Nevada Teardrop Camping: Fort Churchill

Our year of teardrop camping in Nevada continued last weekend with a trip to Fort Churchill State Historic Park on Highway 50 near the city of Fallon, Nevada. While this area is only about 1.5 hours from our home, it's a really nice getaway into the Nevada desert.


Fort Churchill was once an active U.S. Army fort built in 1861. It housed hundreds of soldiers and other employees of the fort. It was primarily used to protect wagon trains coming across the desert into California from the local Native American tribes during the Pyramid Lake War—which began when three men living at a nearby fort kidnapped several young Paiute girls.


Thousands of dollars were spent building and maintaining the fort and while it also became a Pony Express station and a sight for sore eyes after the 40 Mile Desert, it was abandoned less than 10 years later. Many of the adobe buildings can still be seen up close and the state park has a campground, interpretive center, graveyard, river access and some amazing views.


Out of all the places we've been camping, Fort Churchill might be one of my favorite campgrounds: it's small, but private with massive trees, large sites, fire pits, picnic tables and birds everywhere. It was dead quiet at night except for a few owls.





7 comments:

  1. Nice! I noticed that you have replaced your REI Alcove with a new shelter. We just received our Alcove a few days ago!

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    1. Hi Sylvain. Yes, we now use our Alcoves for Burning Man and use a Quik Shade for "regular" camping. I love the Alcoves, but they do take longer to set up than a Quik Shade. However, the Quik Shades don't do as well in high winds.

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  2. We finished our teardrop in 2009 and call it the DewDropN. I have question about your tow vehicle. Is your Sorento a 4 cylinder or 6 cylinder? I have been towing our tear with a 6 cylinder Ranger that is getting some age on it. I also have a 4 cylinder Subaru Forester and am thinking I will try towing with that. I probably should weight the tear and car loaded to see what the true tow weight is. Thanks, and love your blog!

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    1. Hi William. Thank you so much! I would love to do a post on your DewDropN if you have some photos. Let me know.

      We have a 6 cylinder 2008 Kia Sportage as a tow vehicle and it works really great. We only have issues on very steep mountains (like the Teton Pass in Wyoming). It will depend on the weight of your teardrop. I have seen 4 cylinder Foresters towing larger trailers like the T@B.

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    2. Christina, thanks for your response. I have to admit I envy those who have the desert nearby. I love to see all the pics of others enjoying the southwest and I would love to go on a road trip some day but I worry about the Forester as a tow vehicle. I plan to test it out as soon as hitch is installed. We would be glad to send you some pics and a little background on our DewDropN just let me know how to proceed in sending them to you.

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    3. We have a nice choice between the desert or the high mountains. It's great but our weather can be mighty unpredictable. The TNTTT forum might have some information on what the Forester can tow.

      Go ahead and send the pics and information about your trailer to christinatn(at)gmail.com. Thank you!

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  3. Nice tomsee you are continuing to do some pretrip testing for us!

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