I’m planning to get dropped off on Route 522 at the Chester Gap Trail Head about sunset, can I find a good or fair camping space for my tent with in a mile of 522.
Velroc
Velroc
Chester Gap Camp Site
system
#2
The area around 522 is pretty built up and seems to lack good stealth sites. If you can get a good hour of daylight, though, you could easily get to good spots heading either NOBO or SOBO. North of 522, your best bet is to make the long but easy climb about 3.3 miles to Mosby Primative Campsite, a nice place with a good spring. To the south, you only have to go 2.9 miles to Floyd Wayside (shelter) which is pretty nice. You might find a stealth site closer in either direction, but it will be very close to an active road and (to the north) on top of a large housing development.
Strategic
system
#3
The first streams you come to going SOBO from 522 are seriously polluted. It has been recommended in guidebooks that you don’t even try to treat this water.
The spring at Tom Floyd Wayside (Ginger Spring) has been dry for well over a month.
Going north, I don’t recall water recently at Mosby. There was a slight flow at the next shelter north a few weeks back, Jim & Molly Denton Shelter (“Hiker Hilton”), but since the drought has continued I’m not sure about finding water there now.
Skyline