Since we will be competing for limited camping space at the mediocre Yellow Pines Campground with visitors to Cheyenne's Frontier Days, would orienteering campers be interested in staking out our own area in the National Forest? While contributions would be needed for the permit and renting portapotties, it might be cheaper and nicer for the week.

-- Peg Davis (pegdavis@u.arizona.edu), January 24, 2002

Answers

A couple of people have talked about doing something along this line in the past, though nothing has ever actually been done.

Perhaps worth noting is that there is a group camping area which is quite close to the Yellow Pine Campground--a few hundred meters distant. I believe it is possible to book and reserve the area in advance.

Also it's worth noting that a nice warmup hut/cabin has just been completed at the entrance to the Tie City Campground. It's possible we may be able to get use of the cabin as a place to gather during the 1000 Day.

-- Swampfox (wmikell@earthlink.net), January 25, 2002.

I'll go along with everything Elis said about the group camping area except the part about the water, and that's only because I've never seen the water.

-- Mikell (wmikell@earthlink.net), January 31, 2002.

OK, but who has actually looked at the group site and who would be willing to do the reservation gig and who would be willing to arrange portapotties for a site away from the campground and do the site selection? Most of us will be at APOC and/or the Sage Rogaine just afew days before. I would miss Yellow Pine with features like Lake Shahbazian and Pascal's Folly and the Parsonage. Also, with all those trees, YP is quite protected from those severe afternoon storms. Carl moore

-- Carl Moore (moorecarllinda@aol.com), January 25, 2002.

As Mikell says, there is indeed a kind of group campground next to Yellow Pine. It is also next to and parallell to the marshy area that you drive along on the way in. Me and my wife checked it out a few years ago. However, what we found was that it was in bad shape. It is basically a single dead end road between the swamp and the steep hillside. Actual campsites are few and certainly not suitable for anything but tents. There is one or two outhouses, but there was some kind of trouble with the water system if I remember correctly. We concluded that the site was unsuitable as an orienteering group site.

-- Elis Eberlein (elis_eberlein@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.

Just another comment about the water. We did not look at the water, we just looked at the warning signs that were posted on the spigets. It talked about some infection (real or potential) in the water system and to make sure to boil it before use or get water from elsewhere ( I don't remember the wording). As a microbiologist, that is all I needed to know to reject the site!

-- Elis (elis_eberlein@yahoo.com), January 31, 2002.