April, 2022
Montana and Washington

I have two weeks off work every month and the goal was to get out in the van each month, or at least most months.  After a successful trip in March to Colorado and Utah,  I was rather skunked in April.  I tried a short trip to the Bitterroots south of Missoula, but hardly any campgrounds were open and the weather was iffy.  I spent only one night at a technically closed USFS campground before coming home after waking up to snow squalls.  A few days later I headed north and found the very nice little town of Republic, WA, and a nearby USFS campground that was, once again, technically closed.  Crappy weather again, but at least I got a little time in front of a fire that night before retreating to the warm van and heading home the next morning through more snow.

Republic has what used to be quite common in small towns across the country: a park where camping is allowed.  I didn’t want to camp there but was going to stop by the town hall to verify that camping was allowed as posted on freecampsites.net.  I didn’t need to.  Check out the sign at the park.  Not only do they allow camping there, the encourage it.  What a cool little mountain town!

Maybe I’ll have better luck in May.