Have we done a camping thread before? I don't think we have; then again, I hate even the thought of camping so it's entirely possible that I've blocked it out of my mind. Focus: What are your best camping stories? Alt Focus: Are there any wilderness stories or blogs or accounts that you really like? As much as I despise the thought of camping, I love reading stories about enduring hardships and survival. Here's a good one about two Nat Geo staff who are hiking the entire Grand Canyon: http://adventureblog.nationalgeogra...at-down-six-lessons-from-an-intense-trashing/ Also a crazy awesome documentary about survival is Touching the Void, about two mountain climbers who very nearly died in the '80s when one of them fell and broke his leg. I cannot stress enough how amazing it is that both men survived.
I hate camping, but really like going on vacation to places where my cell phone does NOT work. I love modern things like air conditioning, indoor plumbing and satellite TV. So camping is mostly out of the question. I end up going once or twice a year with my friends, and have to spend it with a BAC of .12 or higher so that I forget about the shit hole I'm in. Dont get me wrong, nature is awesome. But so is not shitting in a hole, and sleeping somewhere not hot/humid. My worst camping trip ever was to a nascar race. I was told going in person is more fun than watching it on TV. No one told me the campground wouldn't have running water, so showering was out of the question. After camping for three days I had never smelled so many terrible things. That was almost worse than the many racists acts witnessed by race fans in Michigan. We made it 38 laps into the race before going home.
Focus: I like to hunt, fish and through-hike. Through-hiking is pretty simple to understand; you hike, make camp for the night, then hike again in the morning. Eventually, you either walk back the way you came or you get someone to pick you up at a certain point down the trail where it ends, hence the name "through-hiking"; you went all the way "through". As for stories; I have had cougars decide to watch us near Anaconda for whatever reason, and when we left one of my hiking partners swore it was following us out and darting behind trees whenever someone looked. In the River of No Return Wilderness we heard lots of wolf howls incredibly close and had a mother black bear and cub walk through the camp before someone shouted and she ran off. I'm lucky to live in a place that once you are less than five miles out of town in much of it, you are in the wilderness. My friend last night on the phone had this conversation with me: Friend: "Listen, Canis, we should all go camping sometime." Canis: "Yeah, sure! I do enjoy the outdoors." Friend: "Yeah, I'll rent an RV..." Canis: "What?! Why? That's not camping that's parking a hotel room!" Friend: "Listen, fucker. I am an American. I'm still something of a fat guy. What makes you think I want to do your fucking crossbred nomad shit?" Canis: "... fair enough."
When people say they love camping, I always ask what they mean because I've learned that for some it means haul all your shit with you to approximate the comforts of home in a tiny campsite cheek by jowl with other similar folk, while for others it means pack the bare minimum on your back and head into the wilderness. Those are two entirely different beasts. I went to a super crunchy high school where we were required to do a 6-night leave no trace style camping trip at the beginning and end of every school year (if you've heard of NOLS, it's that kind of thing but shorter). I HATED it. I did everything I could to do the easiest trips possible, which usually meant kayaking (there is water, so you can swim and be less disgusting) or horse camping (you don't have to carry your own shit). I haven't done anything remotely like that since, but I credit those experiences for turning me into a slightly less prissy version of the person I might have otherwise become. That said, there was one trip I went on that stands out in my mind as positively magical: a backpacking trip to the Havasupai Gorge in Arizona. I have never seen such gorgeous turquoise water in my life. The hike out is no joke, but other than that you chill in a pretty campsite and just go on shortish hikes to check out and swim in waterfalls. Highly recommend. I've been car camping a couple of times as an adult, and while I've had fun with friends, I've decided it's not for me. I want either 100% modern conveniences or 100% off the grid. This middle of the road shit where you can literally see houses and/or hotels from your campsite but you're trying to cook on a grate that hasn't been cleaned since 1972, wait in lines of sweaty people to shower in half-clogged bathrooms, and not notice the horrifying music choices in the neighboring campsite is FOR THE BIRDS. I'd actually like to try backpacking as an adult, with people I like, and a little bourbon in the pack. I do day hiking at Tahoe a lot and that kind of high mountain scenery with freezing snowmelt lakes really appeals to me.
Focus: I do a fair bit of backcountry camping. The kind of camping where you dehydrate all your food, load up a 50-60lb pack, drive out to a trail head, and then hike around in the bush for 30-40 kms. My favourite parts of it are just being well away from any sort of civilization, no cell phone service, and some pretty amazing views to wake up to. I don't have any real crazy stories about being attacked by bears or anything. I have been setting up my tent and had a deer walk by me about 15ft away. I have also chased a porcupine across a campground when it decided that it should start snacking on the hiking poles of somebody in our group. I have never seen a wild animal so unconcerned about being chased by a human before. It just sort of waddled about 20ft away, would stop and see if I was still chasing it, then go another 20ft, and look again. It almost felt like it would look at me, and go ugh the human's still coming, shrug it's shoulders and carry on for another 20ft. Alt-focus: I don't remember where I found this travel log, it might have been here or on the old RMMB forum. But this Belguim couple packed up their range rover and drove across the Republic of Congo. It's a crazy story and kind of long, but really worth the read. http://www.expeditionportal.com/for...atic-Republic-of-Congo-Lubumbashi-to-Kinshasa The amount of planning that went into the trip is insane, and the amount of spare parts they took along is crazy. It's been a while since I read it, but I want to say they packed along spare axles and/or a transmission for the vehicle. Just because they knew if anything happened in country that was drive train related they were basically screwed.
We go camping every year with two other families. So far we've always gone to the same campsite on Pomme De Terre Lake. It's not exactly roughing it since there are bathrooms and there's a small town a few miles away where you can run to the dollar store to pick up things you forgot. We also camp with six kids 5 and under so it's nice to have some facilities. This year my cousin and his wife forgot their tent. How one forgets a tent when you're tent camping is beyond me. The way I figured it they had three options, a) drive thirty minutes away to the closest walmart and buy a new tent b) give up and go home or c) make due without a tent. The forecast didn't show rain so they opted for option C. They had brought the fly for their tent (thinking the bag had the tent in it as well) so they rigged that and some beach towels and sheets up around their air mattress. This would have been all fine and dandy if his wife wouldn't have proceeded to yell at him for no less than an hour after everyone else had gone to bed. He was apologetic and not arguing back (even though it sounded like it was equally her fault for forgetting it) but she just kept on and on. It was brutal. The next morning he says, "I'm surprised you guys didn't hear that." I had to explain to him that tent walls were pretty thin and we had heard everything.
I meant our tent walls. The rest of us remembered our tents.They were arguing in the open air and I was trying to read in my tent but instead I was listening to a soap opera outside.
Dcc, you mentioned something in the WDT about fighting off wildlife. I was here at the campsite less than 20 min. when momma bear and 3 Cubs showed up. I post photos Monday when I'm back in the world and can resize the pics
I know. I meant that if you had to explain to him that tent walls are not sound proof, I can see how he was dumb enough to forget his tent.
A memorable camping trip from years ago: It was April in north Idaho and it had been a balmy 55 degrees for two days in a row so a friend and I decided to go camping. I had to work the next night, but I was young and resilient. We loaded up a canoe with a tent, 2 sleeping bags, 2 cases of beer, and 2 fifths of cheap whiskey. And a package of turkey franks. For nutrition. It was gorgeous in the early morning as we paddled on the glass smooth water of Lake Pend Oreille. For reference, this lake: Bear in mind, that's the top of the lake, it goes another 30 miles south. The navy still tests subs on the lake. It's an inland sea. After about 5 miles or so of canoeing we found a nice little beach that would be perfect for camping, so we pulled in, set up camp, and started drinking. We started a small campfire, but after several hours of drinking it seemed somehow....inadequate. It wasn't a manly fire. So we gathered up every piece of driftwood on the beach and several small trees until it was a manly 10ft high inferno. Perfect. Unless you got hungry and wanted to roast turkey franks. There wasn't so much as a stick left on the beach to skewer a hot dog with, so cold turkey dogs for dinner. It was about 8 or 9 that night that the storm came in. Buckets and buckets of rain. We were on a beach that had a cliff as the back which meant that all the rain flowed down to our beach. Specifically, into our tent. I got zero sleep, but I tried to at least rest because I had to work that next night. Finally about 6AM the cold and wet drove me from the tent to what was left of our majestic fire. Soaked embers and not a thing on the beach to burn to warm up/dry off. Then I noticed the lake. Oh shit. Four foot waves. It was an angry, angry lake and we had a canoe. And I had a hangover that would kill a normal person. Somehow we managed to canoe the 5 miles back to our truck (Which included a 1 mile open water crossing where we couldn't hug the shore.) I then proceeded straight to work and not only worked my shift, but a couple hours overtime. It was glorious. What I wouldn't give to be that young, stupid, and bullet proof again.
Sorry for the choppy posts. For clarification, we were camping in a State Forest along the Delaware River. Yes, there were other folks, but not cheek to jowl. We slept in tents, and cooked over the fire or on camp stoves In addition to the bears pictured above that wandered through the campsite and checked out my canoe, there were tons of rabbits around in the mornings and evenings, we had a skunk that made a nightly appearance, sometimes walking under our chairs as we sat around the fire drinking, and a screech owl that made a hellacious racket Saturday night and 4:30 a.m. just above my tent. But see, I like all of that. And I spent the weekend drinking around a campfire, canoeing, fishing, swimming in the river, and hiking up a mountain. Sure, it was hot as balls, but it was a blast.
I'm "camping" at a lake right now. Spoiler: In this It's roughly 260 square feet of air conditioned, bug-free comfort. Two televisions, fridge, freezer, full bathroom, queen size temperpedic plus two other full bunks. And my boat is in the water, waiting for me to finish this coffee and go use it. I've tent camped a ton. I've slept in a cave several times. I can't do that shit anymore. It's been near 100 degrees since we got here. I have a shop fan blowing across our campsite so we have a constant breeze. I've figure out how to do this in comfort. My worst trip was was in my early twenties, a friend and I were going to tent camp after a fireworks show on the lake. We weren't prepared, at all, just thought we needed a place to sleep. We got drunk with everyone instead of picking a site and setting up camp during the day. So at 1:00 am we motor around searching the shore line for a flat spot to sleep. We didn't find one and settled for a spot that sloped about 2.5:1. We half-ass set our tent up and didn't stake it to the ground. During the night, as we tossed and turned, our tent slid down the slope towards the water. By sunrise our tent made it to the water. We woke up, climbed in the boat and I passed back out on the floor, my friend on the back seat. We slept for a couple more hours til our shade disappeared, we packed up and went home with some serious hangovers. Another horrible one was at Bristol motor speedway for the spring race. It snowed or rained all weekend. It was freezing. Me and two other friends averaged a case of beer, each, per day. It was to cold to shower in the bathhouse, we smelled horrible. The only thing there was to do was huddle around little propane heaters and drink. I've spent weeks on the ocean without seeing land. I know how to provision and survive with basic supplies and improvise when things go wrong. I just choose comfort now.
After I graduated from college, and buddy and I spent about 10 days driving from Georgia to Colorado and back. We had grand plans to camp to save money and be awesome, except when we were at ski resorts. We slept in my car one night, we slept in a couple flea bag motels, and we camped one night. There was snow on the ground and it took us about an hour just to get a camp fire started, and all the free wood at the campground was wet. I had a zero degree sleeping bag, but my buddy didn't. I woke up about 3:00 a.m. to hear my motor running and he was sleeping in the car again. Except for when we drove over Rabbit Ears pass in the Rockies in January, I wish we'd have had that RV.
I get this What I don't get is this. Why not stay somewhere where you can rent a room for a night be totally comfortable and then go out in the day and see what you want to see? These places are amazing, someone will make the bed and clean the room for you, you don't have to carry around your own feces in your car. Its an amazing little place called a hotel and they're everywhere believe it or not. My worst camping story is having beer shits in the woods and no shovel to dig a hole and some paper towel. I could feel the heat rising off of my own shit, and it was really hard to find a place where I couldn't be seen. Totally miserable experience. I am not made to shit in a little hole in the ground.
My bed is clean, I wash everything after every trip. Since I bought it new, and it was not a display model, I'm quite certain that the only bodily fluids ever in it belong to me and my family. I'm more comfortable in it than almost every hotel I've ever stayed in. My TV is bigger, my fridge is bigger and I can cook my own meals. Right now there is one other family about 100 yards away, it is quite peaceful. Our waste goes into a tank or a sewer system. You know, just like the majority of homes on the planet. Only difference is I have to hook a hose to it an open a valve. It is properly treated and separate from the living quarters, there are no smells. We're not shitting in the corner here. I'm camping by this lake for nine days. The only aggravation is shooing the yellow jackets away from my cocoa puffs, if I choose to eat them outside.