Traveling, Exploring, Boondocking During COVID19

I suppose all the entitled crazies have been going to Baja or traveling the world before the virus closed that down. No wonder the rest of the world thinks we are nuts!
 
I camped two days at Lawson's Landing aka Dillon Beach. That wasn't bad at all but the actual beach? OMG. The beach was full, vehicles lined up down the street waiting to get in. Masks required to get in but of course they quickly came off. They had an employee directing traffic at the turn. You can imagine, road partially blocked and then a 40' trailer trying to made the sharp turn? Took twenty minutes to get past the turn.

Campground wasn't even full. Overcast most of the time. Misty this morning. Nice thing about it being hot in Sac it doesn't take long to dry out the gear.
 
That was site 142. I did Lawson's because it was the only place on the coast I could get a reservation.
 
I have a small camping group of 12 or so parties. Camping off grip (boondocking) is our favorite way to go. But that said, local campgrounds by the Forest Service have lots of distance between sites. My last and next trip ,scheduled the last of this month, will be to a Blue Jay campgrounds off Ortega Hwy in Orange County. Anyone wishing to join please feel free to contact me @ kd6jbl@socal.rr.com. RSVP ASAP so I have some idea of numbers, be safe and have fun..
 
Rather than clutter up the Trip Report thread with non-truck camper replies, I'll drop this here. As a follow-up to my musings last week about heading to the Stanislaus NF for some backpacking, we did indeed make it up that way albeit with our Mazda 3 sedan instead of the FWC truck camper. Since I figured we'd be on pavement the whole time, the car was fine although I always get a bit wistful about dirt roads we could be exploring but getting twice the gas mileage is certainly a salve on the wallet.

Anyway, we parked at the Stanislaus River CG overflow parking (despite signs saying it was for campers only) after informing the ranger we saw of our plans. He said no problem as we only figured to be out for an overnight. The CG was not full but it was a Tuesday afternoon. I had planned to travel upstream between 1/2 to 1-1/2 miles to some riverside, granity spots I found on Google Earth but was fairly quickly disabused of that notion. The chest-high manzanita and other underbrush was as thick as any we have ever encountered, the terrain was unforgiving, where we used down logs to get through the brush, we frequently encountered wasps nests in the rotten logs and it was hot. While the occasional bushwhack can be fun, this was not. So we retreated to a spot about 1/4 mile from our car in a nice shady flat (still with wasps though) on the river. Never saw a soul although we could sometimes hear the louder vehicles on the road.

The next day we headed to Utica Reservoir for another senior citizen backpack. Again we parked in a CG day use/overflow parking which was virtually full on a Wednesday morning. The GE image from exactly a year ago showed no vehicles in this same lot. We hiked the half mile to a big cliff overlooking the NF Stan where we'd been hoping to get the day before. Found a nice flat breezy spot with a semi-stagnant pond nearby for water, went back to the car and slung the packs on our backs and had a lovely night looking for Perseids with little success. We did have a strong LTE signal though for what that's worth. There's a few pix on my instagram.

Now we're back in Sac enduring with some grousing the worst heat wave that I remember in our 30 years living here. And oh yeah our AC is not cooperating of course.Oh, to be back in the mountains even if they are being overrun.....
 
That area is one we would visit several times during the year.
I think Utica gets more use than Union.
We always liked to canoe Union lots of great coves to pull into ,
also the rock islands offer some nice spots.

I have never walked up river from the Stan CG only down river to fish along the way.
I think that area is starting to be found. The Slick Rock Jeep trail links Utica to Alpine in the area.
So that may mean a few more people this year.

Glad you made the best of it.
Thanks.
Frank
 
This is all good information. Were planning on taking a trip. All the more reason to really research where we will be visiting.
 
Excellent new signs on the Inyo National Forest - east side Sierra Nevada

Covid-Signs-copy.jpg
 
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