We watch a lot of YouTube to find tips and advice for truck camper DIY projects, places to go and more. Recently we ran across a video called Best Free Camping in Southeast? We were intrigued because we live in Georgia and dispersed camping is not nearly as easy to find out here as it in the west. Plus, it was close to Springer Mountain, which is where the Appalachian Trail begins.
Between the pandemic and a rainy weekend, we felt a little cooped up on a Saturday and decided to check out the spot highlighted in the aforementioned video. Honestly we had planned to start a solar and battery upgrade on the camper over the weekend, but we had to put off due to the rain.
We drove two hours to the Blue Ridge Mountain Wildlife Area. Prior to setting off, Will looked at a couple of different ways to get there and decided to take Forest Service 28-1, which we started down around 2:10 p.m. (in the rain). After a very long and bumpy ride, we finally reached Three Forks USFS 58 4.3 around 3 p.m. When I say bumpy, I mean one time my head met the top of the passenger seat belt catch. Ouch. We also stopped at one point just to look around and when we tried to start again we were a tiny bit stuck. We backed up, put it in drive and were able to keep trucking along down Winding Stair Gap Road. If driving for almost an hour on an unpaved road is not your thing, there is a different way to reach Three Forks, via Doublehead Gap Road--a paved road--which we used to navigate home. It was much shorter and a much smoother ride.
Once we made it to USFS 58 4.3 we were greeted by a sign warning that camping was not permitted between the road and the creek in certain places. We did see about five spots that it looked like you could pull your vehicle into, and only one of them seemed suitable for our truck camper (see a regrettably low quality video here). We saw plenty of No Camping signs, and encountered a very low fallen tree hanging over the road that we would not have made it past had the camper been loaded onto our truck. It appeared that there are some hike in sites, but that's not why we were there.
Cell service was non-existent but that might not be the case if you carry a WeBoost or other cell signal booster. It's also important to note that one viewer commented in the original video we watched that you must have a license to camp in that area. If we decided to camp there we would need to do some fact checking to be sure.
Three Forks is a popular hiking spot since the Appalachian Trail intersects it. Nearby attractions include Springer Mountain and Long Creek Falls. We decided this spot, while very beautiful and serene, is not for us since there would be a considerable amount of hiking traffic interrupting our zen. Thankfully we didn't load up the camper and drive up there only to discover low clearance, a difficult road and a lot of people.
Had we not scouted this out before driving up there ready to camp we might have found ourselves on a road that was too rough for our camper, or disappointed in the amount of traffic going by. If you don't have the luxury of an in-person visit or like to be spontaneous, make sure you do enough research before setting out. You don't want to wind up stuck because of low clearance, not having required permits for an area or just being met with something different from your expectations.
