TRAVERSE Metropolis, MICH. — Paige Lackey is about to embark on a grand outdoor adventure: a 5-month statewide RV tour of Michigan’s rustic state forest campgrounds.
While that may well seem like a desire getaway to some, the excursion is really section of Lackey’s work as a Huron Pines AmeriCorps member serving with the Michigan Department of Normal Sources.
The system, named “Project Rustic,” is to check out 77 of Michigan’s 145 condition forest campgrounds throughout Northern Decreased Michigan and the Upper Peninsula to enable boost information and facts accessibility for backcountry vacationers to these distant and normally minimal-regarded sites.
Specifics about Michigan condition forest campgrounds have extensive been minimal in the DNR’s on line databases, Lackey points out. After a DNR conference final calendar year on how to enhance and increase that data, Lackey came up with the idea of traveling to the rustic campgrounds herself to obtain the sort of data that will help long run campers.
“I known as my supervisor and just pitched the strategy of personally getting this venture into my personal arms by traveling close to to all the rustic point out forest campgrounds, seeing them 1st-hand and being capable to snap photos and chat with the device administrators to gather the most accurate and comprehensive information,” Lackey says.
The strategy was appropriate in line with Lackey’s own interest in lengthy-phrase journey and her passion for the natural environment and for encouraging people to commit time outside. The DNR greenlighted the pitch, and quickly Lackey observed herself planning and strategizing her longest street vacation yet.
All over her five-month tour, which kicks off at the conclude of this thirty day period, Lackey and her Australian cattle canine sidekick, Willow, will stay and journey in a 30-foot RV delivered by Normal RV. As she hops from campground to campground, she’ll gather GPS facts for mapping, update the DNR’s picture library, and consider present directional and interpretive signals.
She’ll also be guest running a blog for Common RV, sharing rustic camping tips such as campsite cooking ideas and how to camp with a pet.
In contrast to condition park campgrounds, condition forest campgrounds are normally substantially smaller sized, additional remote and only offer you barebones features: a few vault toilets, a hand pump for water, and picnic tables or fire rings at some sites. These rustic locations normally fly less than the radar of most present day campers, which is how Lackey wants to preserve factors, as she is adamant about guarding these typically ecologically susceptible places.
“This is not a advertising undertaking I’m not going about spotlighting some of these truly attractive, more private places,” she mentioned. “I’m really just collecting the info and then putting it on the internet so that if you’re scheduling a journey or you are searching all over for a campground in a precise location, there will be adequate data there and some updated photographs and maps.”
As Venture Rustic’s official start day approaches, Lackey has been training her solo RV parking capabilities and cozying up her rig’s interior with Christmas lights. She’s also presented the RV a name — Arvina — soon after investing some time obtaining to know her.
A Grand Rapids indigenous, Lackey stated she is not anxious about paying out so much time on the highway alone she’ll have Willow, after all, moreover lots of do the job to do. Of all the areas she’ll be traveling to above the coming months, she claims she’s most eagerly anticipating checking out the U.P.
“There are some spots I have been to, but there are even far more that I have not been to,” she says. “I’m just seriously hunting forward to paying time up there. It is additional distant, and a lot less traveled. I’m so psyched.”
Find out extra about Paige Lackey and Venture Rustic on the DNR’s web-site here. Lean more about Huron Pines Americorps at huronpines.org.