What We've Done in Year 1 of Owning our Own Recreational Land, Laurel Ridge

The view of the surrounding Blue Ridge Mountains from a spot we’ve named Piney Point.

As we shared previously, in 2022 we finally did something we had talked about doing for decades. We bought our own recreational land for camping and hiking. We wanted a spot within a reasonable driving distance of our home so distance wouldn’t hinder us from enjoying it, we wanted to be at a higher elevation to escape the hotter, more humid temperatures at lower elevations, and we wanted views. Check, check, check, and check! Laurel Ridge, which is what we named our mountain getaway, meets all of these, though it didn’t check our fifth box of having running water, though we believe there are likely springs that are on our list to search for.

Living in a modern world with human conveniences everywhere, it’s an entirely different experience to go off-grid and carve out a temporary existence.

We have camped in national parks for years and while that feels rustic, we have still had access to bathrooms, showers, a firepit with a cooking grate, flat spots for our tent, and a bear box to store food away from hungry paws.

All of that feels much more luxurious compared to camping on a piece of land without any amenities.

But the quiet!

While national park campgrounds aren’t rowdy places, there are still neighboring campsites, the hum of generators from campers, and human passersby.

The level of calm that comes from the peace and quiet of our own camping spot is not even in the same category. Other than the nighttime hoots of resident bard owls and the calls of a multitude of birds and the chattering of squirrels, the only sound is leaves rippling in the wind. And, oh yeah, because there is a valley nearby, a train whistle echo occasionally cuts through the air in an unexpected reminder of the world beyond.

For better or worse – mostly worse – humans always leave their fingerprints on the land they touch so our spot is different now than it was a year ago. We have started carving out our own rural mountain retreat by adding some small human conveniences.

This has been our year-long journey to make Laurel Ridge a bit more camping friendly for us, our friends and family, and our dogs. We have a fairly lengthy list of things we want to do with the land over time including building our own do-it-yourself, off-grid cabin (I’m sure that will be ample fodder for future posts when we get to it!). But we also have accomplished some good early activities already.

First, we identified a spot for our tent camping. We selected a spot near where we can park our car for ease of hauling our belongings. We also selected a spot on enough of an uphill incline (not hard when everything is mountainous!) so that we can see a reasonable distance around us.

We cleared a small number of tiny trees, and we also felled some large trees that were rotting and risked falling on us.

We built a picnic table from scratch – we bought the metal pieces online along with instructions, and picked up wood from the hardware store that we stained an orange cedar color. In fact, I’m typing on my laptop from that table at this moment.

We built a shed-like structure from scratch. It is roughly 5 feet wide by 5 feet deep and approximately 8 feet tall. It currently doubles as a storage shed and a place for some privacy when it’s time to poop in a bucket. Yep, that’s a thing. We named the shed “Saunders” in honor of a Winnie-the-Pooh reference. It makes the whole endeavor much more sophisticated and classy. “I’m going to go visit Saunders.”

We built a firepit with an air tunnel to create an updraft to help the fire breathe.

We’ve strung string between a couple of trees to easily hang a trash bag with clothespins during the day. At night, we remove it to keep it safe from bears and other wildlife.

We’ve found a few trees just far enough apart to form the two ends of our tree hammock. You want relaxing? You get into a hammock in the middle of the woods and just laze or read. Ours is a two-person hammock, though we’ve yet to give that aspect a try!

One of our latest additions is adding six metal tiki torches around our camp area so that we have better visibility than the light of a campfire without having to turn on bright white flashlights.

The tiki torches make for cool orange light on the trees

And last but not least, we have continued to evolve how we deal with our dogs while camping. We have a collapsible, round fence that is meant to be a small dog pen. During the day, we place them in there on a tarp to prevent them from getting overly dirty. But we found getting in and out of the tent at night to be a pain when they tried to rush through the tent sides. No one wants to lose a dog in the woods! So, using some basic garden posts and fencing, we created a 100-foot long fenced area around our tent so that we don’t need to worry about the dogs getting lose. That ended up being way more of a benefit than we’d realized.

While we hope to be able to cram in at least one more camping weekend in 2023 – fully weather dependent! – we’ve been able to enjoy multiple fall camping trips, toting our newest camping acquisitions, gifted to us by adidas. We finally replaced my old adidas bag from circa 1997 with this updated one. And for those chilly fall hikes, I added this light weight hooded hiking jacket to my camping wardrobe, and Dustin added this fleece hoodie.

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