For Behind the Shot Part 3, we are featuring photos and stories from the Red Rock Canyon State Park, Yellowstone National Park, White River National Forest, and many more! Click here to participate in the 2025 Truck Camper Magazine Calendar Contest and be considered for a Behind the Shot feature.
Maria Blackwell
Yellowstone National Park, Mammoth Hot Springs, Wyoming
2015 Toyota Tacoma
2021 Homebuilt Camper
Camera Used – iPhone 15
A stay in Yellowstone is fantastical. Lasting memories are made even on a cold windy day with overcast skies. Traveling north from Madison Campground we spotted this awe-inspiring roadside spring. We said, this is it, our opportunity to capture a moment for Truck Camper Magazine. Our bragg-worthy home-built truck camper alongside a marvel of nature. This is Canary Spring in Mammoth Hot Springs. A trip we took to visit our son turned into an 8000 mile, 8 week trip. We visited 7 national parks, 2 national monuments, several waterfalls, and many fun sights along the way. We’re looking forward to more travels, maybe Texas next.
Rich Bain
Juniper Dunes, Washington
2004 Dodge 3500
2022 Rugged Mountain Granite 11RL
Camera Used – Galaxy S21
We have wanted to make a stop at Juniper Dunes for a few years but never have gotten around to it. Mainly, it was being in the area when the weather is mild with no to little winds and when the area is less busy. We finally found a day that everything lined up and we made it there. Luck be had, not even one person was in the area. We went for a walk into the desert after parking and looked for a geocache. And yes, we found it. There were lots of desert flowers in bloom during our visit as well and we saw a lone deer out on our walk.
Juniper Dunes can get very hot and winds are not uncommon creating a little sandblasting. Also, it is a popular place for off-road fun, so there can be lots of people riding and driving about on the trails.
Lindi Kopecko
Lost Creek Dam Reservoir, Utah
2023 Ram 3500
2019 Adventurer 89RBS
Camera Used – Samsung S24 Ultra
We were calling at another lake and the bugs became unbearable, so we decided to try for another lake. Google Maps took us over the literal top of a mountain to get here. At times the truck was at 17 degrees from front to back and I was yelling about how bad of an idea this was. But arriving at this beautiful lake was absolutely worth it. We had the lake all to ourselves except for a symphony of frogs.
Hallie Popham
White River National Forest, Meadow Lake, Colorado
2019 Ford F350
2010 Arctic Fox 811
Camera Used – Phone
As a family of three, with the new addition of our daughter, we upgraded to a four-seater RZR. Our last camper wouldn’t fit it in the garage. We decided to go a different route and ended up with our Arctic Fox 811. This location is about 1.5 hours from the house and it’s our little slice of heaven to get out of the heat in the valley. My wife was driving our other vehicle and took the shot of me coming off the hill on our first trip with the camper. And now six trips later we couldn’t be happier with our setup.
Robert Hallock
Tunnel Mountain, Banff, Alberta
2021 Chevy 5500
2015 Eagle Cap 1165
Camera Used – iPhone 15 Pro Max
My wife and I had been planning our travels to Canada and Alaska for several years now. Banff was on the top of the list. In researching campgrounds, I was drawn to Tunnel Mountain Campground because of its location, scenery and close proximity to local attractions. Little did we know the beauty we would encounter all around us. We had no idea how spectacular the views from our campground would be, until friends of ours shared their experience with us. On the morning we were due to leave the campground, my wife suggested we pull the camper up in front of the mountain before we exit the campground and take a photo with the calendar contest in mind. It made for a beautiful memory of our time in Banff.
Jodie Ramsey
Marion County, Florida
2002 Ford F350
2016 Lance 1172
Camera Used – iPhone
You know it’s going to be a “wicked” good time when ol’ Mikeee rolls into town and boondocks at your home. He scares up friends everywhere he roams.
Matt Rubin
Red Rock Canyon State Park, California
2013 Ram 3500
2017 Arctic Fox 811
Camera Used – iPhone 11
This was a stop-over on our way home from a trip in the California High Easter Sierras where we e-biked, fished, and hiked. Located in the Mojave Desert, Red Rock Canyon State Park in California gets gruelingly hot in the summer so this picture was taken not long after we got up and were ready to leave to escape the heat of the day.
Corey Humphrey
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
Me: 2018 Chevy 2500 and Grandpa: 2013 GMC 3500
Me: 2000 KZ Sportsman and Grandpa: 2017 Arctic Fox 865
Camera Used – iPhone
On our drive home from Munising, we stopped to swim in Lake Michigan before continuing south over the Mackinac Bridge. The water was COLD! We couldn’t not get in though because we needed the picture for the calendar! Fortunately, I didn’t drop my phone in the water!
Garry Morgan
Cape Disappointment, Washington
2022 Ford F-350
2022 Northern Lite 8-11
Camera Used – iPhone 14
After a week of camping at Cape Disappointment State Park at the mouth of the Columbia River, we wanted to take a photo of the Cape the morning we left. Unfortunately, after six days of sunny weather, the Cape was shrouded in mist the morning we left. I decided to give it a try anyway and thought the fog gave the photo a nice coastal feel.
Bjorn Green
Crater Lake, Oregon
2024 Ford F250
2023 Lance 825
Camera Used – iPhone
We were traveling from Idaho back home to California and spent the night in Collier State Park near Chiloquin, Oregon. We decided to spend an extra day to go see beautiful Crater Lake.
Josh Schwenzfeier
Boulder, Utah
2018 Ram 3500
2019 Four Wheel Camper Grandby
Camera Used – iPhone 15 Pro
I spent a few days exploring the Burr Trail tour outside of Boulder, Utah. We took the Wolverine Loop and found this site to spend the night. It was a great spot a ways off the road. Another truck with a FWC stayed a few hundred yards away for the night as well.
Roxanne Lutgen
Garland Prairie BLM, Williams, Arizona
2021 GMC Sierra 3500 HD
2021 Arctic Fox 1150
Camera Used – iPhone 14 Pro Max
Garland Prairie BLM was our home for a night before trekking the last 40 miles north into Grand Canyon National Park. It was cold in Garland Prairie as compared to our last stop in Needles, California, but very peaceful. Sunsets are always a magical time of reflection when we are camping. Every late afternoon, after a long day of exploring, we are drawn to the sunset. We love to get out our lawn chairs with a beverage to chill out for an hour and reflect on the day as the sun disappears over the horizon. Why is every sunset so beautiful? Sometimes magical stuff happens with your camera too, and this pretty red flower joined us for this particular sunset. The picture is unaltered. I guess we just need to keep traveling in our truck camper to out-of-the-way places so we can appreciate the beauty of our natural world.
Brandon Oltra
I-90 East, west of Gillette, Wyoming
2017 Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD
1982/2024 Viking aka “The Roost”
Camera Used – iPhone 11
This picture was taken a few days after my fiancé, Liz, and I got engaged!
Liz and I enjoy turkey hunting in different states every spring. We look forward to our “turkey trips” and getting to visit different parts of the country while spending time together outdoors. With a planned trip across the country (we’re from Pennsylvania) to Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota, we decided to purchase an older truck camper to restore/rebuild. Normally we would sleep in a tent or my truck bed, but we wanted to be more comfortable considering where we’d be traveling.
We purchased a 1982 Viking last fall and got to work. After discovering a significant amount of water damage, we gutted the camper down to basically nothing and rebuilt it. Countless hours and care went into building the truck camper of our (practical) dreams. The inside turned out great with custom cabinets and countertops, running water, solar power, 400ah of battery, propane heat, and more all done by Liz and I. It really feels like home inside.
Knowing that I wanted to propose on this trip, I really wanted to make the camper nice and make the trip special. After six months of countless hours of hard work, we headed west on our hunting trip in our new truck camper “The Roost”.
Janice Meyers
Tuttle Creek Campground, California
2004 Ford F-350
2021 Arctic Fox 990
Camera Used – iPhone 15 Pro
We traveled mid-week just before the busy Memorial Day holiday in hopes to secure a first come campsite at the BLM Tuttle Creek Campground in California to meet friends. This was our first time there where we enjoyed the majestic view of the snowcapped Sierra Nevada mountains with Mt. Whitney just out of sight tucked behind the peaks in between us. We had a tough time getting the rig level near sunset as the wind picked up encouraging us to lower the back jacks to prevent rocking. I captured a photo of our rig coming back from a walk the next day, enjoying big clouds and the beauty of the area.
Carol Caetano
Sonoma Raceway, Sonoma, California
2011 GMC 3500
2021 Lance 855S
Camera Used – iPhone 13 Pro Max
My husband has a love for drag racing, so we often take our camper (with trailer in tow), and camp right at the racetrack. This photo was taken at Sonoma Raceway in Sonoma, California, the night before the big race.
Andrew Thomson
East Kootenays, British Columbia
2011 Ford F-150
2015 Westland 80wz custom
Camera Used – Samsung s21 plus
This is a top-secret lakeside campsite in the Columbia Valley of British Columbia. I discovered this spot searching on my Topo maps App Gaia GPS and then checking it out on my dirt bike first!
Jay Groves
Baker, Nevada
2017 Ram 3500
2022 Lance 975
Camera Used – iPhone 14 Pro Max
This photo of our Lance and Wheeler Peak was taken from our dispersed campsite near Great Basin National Park.
Kelly Widner
Quail Creek State Park, Utah
2014 Ford F-350
2021 Host Yukon
Camera Used – Phone
It finally happened! For the first time since we got married in 1997, we got to go on our first real vacation together, so we decided to take a little road trip from Montana all the way down to Hurricane, Utah for an off-road event, and to Arizona where we got to see the spectacular Grand Canyon. The morning the photo was taken, the sun was just coming up and the colors on the rock wall behind us were just coming to life. So worth the trip!
Doug Page
Humboldt Redwood State Park near Founders Tree, California
2020 Ford F250
2022 Lance 855S
Camera Used – Phone
This was day 8 of a 14 day trip. My camper is in the parking lot near Founders Tree.
Click here to see all of the photos entered so far in the 2025 TCM Calendar Contest. Enter your truck camper photos today!
