The Random Thoughts Thread

bob91yj said:
Possibly the worst article I've ever read regarding overland/adventure travel.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/comradery-adventure-overlanding-fuel-movement-010158369.html
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Given that all the areas mentioned are my home stomping grounds I'm a bit embarrassed by this article. There are times I struggle to define the difference between overlanding, camping and just taking a drive in the woods. This article is very much just a drive in the woods.

Bell Mountain is a tourist attraction. If you search YouTube you'll find video evidence of how technical the path used to be, it's now been graded, paved and neutered to allow Prius owners to gawk at the graffiti and beer bottles placed at the top of the hill by high school kids on weekends.

Charlie Creek Road is just that, a road. There's nothing technical or difficult about it at all. Growing up in this area Charlie Creek Road would have been considered a prime example of a well graded and accessible path. The dirt road I lived on as a kid saw less maintenance than Charlie Creek does. Years ago this was a bit of a technical path, but the power company has made sure to keep it well graded in recent years. Does have a cool water crossing near Tate City though.

Tray Mountain being mentioned is unfortunate. I was just up there yesterday and it's just as over used and trashed as always. The more publicity this FS Road (it's not a "trail") gets the more yahoos with a Jeep show up to try their hand at traversing it. It is, again, just a road. There's one washed out section headed down the back side that can flex stock suspension a bit, but the rest of Tray Mountain / Indian Grave Gap / Corbin Creek is composed of well graded gravel roads. The campsites are over used and full of trash, I took a friend camping there a couple years back and after getting a fire started we were greeted by live ammunition in the fire ring. If it weren't for the rental cabins, old bison ranch (yep) and Appalachian Trail parking lot at the top the FS would have shut down this road years ago due to public abuse. There were a number of laminated signs hanging yesterday asking people politely not to leave the road. Ironically there were several Jeeps parked just beyond the ruts off the road behind these signs. This is why we can't have nice things on the east coast.

West coast folks have no idea how good they have it with their BLM lands. If you want an off road experience here on the east coast you have to pay to play:

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Windrock

Unfortunately off road parks like these are the only "exploration" experiences many east coast individuals will have for their entire life. I realize I'm blessed to travel the way I do and that it's not in everyone's cards to see the country. Unfortunately I think the term "overlanding" is being watered down by those who will never leave the confines of their state lines. Camping is restricted to campgrounds that require reservations and often come with full electrical hookups and sometimes even internet access. There are areas of wilderness, but they are few and far between.

The world keeps getting smaller...

The article would have been better if it focused on the camaraderie, the friendships and relationships forged from taking "camping trips in groups" here on the east coast. "The Overlanding Community" for me is more about the people and less about the place. The right group of people around a camp fire is just as good as the right group around a restaurant table, the parking lot of a local outdoor store or over the airwaves of a 2M radio (although admittedly I prefer the campfire.) Meeting strangers in towns along the way, conversing with the waitress at the local dive restaurant or a random conversation with a fellow hiker on the trail is often the highlight of the journey for me. This article glossed over that and focused on very limited locales and rig photography.
 
^^^^I value your opinion on such things as land use matters, unbiased opinions based on actual experience. You're the most well travelled person in the states that I know.
 
bob91yj said:
^^^^I value your opinion on such things as land use matters, unbiased opinions based on actual experience. You're the most well travelled person in the states that I know.
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My thoughts exactly @bob91yj. @Gallowbraid has quite a few miles under his belt and I'd trust his judgement before almost anyone else.

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bob91yj said:
^^^^I value your opinion on such things as land use matters, unbiased opinions based on actual experience. You're the most well travelled person in the states that I know.
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Scott said:
My thoughts exactly @bob91yj. @Gallowbraid has quite a few miles under his belt and I'd trust his judgement before almost anyone else.

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Wow, thanks guys. Pretty big compliments for a simple southern boy who flies to and fro throughout the country. Just trying to call it like I see it.

I've been struggling with this each time I come home, and I think @Dave is starting to see this too as he begins researching his new home. There's a dramatic difference between the outdoor experiences you can have on the west coast vs the east coast especially when it comes to vehicle based travel. The east coast to the Mississippi is carved up, down to the tenth of an acre in some places, with fences and gates blocking access to some of the most interesting locales. It always strikes me out west how open things are, how big the land is. It's a totally different feeling from the east coast. I read somewhere that without gaining access to some of the deepest recesses of the Smokey Mountain National Park you can never really be more than 20 miles from another person in the eastern half of the US. This is probably a bit of an exaggeration but it certainly feels true. That's the singular problem with travel I suppose. The more places you go and the more things you see the smaller the world gets.

I've been trying to nail down some trips my wife and I can take in over a 3 or 4 day period here in the SE this spring and it's difficult to come up with anything that matches what I've done out west. Don't get me wrong, there's some nice hiking to be had (Smokey Mountains, Appalachian Trail, Benton McKaye Trail, Cohutta Wilderness) but little that matches the vistas of California, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Washington, etc, etc, etc... Maybe it's due to the fact that we've lived here 30+ years and have seen and done quite a bit in the region. We're going to make some westward trips (hopefully starting with Desert Rendevous 2017), and I'm hoping the experience will motivate her to relocate closer to the west coast eventually.
 
Yeah, east coast car-camping is tough.

The move to Dubai was a big change for us because camping is so easy here. After 20 years of trying, I finally got my wife to not only endure, but actually enjoy camping. Then a trip to Botswana and now she's pretty rabid about it. (See credit card bills for fridge, tent, aux battery, dutch oven, etc . . .) It's been great, and its been great for us as a couple. We are moving back to Georgia early next year and trying to figure out how to keep it going. I am very worried that the shortage of vehicle accessible wilderness will take the bloom off the rose. One of the big reasons I hang around here is to scope out options for east coast trips. She is on-board with driving west, but you go through vacation days real quick when you spend 3 days driving in each direction to get to an area to camp.
 
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Just because ....
 
Talking about the difference in landscapes and how "big" the western lands are, I had some friends from back east that wanted to "hike Death Valley". I asked them just exactly where they planned on hiking to/from, they had obviously done zero homework. It took me a bit of convincing that "hiking Death Valley" was not something that people do on purpose...it's kind of how it got it's name.
 
Gallowbraid said:
There's a dramatic difference between the outdoor experiences you can have on the west coast vs the east coast especially when it comes to vehicle based travel....

Don't get me wrong, there's some nice hiking to be had (Smokey Mountains, Appalachian Trail, Benton McKaye Trail, Cohutta Wilderness) but little that matches the vistas of California, Nevada, Arizona, Montana, Washington, etc, etc, etc... Maybe it's due to the fact that we've lived here 30+ years and have seen and done quite a bit in the region. We're going to make some westward trips (hopefully starting with Desert Rendevous 2017), and I'm hoping the experience will motivate her to relocate closer to the west coast eventually.
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Same feelings here, I grew up near the Blue Ridge and made it my playground, and eventually just felt like I'd seen most of it. I took my first trip out west across several states in 2009, then in 2012 took the wife. She immediately caught the bug too, and we spent the next 2 1/2 yrs working out how to move west. Which turned into us traveling the country for a year and half in an Airstream.

Our families are all easy coast based, and they continuously asked when we are coming back. I think buying a home in Idaho has cemented in their minds that we are never moving back east.
 
I went West from the Midwest when in Jr High the first time. I was always fascinated by the west, but never even considered living anywhere else after that. Got to spend several weeks camping, mostly alone with my pack (and 357 Ruger), with an uncle that drove me around, dropped me off various places, then came later and took me somewhere else.
 
Code Red said:
Yeah, east coast car-camping is tough.

The move to Dubai was a big change for us because camping is so easy here. After 20 years of trying, I finally got my wife to not only endure, but actually enjoy camping. Then a trip to Botswana and now she's pretty rabid about it. (See credit card bills for fridge, tent, aux battery, dutch oven, etc . . .) It's been great, and its been great for us as a couple. We are moving back to Georgia early next year and trying to figure out how to keep it going. I am very worried that the shortage of vehicle accessible wilderness will take the bloom off the rose. One of the big reasons I hang around here is to scope out options for east coast trips. She is on-board with driving west, but you go through vacation days real quick when you spend 3 days driving in each direction to get to an area to camp.
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I get it because we live in Oklahoma. We have some good spots in the southeast, but that's becoming more limited each year. You should check out Arkansas. It's probably the most under rated state we travel. There are huge areas of national forest and hundreds of miles of forest roads and trails. We spend a lot of time there and love it. It's probably good that this area is overlooked, as it's pretty easy to avoid the crowd. Less than 10 hours from Atlanta and you are in the middle of the good stuff. You could spend weeks in the backwoods there and not come close to seeing it all.
 
Brushogger said:
I get it because we live in Oklahoma. We have some good spots in the southeast, but that's becoming more limited each year. You should check out Arkansas. It's probably the most under rated state we travel. There are huge areas of national forest and hundreds of miles of forest roads and trails. We spend a lot of time there and love it. It's probably good that this area is overlooked, as it's pretty easy to avoid the crowd. Less than 10 hours from Atlanta and you are in the middle of the good stuff. You could spend weeks in the backwoods there and not come close to seeing it all.
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I need to get into Arkansas, Missouri and Kentucky. Land Between the Lakes, the Mark Twain National Forest and the Ozark National Forest are all on my bucket list.
 
I read the article and at times it reminded me of kids playing dress up. I chuckled at the the description of themselves rolling through a small town in their convoy. I suppose that's part of what overlanding has become; get a 4x4, build it up, and document everything on Instagram. I think some of that is cool; I'll watch Xoverland or Mountain State, et. al. However, at times it seems like everyone has a drone/gopro/youtube channel, a pithy moniker (_______ Overland), cool graphic design, a t-shirt line and trucker hats, and a dozen social media accounts. Some of that is cool, I guess. I'd rather pour my time and resources into camping and wandering around. I'm in it for the long haul, and I'm banking that there are going to be some pretty good deals on gear when they tire of this hobby.

@Gallowbraid, I can resonate with the ambivalence about the term overlander (side note: I think I recall from another forum we're neighbors). I don't really call myself an "overlander." I like camping, dirt roads, and small towns. I like road trips with rules, a philosophy, and with only a vague trajectory at the outset; no interstates, no chain restaurants, no reservations, plenty of historical/cultural stops, lots of time in the woods, head in this general direction, etc. For the most part, this is done just me and my family. It's only been recently that I've begun to connect with the larger community, and as a way of stretching my horizons, I'm planning on attending a few events this year to work on the camaraderie side of things.
 
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