Posted on

Bikes and huskies

Yesterday, a young man we met at a visitor’s center (who likes skiing at Jay Peak) told us we could camp free at Fernie Ski Area. During biking season (downhill crazy bikers) the ski area allows people to camp in their parking lot for free. Well, we are mountain bikers so we decided we would join the crowd. We pulled our Rover in amongst vans, RVs and such and assumed the posture of belonging. Before long we met some bikers and ended up keeping an eye on their husky for them while they went up the lift for a few more runs before the sprinkles started.

We had a fairly restful night considering we were sleeping in a huge parking lot. Darrin woke up every time the wind blew and I woke up every time a new rig pulled in, but hey…it was free and it had a great balsam pine smell in the rain…yes, it rained again during the night.

The Fernie Ski Area parking lot. There are rigs to the right and more behind me. Matsa, the husky, is sleeping in the red truck.
Our view!

 

Posted on

My cup needs fill’n

Part of stealth/guerilla/dispersed camping is the constant need to find drinking water. We could buy jugs in the grocery story, but we are all about saving our pennies so we can travel as long as possible, so we have a never ending search for free drinkable (non chlorinated) water.

A few places we normally get water:

1. Fire stations – they usually have a spiget out back, but it usually has chlorine.

2. Campgrounds – we pretend we want to look around for a site, quickly fill our 5 gallon jerry cans and decide not to stay.

3. City parks – they usually have spigets, but again it is usually chlorinated.

4. People feel sorry for us and give us theirs when they are heading home (this also works for free firewood).

5. Springs – people mark them on iOverlander (see previous post)

Today, we happened to pass a spring that had great water flowing right out of the Rockies. We have two 5 gallon jerry cans on the front of the vehicle and a 15 gallon tank inside. We normally carry 5 or 10 gallons during regular travel (it is amazing how little water you really need, but then again we are probably over due for a shower once again), we carry more if we know we are going to be way out for a prolonged period of time. We also carry a military grade water filter for emergencies.

Rocky Mt. Spring.
Darrin filling 1 of our 5 gallon jerry cans..
And into our 15 gallon internal tank (water is heavy so filling the internal tank keeps the weight low in the vehicle).