Agency-listedIDNR · dispersedFree
Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
Dispersed · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IN · 38.16678, -86.29514
Ask an AI about this campsiteOpens Grok already loaded with this site. It reads the same records this page is built from, and links whatever it tells you.
Ask about this camp →Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources lists this site. Someone from the agency inventoried it, so it is a real camp — not a spot we guessed at. What changes is conditions — roads, gates, closures, fire rules. Check those with the unit before you commit to the drive.
Harrison-Crawford State Forest office address is Corydon, IN (DNR property page).
USGS topo — contours & terrain
Aerial — USGS / NAIP
Weather outlook — at Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
Loading the latest forecast…
Live NWS area forecast (~2.5 km grid, not elevation-corrected). Camp sits at 801 ft.
Fire & smoke — around Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)NIFC · AirNow
Checking active fires & air quality…
Active wildfires from NIFC (within ~50 mi); air quality from AirNow. Always confirm current fire restrictions with the managing office before you go.
Everything you need — measured from Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest) · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IN
▲ your camp. Rings are 15, 30 and 60 straight-line miles; bearings are approximate and roads run longer.
Nearest of each
- FFuel6 mi
- GGrocery6 mi
- MMechanic7 mi
- EVEV fast charger9 mi
- @Mail9 mi
- RxPharmacy10 mi
- LLaundry10 mi
- HHardware15 mi
- OOutfitter21 mi
- AAir-up22 mi
- WWater24 mi
- ShShower25 mi
- +Urgent care25 mi
- DDump25 mi
- PPropane56 mi
≤30 mi30–4545+water
The read: water is a real 24-mi drive, fuel & food sit about 6 mi out.
One dot per need — the nearest of each kind, straight-line from camp. Places from OpenStreetMap (© OpenStreetMap contributors); the EV fast charger from the US DOE station locator. Open in Google Maps ↗
The site — Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
Access
Dispersed
Land
Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · dispersed
Elevation
801 ft
Ground slope
24.1% · steep
Nearest rail line
~9.6 mi · main line
Nearest highway
~5.5 mi · Interstate 64
State
IN
Coordinates
38.16678, -86.29514
Cost
Free
Nearby & resupply — around Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest) · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IN (OpenStreetMap)
- Water featureOhio River · ~0.4 mi · USGS: perennial river
- Nearest townLeavenworth · ~3.8 mi
- Nearest rail line~9.6 mi · main line
- Nearest highway~5.5 mi · Interstate 64
- Drinking waternone within 10 mi
- FuelMarathon · ~6.1 mi
- Propane / LPGnone within 31 mi
- Dump station~25.4 mi
- GroceriesMarathon · ~6.2 mi
- PharmacyWalgreens · ~9.7 mi
- Hospital / clinicKentucky One Health · ~25.1 mi
- HardwareHardware · ~14.8 mi
EV charging — from Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest) · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IN — nearest public DC fast & Level 2 (US DOE station data)
- Nearest public DC fast charger9.3 mi straight-line NE — John Jones Chev Buick of Corydon · EV Connect · CCS · 1 fast port listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily · directions
- Public DC fast stations within reach3 within 25 mi · 32 within 50 · 111 within 100 · 348 within 150
- Nearest listing NACS (Tesla)30.0 mi — Meijer - Tesla Supercharger, New Albany
- Nearest listing CHAdeMO9.6 mi — Corydon, Corydon
- Nearest public Level 2 (J1772)9.9 mi — Holiday Inn Express Cordyon, Corydon, IN · VIALYNK · J1772 · 2 Level 2 ports listed · listed open, last confirmed by AFDC 2026-09-16 · hours: 24 hours daily
- Pricing at the fast chargernot listed
- Power (kW)not listed by AFDC — “DC fast” spans roughly 24 to 350 kW, so ask the network.
- Read this honestlyStraight-line miles, like every distance on this site. Roads run longer than this, and you have to get back. We know where a charger is listed. We don’t know if it works today, how fast it is, or the road miles. Check the network before you commit.
Snapshot 2026-09-16 · AFDC record 313070 · US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center
Nearby restrooms — around Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest) · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IN — pit toilets, restrooms & rest areas (government data)
- Vault / pit toiletBuzzard Roost Campground · ~10.1 mi W · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletMano Point Boat Ramp · ~14.9 mi SW · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletRainbow Lake · ~16.0 mi SW · USFS
- Vault / pit toiletIndian Celina Recreation Area · ~16.6 mi W · USFS
Coming out here — Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest) · Iowa Dept. of Natural Resources · IN
- Surface water mapped nearby: USGS maps Ohio River as a perennial river, ~0.4 mi from the pin (National Hydrography Dataset, data refreshed October 2022). Mapped as perennial is not the same as flowing today. Nobody has checked it for you. Filter or boil anything you drink.
- Ground slope around the pin: about 24.1% — steep. Measured on USGS's 3DEP elevation model (1 m data here), sampled every 10 metres around the point. That is the hillside, not the ground under your wheels — a graded pullout or a bench a few metres across is too small to show up at that spacing, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Rail line mapped ~9.6 mi from the pin — the national rail atlas classes it as a main line. The atlas also records tourist, museum or scenic passenger service on it. That is the FRA/BTS North American Rail Network (data updated Jul 21, 2026), which records that a line is there and what class of track it is. Whether anything runs on it, how often, and at what hour, it does not say, and nobody has checked this one for you.
- Interstate 64 is mapped ~5.5 mi from the pin. Straight-line, from the Census's TIGER/Line primary roads (TIGER/Line 2025, released Oct 2025) — the divided, limited-access highways, which is why a state expressway or a two-lane US route near this camp would not appear here.
- Assume no services at all. Most dispersed camping in a national forest has none: no tap, no power, no dump, often no toilet. Everything you need, you bring.
- Power: Dave carries his own — batteries or solar. A generator will run your rig and it is also the thing everybody camped near you can hear.
- Getting online: Dave recommends Starlink. He has had it since SpaceX introduced it, used it for four years living on the road, and it delivers as promised — several hundred nights out, and he can count on one hand the places he could not connect. The cable on his unit runs 150 feet, which is usually all it takes to find enough sky. Starlink → Referral link — Starlink pays Dave $100 in cash if you sign up through it, and that money funds this site and the next trip. It costs you nothing and does not change the recommendation.
Open Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest) elsewhere
Other camps near Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
If this one is full, gated or washed out.
- Pioneer Picnic Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)~0.6 mi
- Homestead Overnight Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)~2.1 mi
- Adventure Trail Primitive Site (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)~2.5 mi
- Indian Creek Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)~3.2 mi
Who holds the land at Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
USGS’s Protected Areas Database (PAD-US 4.1, queried 2026-09-23) lists the ground at this pin as Deam (Charles C.) Nature Preserve, manager on record: Indiana DNR, Nature Preserve Division (state). That names who holds the land — it is not a statement that camping is permitted here.
How we know this — Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
Stay limit
14 nights (limited to 14 consecutive days)
Source
public land records
Confidence
Agency-confirmed — The managing agency's own record names this as a campsite and puts it at these coordinates. About as good as it gets short of standing here.
How it was placed
IDNR describes it as totally enclosed: four walls, wooden floor, windows, door and roof. Also lies in the Charles C. Deam Nature Preserve - same caveat as the Homestead shelter. 2.8 miles from the Cold Friday Road crossing, 1.3 miles from the Pioneer Picnic Shelter. On the Adventure Trail, Harrison-Crawford State Forest. The DNR property page (read 2026-08-14 at https://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/properties/harrison-crawford-state-forest/) states: "Overnight backpack camping is permitted (the Adventure Trail is the only trail along which camping is permitted). There are four shelters, two primitive sites, and four road crossings along the trail. Shelters are first-come, first-served and only available to those hiking the Adventure Trail." No dispersed camping is allowed on the section of the trail inside O'Bannon Woods State Park. Indiana state forest dispersed-camping rules (read 2026-08-14 at https://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/properties/recreation/): dispersed camping is allowed only along the named trails; "No permit is required"; registration is required only at Morgan-Monroe and Yellowwood; stays limited to 14 consecutive days; group size limited to 6 persons per campsite; pack out all trash; no camping on sections of trail crossing a dedicated nature preserve or private land. IDNR publishes no charge for dispersed / backcountry camping on state forests, and the project rule (not National Forest and not developed => free) is applied here. Coordinate is Indiana DNR's own, unrounded, from the DNR hosted "Camping Sites" layer https://gisdata.in.gov/server/rest/services/Hosted/Camping_Sites_RO/FeatureServer/0 (read 2026-08-14). | auto:agency-trust 2026-08-18: state agency GIS record with a source URL and coordinates, confidence not low. Fee value is the agency's own, not field-checked. Not field-verified -- confirm access, road conditions and fire rules before you go.
EV chargers
US DOE Alternative Fuels Data Center station locator, snapshot 2026-09-16. Straight-line miles to the nearest public, open, unrestricted station; restricted and planned units are shown but never counted.
Field check
On the agency's books. The land manager inventoried this site, so its existence is not in question — current conditions are. Nobody from here has camped it recently.
What we don’t know about Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
A land record can put you within a few meters of a spot. It cannot tell you any of this — so check it yourself, and treat anything below as the open question it is.
- Road surface & last-mile access
- How many rigs actually fit
- Cell coverage by carrier
- Seasonal & winter access
- Current fire restrictions
- Whether any water here is drinkable
- Shade & wind exposure
- Noise and who else shows up
- Whether a listed EV charger works today, or the road miles to it
Before you go — Ohio River Shelter - Adventure Trail (Harrison-Crawford State Forest)
Finding water out here →Stay limits →Your first dispersed night →Gear & rig loadout →All field notes →