At a dinner one night during Overland Expo Mountain West, I sat down across from Brian from @twowolffoundation and discussed a wide range of topics from training, to notable survival instructors, to survival knives, and of course, overlanding. He told me he had an epic camping experience on the way over to Colorado staying on public land in WY. After a few photos, amazing reactions, and a little disbelief that a place so beautiful could exist, I convinced him to send me a pin. In less than a week, my girlfriend and I had a packed 4Runner and a plan to explore the area that was only 4.5 hours away from home. Our expectations were blown out of the water with what we found. This type of trip isn’t uncommon. With the technology available today, it is easy to map location, share latitude and longitude through programs that can translate it to navigable maps, and travel to remote places to spend an indefinite amount of time in relative comfort using your vehicle as a mobility platform. Pair that with the freedom of using public land and you have the recipe for an epic weekend. Of course, there is some adventure to just “winging” a trip like this but it is better to do some research and look at the surrounding area for avenues of egress, resupply, hazards, attractions, and so forth. You can also ruin a trip by too much planning and setting up your expectations for serious failure. Before we left on this trip, I looked up the daytime and nightly highs and lows. I researched the nearest town and what could be found there (by the way, if you visit that area, you need to try out the BBQ at Elkhorn Trading Post) as well as our most economical and efficient way to get there and then link that stop in our weekend trip to the town of Victor, ID where we would spend one night as well. Knowing we would camp, we packed relatively light. A two-person tent, my Litefighter hammock, a couple of Kifaru Sleeping Bags (actually one Mountain Bag and one Doobie), a couple of sleeping pads, and whatever we needed to make breakfast in the morning. The pin that Brian dropped me is inside of the Bridger-Teton wilderness where bears are certainly present. We limited the amount of cooking we did and in turn reduced our exposure to any bears wandering in camp. This time of year, the bears aren’t as frisky as they are immediately before hibernation. We didn’t provide any attractions to them and gave them no reason to enter the camp. You shouldn’t hesitate to camp in bear country, just be prepared for an encounter with a plan to avoid it, make your way to your vehicle, and address the threat with a true bear gun. I’ve camped in the bear country many times in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska but my girlfriend hadn’t. With any newbie to camping, you can decide if you want to freak them out or ease their nerves. Since she wanted to camp out under the stars without a rainfly on the tent, I chose the latter. With the vehicle packed, we left early on a Saturday morning to arrive in the camp area by noon. Since we were camping on public land and the primitive dispersed sites were first-come-first-served, we had to move quickly to scout our options. The road that the pin sent us to was 10 miles long with a waterfall at the end as well as hot springs. We knew we were going to be in a popular area and the decision-making process was very much like the television show “Deal or No Deal”. We had to weigh our options and after checking out a couple of places, we doubled back to one site, in particular, that was extremely remote with no additional campsites a half mile in each direction from us. No more than 5 minutes after turning off the engine of my 4Runner did some guy hanging out of a pickup ask if we were staying at that site. As I mentioned, this area is first-come first-served, and apparently pretty popular. We proceeded to unpack, set up our tent, and cool off in the nearby Granite Creek. Once we established our footprint in the camp, we decided to take a hike up to the top of a nearby hill. Don’t let the “hill” term confuse you. Hiking in WY is anything but easy and what looks like a short hike will take you much longer. There was a large pronounced rock above our campsite that we struck out for and after some bushwhacking, we hit it. To our surprise, the rock had an undercut that offered an amazing break from the sun and for someone traveling the backcountry, it could offer an emergency shelter from the weather. The hike was just enough to get our blood pumping and offer some stunning views of the vast landscape we’d call home for the night. We hiked down from the hill and set up for the night. With zero chance of rain in the forecast, we were lucky to be able to camp without the rainfly on our tent and nothing but clear skies and stars overhead. Just before we turned in for the night, we made a warm campfire and took all the Instagram-worthy photos of the fire, pine trees, and backlit mountain horizon lines. I made sure to boil a canteen full of water and wrap it in a blanket for my “campanion” to hold onto in the middle of the night if she got too cold. We also positioned the 4Runner with lights facing the natural line of drift into camp so we could turn them on from the tent if we heard something suspicious. Aside from a single truck that passed on the road we pulled off in the middle of the night, it was dead quiet and incredibly peaceful. As a seasoned camper, I enjoy taking relative newcomers into the woods and when you get to share an incredible experience with someone, it brings you closer to them. My girlfriend’s reaction when she turned off the lantern to see the countless stars without light pollution was one I won’t soon forget. All I will say is the heavenly light show we experienced and mild weather paired with the comfort of great sleeping gear translated to 10 hours of sleep. Funny how you sometimes sleep better in the woods than you do at home. The next morning, we packed up camp and said goodbye to our home away from home. We decided to explore further up the road and made our way to the waterfall feature and hot springs so many were checking out the day before. Upon arrival, we were greeted with fewer cars in the parking lot than the day before. We grabbed some basic day hiking gear along with water shoes and headed down a short path to the falls. At that water level, we could get right up close to the cascade of water and granite rocks. We noticed a few people off to the river left in a small man-made rock circle with steam rising from it. After crossing the stream, we soaked our feet in the pool and discovered the heat was on par with that of a true hot tub. In less than 20 minutes, others arrived at these springs. If you’re looking for privacy at a public attraction, you have to either get there early or be incredibly lucky. Even though we didn’t have much time to let the sulfur work its magic, we were thankful for what we had. It was time to move on. The rest of our trip was heavily focused on hiking and working off the pumpkin bannock bread I made for breakfast that morning in camp. We did a 7-plus mile hike outside of Jackson, WY to Ski Lake and called it a day in Victor, ID behind a heaping plate of barbecue at The Knotty Pine. The following day, we did another hike before making the 5-hour drive home with very few stops along the way all the while talking about how incredible the destination was and already planning our next. This type of adventure started with just a few numbers in a simple pin shared between friends. It transformed into a great 3-day weekend that we won’t soon forget. We found where Brian camped but we also found a place of our own. We drove on the same road as many others but we also had conversations and laughter no one else would. We took the images, pictures, and inspiration from dinner together the week before and made it into something we could share in turn. I think that is the secret to a great overlanding trip. Start with small detail and build it outward. Let the environment and the company create the memories. Share the memories and get others out on the road to incredible destinations like this one.