Scouting For Crown Land Campsites

We love camping in provincial parks, but there’s something special about crown land camping. Instead of having a site reserved specifically for you, you have to do the research to find possible sites, scout them to make sure they work for you, hope they’re free when you want to use them, and have a list of back-up sites.

This past weekend was all about scouting for new crown land camping spots.

After consulting the Ontario Crown Land Atlas and our Backroad Mapbooks (BRMB) app, we had come up with a couple of places to check out in the French River and Killarney areas. If they didn’t pan out, we knew we could head for our usual crown land site and it would likely be free.

On Saturday morning we loaded up the truck, told the dogs to jump in, and headed for the highway. The trip up Highway 400/69 is usually uneventful, but this time the bump caused a commotion. There’s a spot along the way that seems like a sunken area over a culvert. It causes the vehicle to jump as you come out of it. It seemed to have gotten the better of one vehicle that had lost a boat trailer in the ditch, with the boat further away in the trees. What a terrible way to start the weekend! Fortunately, the driver seemed to have lots of help so we carried on, only to smell something awful just seconds later. The bump made Erza throw up and apparently she had found an old nest of chicken eggs to eat. What a stench. Cue the gagfest!

A couple of hours later we reached our first spot north of the French River – a lake that required a long trail to get into it. Darrell had hiked the trail in with his parents as a kid and thought it would be a fun trip for our truck and a great way to test out its off-road capabilities. We did buy it with an off-road package after all.

The trail started easily enough. Traverse some rock, through some mud and water, and over some more rock. Then things got interesting. The trail became a sunken, narrow path, full of water, mud, and rock. There was no room to maneuver and no way to get off the trail.

Darrell had it in 4×4 Low with the mud mode engaged. We crawled along and he chose his path carefully. The trees were close enough that we had to watch the mirrors didn’t hit them. I couldn’t take pictures at this point because I was focused on what was going on. Everything made it look like we should get stuck. We discovered big rocks submerged in the water and I was grateful for the plating under the truck that was designed to protect the more sensitive areas from crazy owners that decide to follow ATV paths to a lake.

Torn between exhilaration and anxiety, I watched as we approached a massive puddle with big jump in the trail. Our truck has some decent clearance, but I didn’t think it could manage that height. Darrell wanted to give it a go by climbing the side of the trail, so on we went. Unfortunately, that puddle was more of a pit and much deeper than either of us had imagined, and the truck was suddenly on quite the angle. This wasn’t going to work.

We backed up a little bit and I consulted the BRMB app to see where we were. We were only halfway to the lake and it was still mud and water as far as we could see. Continuing forward wasn’t safe, so our only option was to backup along the trail.

There we were, with trees enclosing us on both sides, rocks and ground now visible only through mirrors and a backup camera, and our only way out was the way we had come. I had no need to worry though. As the dogs jumped from one window to the next and I blabbered on about who knows what, Darrell calmly backed us down that path for almost 10 minutes. His patience and skill with a vehicle are why we only attempt these things when he’s driving!

We finally made it back to a rock clearing and took a break. The dogs barreled out the door to run and stretch their legs, then gulp down all the water I could get to them. Us humans took a walk around the truck, marveling at the mud we had picked up and checking for any signs of damage. That truck didn’t threaten to get stuck once. It was a powerhouse.

Not being able to reach the lake made our first site a bust. The path wasn’t even hikeable in its current state (not without getting soaked and covered in mud). We were both a little down as we got back on the road and headed for the highway. However, as we were driving by a lake only a short distance away, we noticed tracks going down to the water and followed them to a beautiful campsite. It would be just big enough for the truck and a tent, but there was a nice firepit and plenty of room to fish and watch the water. Score! This site got added to our list of ones to return to.

The clock was showing 3pm as we made our way to the second area we had researched. I had hoped the trails I found on the map would take us to some small, secluded lakes, but the trail was closed in one direction, and the other direction lead to a large graveled area, clearly a former work-staging area, probably from the highway construction. Not at all what we had hoped for, even though we did pass a site on the way in.

Having met with another bust, we stopped to consider our options. Did we return to the awesome site we had stumbled upon? Or did we push on closer to Killarney and the site at the lake we had stayed at so many times before?

A quick look at the weather made that choice even more important since we realized we were currently in a tornado warning. While the dogs continued running around in all the open space, we checked the radar, the forecast, and weighed the pros and cons of each site. We settled on heading for the familiar, better protected site, letting our safety person (Darrell’s mom) know where we were going. We might be getting smarter about the safety thing as we get older.

When Darrell first brought me to this lake (over a decade ago now, yikes!) I thought it was absolute wilderness. The path in had seemed so rough to me. On this trip it made me laugh as it felt like a beautifully paved road after our first stop on that day.

It felt like coming home to arrive at this lake. It had been too long since we last visited (entirely my fault for filling up our summers with farming for few years). I don’t have the connection to this lake that Darrell and his family have, but it’s the first place we ever went on vacation together, and the first place I ever camped on crown land, and the first place I’d ever caught so many big smallmouth bass. There are a lot of wonderful memories at this spot.

Before we lost cell reception I noticed the tornado warning had dropped to a watch. Without reception I couldn’t keep up with the forecast, but we kept an eye to the sky and set-up camp. No sooner had we set the tent up than I found Erza waiting at the door to go in. She was tired after a long day of adventuring. Panda and Molly weren’t quite ready to call it a day.

Being able to camp with a truck was a nice change from all the boat camping we’ve done lately. It was a great place to get out of the rain and we cooked dinner on the tailgate after Darrell managed to find his emergency lighter. Once dinner was underway we finally located the lighters he had actually packed for the trip.

After dinner we walked down to the lake for a quick fish and to check out the new ramp one of the cottagers had been working on. It sure beats the old one! Molly finally got have her swim and Panda and Erza ran around following all the new scents.

We were in the tent by 8pm since it was already dark. The dogs fell asleep immediately and Darrell was snoring not long after. I knew I wasn’t tired enough to sleep well so I read the e-book I had managed to download just before we lost cell service (because I yet again forgot to bring a book with me). It was surprisingly quite that night. I guess the wind and rain had the animals hunkered down, because the usual sounds were absent.

Erza woke us all up at 4am, ready to get going for the day. We crawled out of the tent and read by lantern light until the sky started shifting from black to blue. Scrambled egg wraps were a delicious camp breakfast, even if half the eggs had broken in the carton and gotten egg goo everywhere.

We packed up camp, went for a quick fish, and drove the path around the back of the lake as far as we could go. Then it was time to say goodbye and head for one last spot before the drive home.

The last spot was a river and it was Darrell’s choice to stop here. He didn’t warn me about what I was about to see, but just smiled when I turned my head to look downriver and whispered, “wow”. The falls downstream didn’t have the biggest drop or anything necessarily spectacular, but they took my breath away all the same. There was a camp site here, a nicer one further downstream, and an even nicer one on the other bank.

Of course, it wouldn’t be right if we didn’t take the truck for more exploring, so we followed the road down the river. There was a launch for canoes and small boats. You definitely don’t want to take a car down that path unless you’re okay with smashing it on something. We passed even more sites that would be good for a small trailer or someone that wants an easy access site.

Easy access wasn’t really our thing, so we crossed a creek and followed what we assumed was a logging road. By crossing a creek I mean that there was no bridge and we had to drive down the rock embankment and up the other side. A longer truck might not make it so easily. It was a beautiful area, despite the carnage left by the bulldozers. So many birch and poplars, giving way to stands of pine in other parts of the forest. The asters were blooming and the white and soft purple flowers formed an incredible sight along the roadside. There were many ATV (and probably snowmobile) trails heading off the main road. Despite our truck’s narrow stance, we weren’t going to fit down those paths. By the time we came to another river crossing it was near noon and we decided it was time to turn around and head home.

This type of trip was a change for us. There was no boat and very little fishing. But there was a lot of exploring, getting mud on the tires, and plenty of laughter. We loved checking out new areas and finding a few gems out of all the campsites we visited. If you want to find crown land campsites, you really need to put the time into scouting them. We added several waypoints to our BRMB app and have new sites we can head to (and hopefully find them empty) next time we head out that way.

We returned home tired, happy, and with more thirst for adventure than ever. The outdoors is addictive. All you have to do is get out there. Also, if you have a Ford Ranger with the Tremor package, you’ll probably be pretty happy with what it can do!