Camping For Free at Williams Fork Reservoir

[Jeremy Nix]

Williams Fork Reservoir

Fall is in the air. As I type this my fingers are numb from the cold creeping in through the window behind me. Needless to say, but the season for camping is coming to an end soon, and The Pig is probably going in the garage for awhile. There is no way the old beast can make it up the drive way in snowy conditions. I want to take apart the heater anyway. I took a look underneath it the other day and saw that one part of the duct work under there had a rag stuffed in it. The heat barely works anyway, so might as well tear it down and start over, but that is another post altogether.

This weekend we played it by ear and went camping with little to no planning of exactly where we were going to go. Just a general direction. We ended up at Willams Fork Reservoir. A nice change from the very similar campgrounds we have been visiting this summer. We camped for free on the edge of the drought stricken reservoir in complete isolation from any other campers, except for the ones we could see across the lake.

 Willoughby: Drought leaves Williams Fork Reservoir boaters reeling

 In my recent experience I have always come away from campgrounds sort of disappointed that I couldn't just park my bus anywhere I wanted, because there was always a better spot for us than the parking pad provided. Restrictions, exactly the thing I'm trying to avoid.

 Due to the drought conditions, motorized boats were banned from entering the lake, a lucky coincidence that provided us with the most privacy we've ever had camping. I'm not a nudist, nor do I aspire to be, but it would have been easy to just walk around buck naked if you wanted to. I'm too pale for all that, but my 2 year old is a whole other story.

It was windy a decent portion of the time, perfect for kite-flying. Bring your own shade, because you won't find any here. I found the scenery really interesting. The exposed lake bed from the receding water was something I had never seen up close like this before. The mud was like quicksand at the water's edge in most places, but if your willing to seek them out, there are areas where you can get right up next to the water without losing your flip-flop. I wasn't that smart, and actually did lose a flip flop.

 The lake also ate my kite, which was wrenched from its perch on m canopy by an amazingly strong gust of wind. I got one last picture of it before it ended up in Davy Jones' Locker.

Some kind of flying ant bit the hell out of me. I declared war on all nasty critters from that point forward and commenced an insect genocide inside the perimeter surrounding my bus. If your coming here, bring something for the bugs.



No toilets to report at this campsite, although you could walk about a half a mile in either direction and run into one eventually. There was no fire restriction here other than "No Fireworks"  I didn't bring any firewood, but got lucky and found a big log a previous camper left behind and split that baby up. Double bonus. Free camping, and free firewood. We saved a few bucks this time, and to think we didn't really plan this trip out at all.

Williams Fork Reservoir provides a lot of opportunities for many ga...

 The undeveloped campsites are accessible from trails surrounding the lake. Some of these areas are harder to navigate than others. A Syncro would be right at home here. A level spot is a rarity in this area, so plan for that. I failed in that area, and ended up having to gather some stones. This worked for us, although I was a little nervous at the thought of what damage might be being done to my tire. I am replacing all four tires this winter with some Hankooks anyway, so in a pinch this solution was just fine. Improvise, Adapt, and Overcome.

On the improvisation note, if you look closely you will see a bent piece of a pop top hinge wedged underneath my pop-top in order to extend it all the way up. This keeps the top from resting on the frame and adds a nice amount of foot room up top.

Maizy also had some old sheer curtains that we tied on both sides of our canopy for some added protection from the elements as well as a little bit of extra privacy.  We bungee a tarp down under our feet for a floor, and are currently in the planning stages for additional improvements to the design. Ghetto camping at its finest. Use what you have. 

The notion that you could haphazardly find something this beautiful, and camp there for free has me itching to just travel the nation in search of every spot like this I can find. I like being witness to the effect that weather has on this planet. I couldn't walk out of my condo in Denver and see the drought with my own eyes.Going to the source is so much better that waiting to see it on the evening news. 

As always, there was no shortage of spectacular views provided from the atmosphere above the earth. I'm never disappointed by a sunset in Colorado. I could stare at the sky for hours, and I do. 

I brought two digital cameras with me on this trip, so I have a ton of pictures. To be honest, I'm not sure if I will ever take the sheer volume of pictures I took on this trip again. It was a major undertaking just getting through them all to see what I had. I used a polarizing filter on a traditional DSLR (my son's Nikon D3000) for almost all of my shots with that camera. Luckily, I shot in RAW format so I could develop them into something that I could see.

                                                 

All in all, this was a great trip. We drove through the night Thursday in anticipation of having to arrive early in order to claim a spot. Driving in the dark is not my favorite thing at all, so it was slow going. As it turns out, we didn't need to get there so early after all. We explored the whole lake and had our pick of spots. There are plenty of spots with great potential here. It would be an ideal spot for a bus get together as every designated camp site is extremely large and could probably hold three or four buses each.

Quiet, private, hot, windy, scenic, Williams Fork Reservoir had a little bit of everything for us. The second lake we visited this season, and I have yet to purchase a fishing pole. I need to get on that. 

One last shot of the lake before we leave.

Here we are, heading for home. This trip we decided to do a loop instead of traveling back down the same way we came up. It was a great drive, and I'll report more on the highways we traveled in a future post.

Parting shot. Peace everyone!

[Gus The VW Bus]

Great post Jeremy!!