Many of us have camped in National Forests at one time or another. Others have used facilities inside of National Forests (hiking trails, lakes, skiing areas etc). What has kept you from using National Forest facilities or recreation opportunities more often?

Well in the spring I was planning on using NF CGs frequently however I see in Black Hills they are now charging a $2.00 per night fee for pets. We travel with two very small dogs but I will not pay $4.00 per night because I travel with my pets. To many other spots available.

Suzi and I have appealed to the Forest Service in DC to "encourage" the Black Hills folks to drop the pet fee. No word yet. When we met with the concessionaire last year, they were proud of the fact that the number of pets in CGs had dropped significantly. I guess!

Work !!!

That darn work is always getting in the way of fun!

Only for 1 more year, then I'm FREE AGAIN.

Many of the NFCGs in Oregon/Washington lack potable water, forcing me to haul in my own. Even just a hand pump well with some gravel around it to discourage wasps/yellow jackets would be swell. Then, of course, with no water, they still charge, sometimes rather steeply, for the campsites. I don't mind paying for garbage collection and mucking out the loo, but $12 per night for a site with no water is a slap in the face.

Am I grumpy? Very well, then, I'm grumpy.

OGD

I've made a resolution to start using the National Forests more often. I dislike campgrounds the more I use them, and finding a safe spot to set up my tent is the main factor for me.

I have to agree with "grumpy" up there, no water isn't an issue with us as we have an RV and can bring in as much as we need, but for tent campers that would be an issue. My excuse it I hate heights and some roads scare the heck out of me. LOL

Water source, or lack thereof, is the primary reason we will pick one NF CG over another. Noise & space is secondary - for example, we don't stay where ATVs are heavily used or where it looks like rigs are parked on top of each other. With regards to the NF and not specific to camping, here lately, feeling safe is a third. With all the news about pot farms being discovered in the NFs and with some areas looking like a village for homelessness, we have to consider if we feel safe there.

Funny- the most damage I've seen done in a NFS CG was done by a very wealthy family driving a brand-new Hummer to tow their brand-new Airstream. In a place where no one else, including all those dirty hippie climbers in their villages for the homeless, had seen fit to carve their intials a foot high in a Ponderosa pine in front of their two kids.

Then there were the cowboys in huge new Silverados, with giant horse trailers and piles of coolers who tethered their horses to aspen trees, effectively girdling and killing them, to rip out the sod in chunks while the cowboys expended a few hundred rounds from a roadside parking lot directly along the line of the trail that led uphill to the climbing area where I had been only an hour before. Their excuse was that there were no cars in the parking lot so "they thought there wasn't anyone up there". Ignore the sign stating that what they were doing was and still is illegal, posted ten feet from the huge puddle of brass they left behind, along with several broken bottles and snack wrappers. Oh, and never mind the huge piles of poo their "friendly", fight-scarred bull mastiff left in the picnic area.

Having been one of the homeless who paid for and used NF campgrounds, I have always maintained a Leave No Trace ethic, and have found that almost all of the other folks who were temporarily out-of-doors, either by choice or by fate, have done so to the best of their abilities, as well. In fact, I found it pretty ironic that I was working three jobs from an S10 pickup and small tent but still got hassled a LOT more than the folks driving the 40-foot land yacht who did very little but sit outside and watch their leashless dog invade all the other campsites while assuring us that the snarling little ankle-biter was "friendly".

(Perhaps it is because the overwhelming majority of pets-in-the-campground episodes are of this type- and I've been camping for over 30 yrs, more on than off, remember- that there is a pet fee in campgrounds. Now if only the Rangers would enforce the $125 fine that goes along with that... maybe we could do away with entrance and day-use fees altogether!)

These folks had laundry hanging (I took mine to the laundromat, where I could get online and look for work and housing), bags of trash that got raided by bears and squirrels on a daily/nightly basis, and enough folding lawn furniture to have held a wake. But somehow, it was my wife and I who were "residing" in the forest, despite the fact that the land yacht was there when we arrived and still there 12 days later when we were asked to leave. A week later we drove by, and it was STILL there. And all the folks who would gather there every night still looked at us like we were the vagabonds.

Remember that Ted Bundy was a clean-cut, well-spoken, nice young man... and that Jesus of Nazareth did not bathe or shave on a daily basis. Perceptions are funny, aren't they?

In answer to the original question, we don't stay in NF CGs as much as we used to because of the number of campgrounds that are run by concessionaires who charge Access Pass holders by calling entry fees "user fees", and who will no longer accept those passes next year, even though the public (you know, the people for whom public lands were created, the folks who paid for them in the first place) has said they should. Apparently, there is very little "public" control over "public" lands.

Wvronin - I want to thank you for your post. I read it and quickly realized that I was guilty of stereotyping with my comment about the homeless villages in the campgrounds. It was an unfair remark and I apologize.

There is definitely room for improvement among the different types and styles of campground visitors. I have witnessed what you describe first hand as well.

It seems there is an "entitlement" mentality among some visitors to our national forests that applies only to them as individuals rather than to all of us who wish to enjoy our public lands. You make some good points.

Could you please be more specific about the access pass holders. Are you talking about national forests or national parks? I am not aware of any movement to not accept the passes next year.