So this trip had us leaving the house at 5:30 am headed to Pickett to meet up with the rest of the crew. There would be 20 Jeeps driving 28 miles over an 8 hours of the day.
This trip would take us to Mineral Pond, and many other landmarks all throughout the forest.
Mineral Pond
I am going to leave our trek at the bottom if you would like to take this trek. I will say I highly recommend you have a four-wheel drive and at least 35″ tires and at least 2 1/2″ lift and go in a group. This is not time for a solo adventure here. Also recommend having wench and recovery gear, you may need it is some places. It is also known during rainy pierods to get muddy.
I have lived in Tennessee all of my life and one thing you can count on is the weather is never going to be the same from one weekend to another. Just two weeks ago I went camping and the temps got down into the low thirties that night and dropped down to 31 degrees at daybreak.
Cold Weather
Fast forward two weeks and headed out again and check the forecast as you should before you head out yet going to be another beautiful weekend with one exception lows in the 50s, so once again adjust gear for the temps and be ready for much warmer weather.
Warm Weather
The most important thing is to have the gear for the weather, a warmer sleeping bag for cold weather, and a cooler sleeping bag for warm weather. Also, go from layers of clothing to a lot fewer layers of clothing. You even can change your food between the two campouts. When it is cold you want foods that will warm the body like chili or a stew. In warm weather, I am more likely to fix a burger or something liter like fajitas. So always planing my sleeping bag, clothes, and food too the weather. Bring it on Tennessee, I got you either way.
I head up to Big South Fork for this Tuesday’s video for what turned out to be a very fantastic Overlanding/camping trip. Would I see a bear camping in bear country? Come along and find out in part one of a two-part video. Testing more new equipment and not going the way I hoped.
Ok so I have been camping since I was 13 so back then we sat on the ground or a log if one was around. When it was time for bed we had a foam pad on the ground if we were lucky back then, I am talking absolute caveman-type crap. Now that I have gotten older and wiser, well it hurts to do that crap today. I have elevated to the king of the woods and camping with chairs, cots, and even tables.
So now let’s talk about getting off that log and let’s get us a chair. There are many types of comfy butt holders out there. You can get bear bones three-legged stool or spend a little coin and get yourself one of those more comfortable chairs that rock and have fancy shocks in the back like an off-road monster. Let’s look at the room you have for storing such in your off-road rig, these chairs can eat up important real-estate quick. But get what you’re comfortable in.Â
Off Road Chair
Lite Weight Small Package
Next, we are going to talk about your sleeping arrangements, if you’re a ground dweller like me and using a tent then you may want something like an air mattress or a cot. Now I have used both. From the loss of my youth to time, I am more attracted to a cot. The one I am using now is the Teton Outfitter XXL Camping Cot. Now the thing doesn’t fold down very small but boy am I comfy. With that said I sleep many years on an old army surplus cot and still have it. You, youngsters, can probably get away with an air mattress and I say go for it.
So the last thing I will talk about is tables and lord knows I have run the field with these things. The one I rock in the tent now is a table from the big blue store. Now as far as cooking or food prep table I was using a plastic half table for a while till baking cookies at camp and it started smoking. Now I have moved to a roll-top type table that is metal and hopefully won’t start smoking.Â
To end this out I will recommend furniture that folds down flat as possible or even roll up to put away without taking up to much space. I will do a video soon on all of this so I can give a more visual look at what and why I use what I use camping. Stay tuned and well get out there and get your camp on. Be Prepared…
I am going to drop some links to Amazon for gear I use for camping and filming my trips. If you buy anything off these lists I will get a small bonus from the sale and it will not cost you any extra.
The first list link is for camping gear I use and have reviewed on my YouTube Channel. http://a.co/dejW6IM
The second link is to camera gear I use to film my trips and adventures. https://a.co/5jUq0yG
Wanted to share my Big South Fork Trek with everyone. If you want to see the sites I found and check them out here you go. All of this trek can be done with a two-wheel drive vehicle without any trouble. I will note I was driving my two-wheel drive Nissan Titan.
So I decided it was time to take a trip up and explore Big South Fork NF. Left home and headed northeast not knowing what I would find. Also knowing I was going to be dodging thunderstorms all day.
1920 Farmstead
As always with Gaia by my side and no real game plan, I took off looking for an adventure and I found one. Found some really cool old farmstead and some rock formations. Even found some more roads to venture down the next time I go back.
Chimney Rock
I know have an idea for an overland adventure that will encompass Big South Fork and Daniel Boone NF in one big trip. Stay tuned for more details to come.
So in this video, we took a day trip to Big South Fork National Forest and scouted for more camping opportunities for this fall. Now storms tried their best to run me off but I weathered through them.
Mid Tn Outdoors 