New here and looking for advice and ideas

[TyCobb2001]

Hello all. New to this site and hoping to get some advice and maybe find some camping partners here in SoCal. Grew up camping and haven't been in a long time, unless you count a few nights at a campground in the Eastern Sierra with friends. Anyway, as the title suggests, I'm looking for ideas for places in SoCal to camp. There are tons of places, but here's the rub. In the Basin area, from LA South all the way to San Diego there are few disbursed/free/not full camping options. For the most part, you have to camp at a campground (and reservations are required and the "walk up" they claim is available, isn't) or you have to be in one of the plentiful designated camp sites in the parks, but those aren't usually "drive up", meaning a few trips up and down a trail. By the way, I car camp for now. What I'd like to find is some place where I can drive my Trooper up a few miles or more and set up camp. Hike for a day or too, and head home. We have plenty of OHV trails within a few hours of me, but I've been told that camping off the trails is forbidden (I have you to officially check this out). And I'm not sure about driving 4+ hours North hoping to find a place. The other thing is the solo camping aspect. I do like to be alone out there, but I'd rather camp with/as a small group. So I'm looking for like minded folks to camp with (my friends are beach and bar types). I have a REI membership, and spoke with some of the people there, but they seem to be too extreme for me. I don't want to hike 15 miles and eat freeze dried chicken alfredo under a rain fly. So any members willing to share some tips. Anyone know of any clubs or loose groups. If you've camped in SoCal, any advice would be appreciated.

[Irate Mormon]

Re: New here and looking for advice and ideas

Have you looked at freecampsites.net?

[Happy Joe]

Re: New here and looking for advice and ideas

I like camping in National Forests (I expect they may have different rules in some parts of the US, check with the rangers first).
Have also camped on BLM land although finding out if it is leased to a rancher is sometimes problematic.

Enjoy!

[TyCobb2001]

Re: New here and looking for advice and ideas

I hadn't seen that website, although I've seen similar ones. I will definitely call/look at a few of those. The site shows mostly campgrounds and camp sites in the Angeles National Forest. That's not a problem in and of its self, but it tends to get crowded in the summers and most free spots that are vehicle accessible will require at least a permit. Some places they say you need the "California Adventure Pass that I figure is like the park pass that I used to get when I did volunteer work with the NPS, it's like an all access pass. We have plentiful BLM land North of the LA Basin (also North of the Angels National Forest) but not to sound picky, it's most all arid, high desert, waste land. Not much if any good hiking. And up that way is a lot of forrest service land as well, but it sometimes becomes limited between spring and fall because of increasing wild fire dangers. And with traffic, it's about 4 hours to Lancaster/Mojave. I will be checking out Mojave and Joshua Tree this summer though. Thanks for the ideas though, I will post of I find things close to where I am.