so the busy-ness of VoF was a little startling at times though I could quickly get away from all that just by heading out on some of the great trails there, and even more so by going cross country (with GPS app and downloaded maps just in case!) across the lovely sandstone there. This site was also a lovely refuge from the LA crowds.

I'd always thought "boondocking" referred to dispersed camping - i.e. using places where it's legal to camp but not in an established campground, and campingin a campground w/o hookups was "dry camping." But I'm happy to go with the local flow here on this forum and thread - the point in this threat being places where you'll be happy you have a camper that lets you break free of hookups! Here are a few views from a sweet dispersed site on BLM land just east of Capitol Reef NP off of the Notom Road. There are SO many spots like this near CR and also the Grand Staircase Escalante NM.

Yes, in which information technology is becoming disinformation technology. A lot of the content is in some ways no worse than what was on the National Enquirer front page on newsstands everywhere when I was younger but IT technology has supercharged the impact in ways that make this fundamentally different, I'm afraid.

Thanks - that makes sense. You may find that you use a fair bit of space heater assistance even if your appliances keep working.

I've not spent as much time at altitude as you but I've spent several days and nights in that same range and neither the Dometic fridge nor the Suburban furnace in my van have failed to work. I had some issues with the igniter on the fridge (it's fully manual - a piezo button, and I've had some intermittent problems with it at lower elevation too, which I have easily solved by lighting the pilot with a "wand" style lighter, so I don't know if there was any contribution from elevation though this was particularly common up at ~8-9K at Bryce).

RIght now I90 is bare and wet over Snoqualmie Pass where it's a few degrees above freezing. At peak storm chains were required except AWD/4WD with long delays on the highway. Looks like the coming week will probably have similar ups and downs up there. Looks like there's beautiful white snow turned to slush on the landscape up there. One weather sensor at one of the ski hills was reading about 20" snow pack depth as of mid afternoon today (Saturday). Highway 2 over Stevens Pass is rated (by WS DOT) "Traction Tires Required, Chains required on Vehicles over 10,000 gross vehicle weight. Oversize Vehicles Prohibited." Highway 20 is currently closed through the North Cascades, with an update promised for Monday. It may be closed for the season now.

They can't be charged on 15 amps? Or are you simply wanting faster charging ability (cueing in on word "need")?

Chocks can be used on the wheels on the opposite side of the trailer from where the levelers are (presumably only one side needs raising to get to level on that axis)

Good for her!! Some former colleagues of mine did some good published research work that showed a significant increase in productivity for several typical office work type tasks on a multimonitor setup. It's worth the expense in fairly short order for most employers. My desktop at home has a 24" monitor and a color calibrated high gamut 26" monitor (the color accuracy is important for the photo editing I do with this system). When on the road in my van doing photography, I make do with my laptop for initial culling and "test edits" but I have learned to wait until I get home to do any heavy lifting as on top of it just being significantly more efficient with the two screen setup, I also don't need to redo a bunch of work due to not having a really great color calibrated high gamut monitor (i.e. high range of colors displayed and in a consistent fashion i.e. a given red on two uncalibrated monitors can look quite different but will look the same on calibrated monitors). As for the OP, I also wonder about perhaps replacing both the TV mount as well as the TV in the Elite - i.e. if there's some sort of monitor mount that would drop down and out far enough and hold well enough to work. I'm guessing not - among other things the corner location seems like it would make it tough to get a good ergonomic and securely mounted setup. But I am guessing they reinforce the fiberglass at that mount point... Someday we may be able to get virtual reality goggles that put multiple high resolution monitors in front of you in virtual space. This is a use of the VR tech that a lot of people actually might use. It would be perfect for a small travel trailer.

Speaking of weather...snowfall totals forecast through 7PM Saturday in WA

This is indeed my biggest concern about my notion. I'll be using the camper for a while before settling on a bike plan in part due to this concern. I want to see what our usage patterns are. If we want to use the bikes in the near term (less likely due to our getting the camper in late December, with plans to use it a decent bit through the temperate PNW "winter") we can simply bring the bikes inside our E250 van which will double as TV for the time being. We do this on many day trips - it would be kind of inconvenient for camping outings given how we use the inside of the van while traveling. It will be interesting to see how much of that van interior use on travel days shifts to the interior of the Oliver. I'm sure we'll still do things like make lunch in the van, as it has a still-happily functional dometic fridge (which the bikes block when in the van btw) and a microwave (we use the microwave most while on the road for reheating leftovers for quick hot meals) and a furnace and a Fantastic roof vent we can use to keep it comfy in the van during breaks on all but the most brutally hot days.

For better or worse I often choose such spots. In the WA Cascades, this gives access to some fine areas - e.g. I spent some nights in early May camped (in a socially distant fashion 🙂) up the north fork Teanaway where we did some excellent spring ski mountaineering/touring. I would think twice about such a move during red flag warning periods though, and if a burn was happening nearby I would for sure avoid it. Same deal in UT where such roads and camps offer access to some excellent terrain for hiking and photography and canyoneering. But I avoid doing so if it looks like rain may come through and soak the road and fill the washes with flash floods (many of the red dirt roads in particular become impassable when soaked even though they're super easy to drive when dry), and in any case I bring at least a week's worth of water and food when out such roads there in case I unexpectedly need to wait for the road to dry and washes to dry out. Plus an always-charged inReach which I can use to let my wife know I'm OK and waiting, and to call for help if my supplies are dwindling and I'm still stuck. I'd modify the admonition to being aware of the risks one is taking on and being thoughtful about how to mitigate them.

One critical different between MeWe and Facebook I see that I see, and that the google article did not address, is on business model. Facebook's customers are their advertisers and others who buy data about users/members. Our attention and Facebook's surprisingly detailed and accurate inferences about us* are the product that Facebook sells. On MeWe, we are the customers - they commit not to sell our attention or data about our usage of the platform. They have taken a bet that they can convert enough users to their premium subscription service to make a go of it. It's going to be a tough road ahead for them frankly, though recent political fun may help them a bit in the near term. If you want to see how Facebook's business model impacts the nature of the experience along with your privacy (or utter lack therof) there, watch The Social Dilemma on Netflix (the interviews are great, the "dramatizations" a bit corny) or check out the Social Dilemma web site. I would not be shocked if MeWe has *security* issues that may negatively impact users andn their privacy, but they do not have fundamental business model issues in terms of seeking to exploit intimate knowledge of your social media activity for profit, at least afaik. *e.g. see this article on 2013 work from a former colleague of mine who worked with a team to show that your "likes" on Facebook can be mined via machine learning to predict things like your sexual orientation, your food preferences, etc. This article goes into a bit more detail on this work, and how it led to the Cambridge Analytica use of Facebook data and inferences built atop it during the 2016 election (whether this constituted a "data breach" or privacy violation is hotly debated - you can make your own decision as a potential Facebook user 🙂 )

Good luck to you and your neighbors.

The big weather system approaching the PNW (after a few more moderate systems move through) is expected to hit Friday evening and last into Wednesday. Travel over mountain passes will most likely be difficult - I think it's a fair bet I90 will be closed off and on due to vehicle spinouts which seem more and more common as folks keep moving to this region. Looks like it will be a bit rowdy out at the coast as well. We may get power outages in the region due to high winds dropping trees and big limbs on powerlines, though we did already have one pretty significant "wind pruning event" already which may help a little. From the National Weather Service Seattle office "forecast discussion": Finally, behind this strong system Friday night enhanced westerlies will give the Cascade a period of heavy snow--especially in the morning so crossing the pass Friday night or Saturday morning will probably be challenging and perhaps a bit dangerous. It is too early to put up a winter storm watch or warning, but that will come soon enough. 19 .LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/...Saturday morning will see strong onshore flow with heavy snow for the mountains. The coast will still have heavy surf but the risk of coastal flooding will be decreasing as pressures rise. After that, three potentially vigorous weather systems are likely to affect the region into the first half of next week so more smash mouth November weather is likely. We might have to watch frontal systems early next week for more significant impacts along the coast as there is a chance for other deep lows to develop as they near the Pacific Northwest coast Sun- Tue.

BTW this thread prompted me to join both the MeWe group and the FB group - I looked through some recent FB group threads and there are indeed moderators there and I didn't see any spam and not much in the way of drama - just one borderline interaction which a mod quickly tamped down.

I belong to a few "split communities" with overlapping membership circles between forums and FB. Some folks just prefer the social media platforms as a single place to go. I find the forums generally better for finding and re-referencing old threads - they are more broadly browsable and tend to be a bit easier to search as well. But more eyeballs seem to go to the social media platforms. That's just the way of it. I've read claims that "forms are dead" which may be premature but I see why the claim is made. I love the notion of MeWe - we users are not products to be sold to advertisers on that platform, unlike Facebook. Unfortunately Facebook has the lock-in of an overwhelming network effect of all the existing users' friends lists, and the fact that that is where nearly all social media users are. I spent July off Facebook and on MeWe, and I prefer the design for the most part and the business model is frankly what's needed to not have creepy platforms whose interests are selling our attention along with data and increasingly sophisticated inferences about us based on our usage patterns. But the hallways loudly echo there right now.

Just fwiw, the gear is dramatically different than back then. It is SO much easier to learn and to ski well. The ski shapes are so much easier to turn. And the bindings release way more reliably. Not that you should do it again if not motivated, but it's like the difference between power and manual steering on a big truck. Or even more of a difference. It's still quite possible to tear ACLs (and do tib-fib fractures, and get a head injury, ...). But the odds are much better now and more people are actually having fun doing it with the new gear.