indyfabz

Forgot about the private campground in Burnt Cabins, PA on PA Bike Route S. I had a reservation for a site at a state park 6 at the top of a six mile climb but I was close to being spent when I reached Burnt Cabins. I was also starting to lose light due to several delays that day so I decided to call it a day. The place is literally right next to the PA Turnpike. At one end of the campground you can walk up a berm, climb over the guard rail and literally be on the highway. I saw the place while driving to Pittsburgh for the start of the trip and thought "Who in their right mind would stay there?" I picked the site spot farthest from the highway and didn't think it would be bad. Wrong. Trucks Jake braking all night. Don't think I had 30 min. of uninterrupted sleep.


The next morning I was very tired. Did the six mile climb, which turned out to be pretty easy. I could have made it the day before. The state park where I was supposed to stay was serene.

Flintshooter

Confining it to bike touring, the worst night I've ever had wasn't camping. It was in a motel.
Blue Ridge Parkway, early spring. Most of the NPS concessions were a few weeks away from being open.
That particular day was really cold. I started out with a few Snickers bars, and when I stopped for a break a little over an hour later they were so hard (almost, but not quite frozen) that It was hard to eat one. The wind was bad enough that I could slow the bike to a crawl on downhills just by sitting up straight.
I spent most of the day dreaming of a hot shower and warm room.
What I got instead was a shower that never managed even lukewarm on full hot, and a room with an iffy heater that was so cold I ended up sleeping in my bag with my down jacket on.
Fast forward to 2017.
A motel in Rockfish Gap that was really nice when I stayed there in 1975 during an AT hike is now slowing returning to the elements. However, looking at street view on Google Earth, the motel from Hell on the Parkway seems to have been renovated. Just out of curiosity, I might have to give it another try.

J.Higgins 

Excellent stories!

I've never had a sad night of sleep on bicycle tour - because I've not done one yet! I have, however, done plenty of trekking and adventure-motorcycling all over Europe and North America. I'd have to say that my worst night of sleep was under a Winnebago at a Walmart in Indiana. A retired couple owned the RV, and were very gracious to let me sleep under it after I explained who I was and what I was up to. The pavement was hard and cold, and there seemed to be a lot of incidental noise that kept me from deeper sleep. Kids with Fast and Furious fantasies and grapefruit-shooter tailpipes, plus loud motorcycles exhaust were the main annoyances.

Rob_E

I'm sure I've posted about this somewhere before. Night 3 of a 4 day, 3 night trip to the Outer Banks. The last night was kind of an unofficial campground. I tracked the owner down on Facebook and got permission to camp, even though they weren't really operating. One thing I'm still not used to when it comes to camping in NC, is that there are significant black bear populations on both ends of the state. They're very rare where I live, but I'm still nervous about camping in known bear country, which I hit going too far east or west. Night 2 I spent in my hammock hanging from the rafters of a cabin. Hot as hell, but felt very safe. Riding on day 3 was harrowing because long stretches were along a fast moving road with no shoulder and occasional "watch out for bear" signs. Passed the final bear sign and had go fast as possible over a bridge that also lacked shoulders or a bike lane and was the only way across a fairly wide river. Then on to camp. The campground was just a large pond/small lake that was somewhat mowed around the edge. No facilities, and some junk had been tossed into the area. I foolishly thought that the absence of "bear" signs, the large river I had crossed over, and the relatively denser human population near the coast meant that I was out of bear country. The owner said otherwise, and said that one bear in particular made a habit of visiting the pond in the morning. "But if you just yell at him, he'll leave." or something to that effect. Also the owner was concerned about the weather, and even invited me to sleep inside since there were high winds and a possible storm coming through overnight. I declined, pointing out that nights 1 and 2 of my trip were actually under a shelter of some sort, and this was my last chance to really camp.

But setting up my hammock was a challenge. All the trees had been removed for maybey 3 or 4 yards around the pond. Once the trees started, they were fairly thin and tightly spaced: pocosin, kind of a wooded swamp. There were no trees in sight that were the required 9 feet apart that didn't have 3 or 4 trees growing between them. Plus it was wet beyond the tree line. I ended up tying up to one of the trees at the border, and using materials at hand to tie up the other end. Materials at hand were a picnic table, a discarded sawhorse, and whatever extra cable I had. Saw horse on top the picnic table. Hammock line running over the sawhorse, then under the picnic table from the far side, and attaching to the bench on the near side. Somehow I thought that would make it more stable, make the table less likely to just tip when I got in the hammock. Not sure my logic was sound, but it worked. Mostly. There was some extra sway in the system. I'm pretty sure the saw horse went up on two legs at times.

The first part of the night was spent waiting for my makeshift hammock stand to collapse. After a few hours, I decided that if it hadn't happened yet, it probably wouldn't. So I tried to fall asleep. The wind was terrible, and I worried that bad rain could come through at any time. That would be unpleasant because the wind was pushing my small tarp to the side so much that I could see the sky. At least I could see that there were very few clouds. Now that I was worried a little less about the hammock falling, I could spend more time worrying about the night sounds. The wind? The bear? I would strain my ears at every sound, trying to identify what might have made it. And how close. I was mentally reciting all the bear facts I had read in preparation for camping in bear country: Black bear attacks are very rare, usually from a conflict over food. All my food was in an abandoned fridge, my makeshift bear box, not close to my tent. Black bears are relatively smaller than brow bears, and the coastal bears were generally even smaller than those in the mountains. A 200 pound bear would be large for the area, and, while I still didn't fancy my odds against a 200 pound bear, the bear wouldn't know that I only outweighed it because of excess pizza and beer. Black bears were skittish. Not looking for a fight. Especially if you looked remotely large enough to challenge them. So once I'd imagined my imaginary bear down to a more cuddly size, I slept, fitfully. Bears weren't the only wildlife interfering with my sleep. Every time the wind died down, the mosquitoes came back. This was the trip where I learned that my single-layer hammock was not so tough that a determined mosquito couldn't bite through it. I had another layer that went underneath, for warmth, but it was terribly warm outside, so I was constantly trying to figure out whether it was better to have the extra layer to thwart the mosquitoes, or whether it was better to have a livable temperature. I compromised by trying to sleep on top of my sleeping bag liner. I did sleep in small increments. That was clear the next day, because it was obvious that had dozed with parts of my body against the bug netting. I had a series of mosquito bites in a patch on one arm and on the side of my face. The bites were in a nice, even grid as the blood-suckers attacked me through the mesh of my netting. Finally, after another short spell of sleep, I checked the time and saw it was close to sunrise. I considered getting up then, but didn't relish packing up in the dark, and also didn't want to come up on the bear before I could see it. Eventually the sky brightened, I decided to get up and break camp.

The bear was not terribly close, but neither was he far enough away for comfort. Several yards down the shore of the pond, he was looking curiously in my direction. He was not cuddle-sized, and I had no confidence that I could intimidate him if he took offence to my presence. He easily had a hundred pounds on me. Still, my first thought was that bears were skittish, and I wanted him to stay put long enough to be photographed. I grabbed my pack and climbed on top of the picnic table to seem bigger. I retrieved my camera and took a shaky-handed, low light picture that Nessy and Bigfoot photographers would find unconvincing, but I didn't know that at the time. I only knew that I had taken my photo, and now it was time for the bear to flee. Instead, the bear just stared at me. I tried speaking to it. "Okay bear, we're done here, you can go." I was hoping for an "Oh s**t! It can talk." reaction that sent the bear scurrying. Instead I got, "Interesting. It makes noise. This requires further study." The bear started walking in my direction. When it had made a few steps in my direction, I clapped my hands together loudly and yelled, "Go!" The bear still refused to scurry away. It did stop, and slowly, as if to make the point that it was not scared, but simply didn't feel like pushing the issue, it turned and strolled into the tree line.

Broke camp faster than I have before or since. Most of the packing done from atop the picnic table where I could keep an eye out for my new friend. I had planned on meeting up with campground owner in the morning for a cup of coffee, but it was too early to expect anyone to be up. I called them from an hour or two down the road and apologized, but said the bear had convinced me to leave early, and it seemed too early to wake them for coffee.

Still, I wouldn't say it was the worst place I had ever slept, but the combination of the weather, the bugs, my lack of experience with camping in bear country, and the sketchiest hammock hang I've ever attempted made for the worst night's sleep I've ever had, and probably the most memorable.

Ty0604

The men's restroom at the town park in Shoshoni, Wyoming. There's not much in town. A bar or two and a gas station across the street from the park that serves as the town grocery store. My intended campground was several miles out of the way and would have had to double back the next day, which was already a 100+ mile trek into Casper. At first I was going to set up at the park but it was windy and a lot of truck traffic on the highway. Shortly after dark I went into the men's restroom and took apart the deadbolt from the inside and locked the door with the deadbolt and the push button lock on the door handle. There was a steel plate on the inside of the door so you couldn't lock the deadbolt without taking the plate off. Took my tent rope and tied it from the doorknob to the toilet. Why? Figured if someone pulled on the door I'd hear it. No one did.

The worst campground I've ever stayed at was the Kadoka Kampground in Kadoka, South Dakota. The owners are hoarders and the place was disgusting. They lived in a mobile home filled floor to ceiling with junk. The cabins on the grounds are no longer for rent as they're also filled with junk. The swimming pool is filled with junk. The bathrooms are beyond disgusting. I imagine the worst prison in the world has better bathrooms. I'm honestly not sure how the place is even open. It'd never pass health codes here. Should have gotten a tetanus shot after sleeping there.

Restroom in Shoshoni, Wyoming

indyfabz

There used to be a motel in Jeffrey City, WY, which is on Adventure Cycling's TransAm rote. It was called the JC Motel. It was basically a bunch of trailers connected side by side with paneling on the outside to make the place look like a single structure. It was run by a surly, chain smoking old woman who, IIRC, was on oxygen. A fair number of cyclists would stay there because the distance between the only other towns in the area was something like 130 miles, and the winds could be fierce. It was the only motel I have ever stayed in that did not take credit cards. It was pretty run down when I was there in 2000. Several years later, and shortly before it closed, a cyclist who stayed there had to ask for a different room at least once due to dirty conditions. He wrote about how, in one of the rooms he was given, there were mushrooms growing out of the carpet.


If you look at Google Maps Street View you can still see the remnants of the motel at the intersection of Coats Rd. and U.S. 287. Jeffrey City is a God forsaken place that was established in the 50s as a home for uranium miners. The place started to go down hill in the early 80s after the bottom fell out of the uranium market. When I was there you could still see the Army barracks style housing where some people had lived. I ended up in the local bar/café talking to a one legged woman whose husband had lost his job in the uranium mining industry. The apparent bar owner was openly complaining about how the state was limiting elk hunting tags. Some drunk ranch had looking guy stumbled in near blind drunk, bought some beer to go, got back in his car and drove off.

J.Higgins 

You are much more brave than me, brother. Call me squeamish, but I'd rather ride through the night and take a down day than to sleep on a public restroom floor.

AdvXtrm

Great thread, and if I've learned anything from it so far, it's to be as prepared as reasonably possible with the appropriate shelter supplies and such, try to have a look around to insure you're not sleeping near train tracks, on-top of piles of dung, or on-top of a rodent infested trash dump. If you have a functioning nose, I'd think those last two should be easily avoidable.

Vintage_Cyclist

Under a bulldozer somewhere north of Providence RI. We were doing a NYC to Boston trip and got ourselves lost, at night, in a ridiculous downpour. We came upon a road project site, where there were a few bulldozers parked. Plenty of room underneath and dry as a bone, but we slept lightly for fear of getting turned into pancakes the next morning.

mev

For what it is worth, Jeffrey City has a motel open again. I stayed there in September 2016. From the description sounds like the same place under new management.

Jeffrey City received the June Curry award for their hospitality after the motel closed down. A church has signs and allows cyclists to camp. "The pottery guy" also offered a camp spot.

While the community isn't much, I was pleased with the hospitality at Split Rock Cafe and from locals there.

indyfabz

That's good news. After I was there, a church in town started allowing people to stay inside, but several years ago they ended it because some D.B. cyclists did something that pissed off the people who ran the church. There was actually a thread about it on ACA's forum. IIRC, the church posted a clear set of rules as to what was allowed and what was not. IIRC. it was never revealed what the cyclist did, but it was enough to make the church decide to stop letting people stay inside. Maybe it's the same church and they are now letting them camp outside.

The people who ran the cafe/bar were generally fine. I didn't have enough small bills to leave a tip for lunch but got some from the bar side. The waitress was most appreciative. It was just a strange experience staying in that town at that time. Remember, that was 17 years ago. The only open businesses were the cafe/bar, the motel and a gas station with a small store.

thumpism 

Try being run out of a public restroom by wildlife in the middle of the night. We called it Mouse Night on the Parkway.

During our Trans Am attempt last May my bro-in-law and I were on the Blue Ridge Parkway late in the day, heading for the road down to Vesuvius VA and a campground. We got as far as the Humpback Rocks picnic area, a few miles south of the actual Rocks, and scoped it out. Still daylight but it was going fast and there were No Camping signs. I walked up a rocky service road away from the actual picnic area and found a level-in-spots grassy area near a utility building. We planned to pitch camp there until Jeff checked the weather and found we were in for a big storm with extremely high, sustained winds and hard rain. At elevation. So we decided to sleep in one of the restrooms, except it was still light out and there was still some occasional traffic. We resolved to sit around until dark and if anyone asked we were "picnicking," and once it got dark we'd be "No Camping."

By then the fog was rolling in and the temp dropping. Very spooky. We laid out our tent footprints on the floor and tried to get comfortable. We settled down and it was not long before I heard the scritch, scritch, scrabble of tiny feet scrambling over tile, cordura and ripstop nylon, zooming past my head. I was wondering how the hell Jeff could not be hearing this and thinking, "Damn, he's really asleep." Sat up to turn on my light and saw the mice zipping about, then out under the door. Jeff sat up and pulled out his earbuds. Books and podcasts on his iPod, I learned.

His big plan was to go out and bring back a bag of gravel that he spread out in a neat berm along the bottom edge of the door as a barrier for the mice. I was already rehearsing my "I told you so" lecture but held my tongue and we settled in again, some of us with our earbuds in again, and it was not long until I could hear the gravel being pushed away, followed by a repeat of the scritch, scritch, scrabble. Lights on again, earbuds out again, the rant began. We had to brush the gravel away to get out, then resolved to pitch the tents regardless of the forecast.

Slept quite well as it turned out. Never did blow hard, only got a few drops of rain just before sunrise, and we were leaving the area just as the first cars began arriving.
picnic2.JPG

Ty0604

haha I couldn't go any further. I'd done 90 miles from Dubois on a humid day with a lot of climbing. There's not much between Shoshoni and Casper. A few gas stations between the two places, a distance of about 100 miles.

Luckily I was so tired I slept pretty well. Got up at first light, around 5am, and was on the road to Casper by 530.

Flintshooter

Having spent more nights in Appalachian Trail shelters than I could possibly remember, I have to say that mice wouldn't have bothered me at all. Now days, the bear problem has become bad enough that most hikers hang food away from where they sleep. Before that became common practice though, all shelters had strings run through tuna cans hanging from the ceiling and overhang in an attempt to keep mice away from the food.
Last summer I spent the night in a shelter in SNP where I was pretty sure the SOP mouse problem would be light to nonexistent. I figured the two big pilot blacksnakes coiled in the rafters did a good job of keeping them in check.

DTG

Keeping it pg but the line about the grizzly bear was wow. That had to be some scary ****!

staehpj1

We camped in the abandoned pavilion across the street from the restaurant. I think it was the Lion's club pavilion. It was okay as far as I was concerned other than the mosquitoes. That was in 2007.

indyfabz

Yes. That's the Lion's Club place. At the time, the Porta Pottie there looked like it hadn't been serviced in a LONG time so I opted for the motel. I am glad I did. I went to the park to cook dinner after I was able to scrounge up a can of chilly at the gas station store. The mosquitoes were pretty bad. A small group of Dutch cyclists heading west were camping there. They warned me about the bleakness and proximity to I-80 of the Rawlins KOA, where I was planning to stay the next day. So at least I got some good advice out of my stay in JC.

BobG

The last time I stayed there in 2009 I actually had a room with working AC. Thus the JC Motel did not make my "worst of" list. It did make my "bad" list on a previous thread!...

https://www.bikeforums.net/18973657-post6.html

indyfabz

I did something dumb like that once in Wyoming. There used to be a joint Adventure Cycling-U.S.F.S., cyclist-only campground about 5 miles up the west side of Togwotee Pass. Beautiful view of the Tetons and wildflowers all around. I could see hardened moose tracks that must have been left when the ground was wet. There were also ripped up tree stumps--a clear sign of bear activity--so the facility had a bear locker. When I finally went to sleep every rustle and tree limb creek made me nervous. I got even more apprehensive when it dawned on me that I had foolishly pitched my tent less than 10' from the bear locker.

RandomlyWest

The men's room at Lake Nacimiento Resort, west of Paso Robles, CA.

I had just done my first century (accidentally), was sunburned and dehydrated, and my map-reading skills were mostly based on selective perception. Had planned on a motel in Paso Robles (which was still another 15 very hilly miles away). About 8:30pm when I arrived at the resort/campground. I learned the resort's cabins were 2-bedroom lakeview units costing $150+ a night. I didn't have that kind of money. Also, I had no tent.

After a concerned once-over from the woman at the front gate (she had a look on her face like, "I wonder if he's been drinking his own urine" - I had thought of it), I snuck away and lay down on my windbreaker and rack duffel in the men's room next to my bike. It wasn't a private suite like the one in Shoshoni, Wyoming. Several guys came in to urinate overnight, at least I was off in the corner by the door. Overnight temps in the mid 40s. Cement floor. Slept in everything I owned. At least I was protected from the wind. Not much fun.

I have planned tours very, very efficiently ever since.

eladh7

All Day riding to the wrong camp,
I fined myself in the end of the day in a caravan campplaz(germany: only on the middle of the city, so no chance for bathroom?!
Thank you map...

MichaelW

Why worst night was in a beautiful and almost empty campsite in N Spain. Car pulls in, parks right next to my tent. The young couple then pitch their tent about 1foot from mine ( in a large, empty site), then spend the night loudly expressing their affection for each other. Yeuuch.

Big Lew

Not the worst, but the most worrisome places were on the Alaskan Hwy.
Up on the Cascade Divide late in the day we kept looking for a suitable place to camp
for the night but there frequently were fresh grizzly tracks on the graveled roadside
banks. We made camp anyway, and during the night were serenaded by a close by
pack of wolves. All in all, it was a stressful night to say the least.
Much further along we had to ride through muskeg flats where there's a lot of oil well
activity. We saw several signs warning of Sulphur gas that can lay in depressions as it is
heavier than normal air. We found a very slight mound to camp on, but again we had
quite a worrisome night.

indyfabz

You reminded me of a night I spent in a state park during a four-day tour last Easter weekend. Despite it being a holiday weekend, the campground was still rather crowded. (It's normally booked solid on the weekends.) There was a couple in a site not that far from me. They were car camping but had bikes and went for a day ride. That night, they started having really loud sex. The man was moaning and the woman was practically screaming. What a classless thing to do, especially since there were several families with children even closer to them than I was. The park is huge and there are lots of wooded or otherwise secluded areas where they could have gone. I guess some people simply have no regard for others when it comes to some things.

Joe Minton

Six weeks in Laos where everyone wanted to kill me.