All US forests are making changes to their travel management plans. Each forest has, or is in the process of updating their travel management plans and creating MVUMs (motor vehicle use maps). These maps are great... to a point. They show all open US Forest Service roads and trails and if dispersed camping (camping outside a developed campground) is allowed, the maps show the roads where you can camp, and even in some cases which specific side of the road you can stay.
Sounds like a great idea except...
We recently took a trip through the Pawnee National Grassland in NE Colorado. The MVUM clearly showed where I expected to camp open for dispersed camping, but on the ground, some of the area has no camping signs. I have not queried USFS about this yet.
Here is a link to the USFS page with every available MVUM...
USFS MVUM's
For you big rig guys, I suppose you may feel most boondocking is out of your vehicles capability, but we lived full time in a 36' DP and boondocked almost exculsively. Now I admit, I have and will continue to follow the rule that my RV is a truck first, so if the truck will get there, so will the house, but you don't have drive a hundred miles of gravel to get to some great boondocking.
Here's a few pix of boondocking spots...
Pike National Forest - 2 miles of gravel
Near Wall SD - 1/2 mile off pavement
Perhaps my favorite Boondocking site - 2 miles of gravel
OK - 5 miles of gravel for this one
Granted these photos were taken of our old rig, but it won't be long and we'll be updating shots with the Sunseeker.
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USFS Boondocking Rules
Threaded Mode
