Going Dispersed Camping: the Planning Stage

We are planning out our first real, truly primitive camping experience! We wanted to try doing dispersed camping, which is a term basically meaning, "camping wherever I want out in the wild, and not having to pay a reservation fee."

Finding a Spot

Now, obviously, if you disperse camp on private property, you need to have permission; otherwise, owners/keepers of the land may chase you off-site with due diligence, and possibly a firearm. Finding a camping spot in a national forest or state park is, therefore, your safest bet.

WARNING! When you are dispersed camping, make sure you are not camping in game areas during hunting season!

We narrowed down our target to the Ocala National Forest: it's big, it's wild, and there are innumerable waterways and lakes from which to fill up our filtered bags. As a bonus, we might be able to do some kayak camping! Having decided on that forest, I did the research for a spot that fit our criteria, and ended up with this little area on the map.






My criteria were as follows:

1. More or less road accessible. My fellow campers and I don't really want to have to haul all of the camping equipment and kayaks for several miles. This site allows us (assuming the map is fairly up-to-date) to pull the vans off the main service road towards a good camping spot by the trees.
2. Near to water. The designated spot is about 1500 feet from Juniper Creek. More than far enough away to satisfy the forest rules, and close enough for repeated refills of our filtered water bags. It's quite a reasonable distance for hauling kayaks, as well.
3. Near the Juniper Springs launch. That recreation area is only 7.4 miles away, which is a 10-12 minute drive. The kayak run from the recreation area, along the 4-5hr kayak run (with an actual, honest-to-goodness rapids!), is one of the most exciting kayak runs in Florida. More on that later. This was one of our top desired activities, so proximity is great!
4. Near Lake George. Two of our campers want to go fishing, and Lake George is the best spot for bass in the area! The plan is for the fishermen to launch from the creek by our campsite, and paddle downstream for a few miles to reach the lake. The St. Johns River flows through Lake George on its way north, so there's great fishing and a decent little current
5. Far enough away from civilization, but not too far. This will be our first time going dispersed camping; I'm sure you can understand our reasoning. Being only a mile away from SR 19, we may hear some traffic, but hopefully not too much, particularly as we are going during the week.

Of course, nothing ever goes truly to plan, so here are some potential problems we might face upon arriving at our spot:

• Google Maps is not up-to-date. The following possible issues stem from deviations to the lovely picture presented by Google's satellite view.
• The creek will be dried up. Unlikely, but possible. It's April, we haven't quite hit rainy season.
• The creek will be overflowed. Really quite unlikely. It's possible that a hard summer rainstorm will hit in the next week and a half, but...I'd be quite surprised.
• All the trees will have burnt in a fire some years ago. It's Florida; this is always a possibility in the wilderness.
• The access road will have been ill-maintained and thus impassible to our vans. Unlikely, but possible. The USDA Forest Service shows the 2016 motor vehicle use map to have all the needed roads as usable. A small portion of the map is shown below, with the approximate area of the desired campsite covered with a red X.

The short side-trails from the satellite view do not appear on this map, so we will likely have to park just off of Service Road 34 and haul our camping gear about a quarter mile to the desired spot.

If all is more or less as expected, then our spot will work out just fine!

Preparing Necessary Gear

Dispersed camping means none of the amenities: no toilet; no shower; no fresh water; no electricity; no shelter; and, while we could go and drive ten miles to get to a grocery store, that rather negates the point of going camping, so there's no food except what we bring in.

Putting aside the perishable foods for now, that leaves us with needing:

1. Our tents
• Two-Person ALPS Mountaineering Lynx Tent; this is our good tent, for the avid campers
• Two-Person Ozark Trail Dome Tent; these are cheap-but-sturdy-for-the-money tents; we got ours at our local Walmart.
2. Tent floorsavers
• GEERTOP 2-person Ultralight Waterproof Tent Tarp Footprint Ground Sheet
3. Our sleeping bags, rated down to Florida temps only
• Norsens Lightweight Sleeping Bag Adult Size, Outdoor 32 Degree
• Winterial Sleeping Bag Adult Size, Outdoor 30 Degree
• And I'm considering getting something more like TETON Sports Celsius XL -18C/0F Sleeping Bag, as my butt gets chilly in my hammock. Speaking of which...
4. Hammock with mosquito netting
• Mine is very...redneck. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Currently using our backyard woven hammock with a jury-rigged cot-sized mosquito net. It is rather unwieldy (the dragging net gets caught on everything), and looks like this:
  
• I'm saving up to get the Krazy Outdoors Mosquito Net Camping Hammock and the Snugpak Hammock Cocoon with Travelsoft Filling. My birthday is late-July...
• I use the Wise Owl XL Hammock Tree Straps with included carabiners and they work great.
5. Four small LED Camping Lanterns; these have been really handy on past trips, and these specific lanterns worked very well, with brightness of 146 Lumen. Each lantern requires three AA batteries.
6. More to come...