Bynum Creek Campground

This place is listed as a dispersed camping but has several spaces for cars/boat trailers that you can park in and camp at. There are multiple picnic tables around the area and a couple trash cans. A bathroom with a toilet and sink too although no soap or toilet paper. It’s nice and quiet out here but unfortunately has a lot of trash near the water. It’s a good free spot, can’t really complain too much. I also have good cell service with AT&T.

First of all - don’t trust Google Maps. I turned off based on directions to a private drive. Instead, keep going to the end of the road to the “lake.” The lake itself is dried up, but looks like it gets good usage for ATVs. The restroom was closed when I was there. Picnic tables looked good and the sites looked more suitable for boat trailers and RVs than car campers. Some teens were there when I pulled up and looked more sketched out by me than I was by them. They took… a short walk, came back giggling, and then drove away. Nothing nefarious and I felt safe all night.

It’s a long, crumbling road to get here from I-55, one strewn with impossible amounts of trash that barely lets up at the campground.

A hill with a few picnic tables, chained off and unable to be driven to, though with only a few feet’s walk from the parking lot to where you’re supposed to camp. This place is meant for tent camping, but even that would not be ideal given the close proximity of one table to the next.

A couple of kids are smoking and sitting at the one picnic table near a level parking spot. They don’t mind taking their afternoon pursuits to a different spot. But there are actually no level spots in the entire parking lot. Alongside the road, near the bathroom, one might find a level place to park.

Pickups storm in and out all day long. The lake is so low that the boat launch is no longer usable but ATVers are having a good time. Cell service is lightning fast. There’s horse manure scattered everywhere. The bathroom has flushing toilets, paper towels, no soap and apparently no regular maintenance, but it’s not the nastiest toilet I’ve ever met.

20 minutes off the Highway, I can’t say it’s even a good overnighter. With the trash, low lake and activity, it’s not really a great destination either.

The strangest thing was that, an old man and his dog, the only fellow campers, in a busted up and breaking down pickup, watched our van for a few hours, left, came back to work on the truck while both asking his dog to look at the bottom of the vehicle and yell at him to get out of the way. He played music loudly, then pretended to be on a CB for awhile before, after dark, squealing away, but not before muttering, “Give me 30 minutes and I’ll be back with the sheriff’s department.”

This was the first night, after twenty years of camping, that I felt in danger. Nothing ever came of the old guy, but still, that feeling was an unfortunate one.

To clarify, camping is definitely allowed here. A ranger rolled by at one point, said nothing, and the COE website lists this place as primitive camping.