So my buddy and I were looking for a place to go and really find some adventure riding. That’s been one of the most difficult parts of owning the KLR, finding a place to ride off road. So I was perusing through the various forums and stumbled across a post referencing and ADVRider get together called The Screamin’ Beaver. Clearly I had to find out more.
Turns out this is an annual event held near Murphy, NC in the absolutely stunning Great Smokey Mountains at a place called Crawford’s Campground. I read through all the info on the site and almost immediately sent in our admission fees and got us booked. The campground is a bit hard to get to via GPS because the road it’s on (Horton Rd.) is located in the wrong place in all the GPS maps. But if you route to 35.19917, -84.0851 that will put you at the entrance to the campground (or follow the written directions on the campgrounds website).
The green building is the main
office there run by Danny and his wife (super nice people!). If you need it he has a stocked garage that he will let you use for a fair $20/hr. We camped on the backside in the open field right next to a little creek and it was perfect! It’s very quite, no ruckus, and everyone was very respectful of one another. Hot showers a short walk away so life was good!
We rode up there from the Charlotte, NC area so it was about a 250 mile trip. Starting around 10:30 Friday morning, taking our time, we got there about 5pm or so. We stopped along the way, to eat, stretch, etc. No hurry. Set up camp, and then about 7:30pm dinner was being served. Grilled burger, AMAZING potato salad and ice cold sodas. Pretty much bliss.
After dinner, my buddy and I realized we forgot one major piece of camping equipment. Beer. So we hopped on the KLRs and charged back into town. It was about 12 miles into town on some great roads, this time without all the gear loaded on the back. It was alot of fun, and soon we found Wally World. We picked up a couple of little coolers, some brews and headed back.
