Security while Boondocking

[ks@yvr]

Well I’ve been boondocking for many years and earlier tonight I had my first ever incident of what I would classify as a real potential threat.

First I am boondocking in the Tonto National Forest in Arizona about 75-100 feet away from the hiway on a BLM campsite and at 2:40 am I get woken up by a small dirt bike (<500cc thumper) driving around my RV that has made a definite trip off the hiway to ride around my camper in the middle of the night! The bike comes to a stop about 10 feet from my van for about 60 seconds and after shining its headlight on my van as I wake up from the motor sound speeds off back to the hiway and leaves. I am in the middle of no where (literally one other rooftop camper about 1/4 mile away on BLM land on other side of hiway) with the nearest town/village 30 miles either way on the hiway so there is NO reason for a small motorbike to be out cruising at this time of night except possibly looking to get into some sort of trouble. I am generally not much of an alarmist but this definitely got my attention and got me thinking about what I could or should do.

There is nothing flashy on the van although it is an older Pleasure-Way Sprinter van. Nothing was left outside and no bikes or other items to attract attention but this was a definate late night drive by someone trying to make some kind of point.

I am not carrying firearms nor would I want to, but I do have bear spray in the van for when we do hike in bear country that is/was stored away that I thought about after the motorbike left. The dog a big ‘lover-doodle’ just slept through the whole thing. Apart from the headlights the only outside light I have is a side light on the passenger side (all lights were off as it was the middle of the night).

This has got me thinking that perhaps more brighter lights on both sides of the van might be in order as a possible deterant or am I just getting overly paranoid about one strange and scary incident?

We boondock 90% of the time and although I don’t classify us as full time we have spent 6 months on the road in the last 12 months, so we are really heavy duty boondockers (frugal campers). Would like to hear others thoughts.