Shanty Draft Designated Dispersed Campsite 4

We thought we'd try our hand at dry camping in below freezing temperatures. The Delaware State Forest was great for this because we don't need to worry about disturbing others with generator noise. In fact, we were the only campers we could find! Most days went above freezing except one which went from a low of 20 degrees to a high of 32. Every night was below freezing so we ran the generator all night.

The site is one of the largest, and the driveway grade into the site was rocky, but smooth. We scouted the sites several weeks before our trip. S-3 had jutting rocks that were too much for our travel trailer, and S-1 has a gully into the site created by building the road that would have been impossible. S-5 was smaller, but would have been a possibility in our trailer. While we were here we also scouted out some of the E-series sites, and found a couple that were possible, but they sit on flat land and so were relatively uninteresting. The S-sites are on top of a ridge.

Hunters were all around us and occasionally we could hear shots. The dates we picked are prime hunting dates. We wore florescent vests when we were outside during the day. The generator made quite a bit of noise so I'm sure we scared the game away, and reduced the chances of a hunter coming near. I don't hunt myself, but we campers need to be aware that the forest is shared and hunting is also an important sport.

If you look at the pictures, you'll notice that we wrapped the trailer in a skirt on most sides. The skirt was made with 2' Reflectix velcro-ed to the trailer body. We didn't bother with the area around the hitch figuring that as long the wind wasn't blowing from that direction, it would be sufficient. We places a space heater under the trailer and hung a wireless thermometer behind the space heater to monitor the under-trailer temperature. It got as low a 30 degrees the night the temperature hit 20 degrees, but the space heaters were blowing in the opposite direction to heat our tanks, so I'm fairly certain they remained above freezing. We kept the heater at the middle 750 watt setting, so we could have added more heat, but didn't need it.

The only negative is that Pennsylvania started charging for state forest camping on November 2022. It's only $10 per night (+6.50 administration fee), and it's easier to book the site, but I think Pennsylvania is the only state I've been in that doesn't allow any free motorized dispersed camping. The plus side to that it's more efficient for park staff, and people won't book a site then never show up because it's free. Still, I wish my home state would allow campers some of the freedoms provided by other states.

Campsite is about 75 yards off the road. Very large and had no problem getting my 31 ft coach with tow vehicle in and out. This is a free site but all the sites in the Delaware state forest require a permit which is free and easy to obtain through the website.
We stayed for one night in early September. We had the place to ourselves, no people, no cars, no road noise.