I Love Camping

Reading that thread, I am disappointed that you never managed to whittle any obscene objects.

Also: I feel I will have to get a headlamp *just so* I can sit going EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! in my best Dalek voice

(to make up for missing Doctor Who on the telly, obv)

Kate: you definitely should! it's KLASSIC!

I'm like Kate in that I do love nature and walking (not so much fire) but I guess I just like to go to bed at night with walls around me.

God I miss it so much! I love sitting outside my tent at night with a can of lager and a joint listening to all the night noises and watching families with kids trouping past in their dressing gowns to the shower block.

I love the heat of the tent on waking in the morning. I love going for a walk around the sleeping site with a torch at night. I love hanging my damp towel over a nearby tree....

I HATE the cloud of beasties that like to share the camping experience though, don't buy into the Avon Skin-so-Soft party - the midgies love it just as much as fresh blood.

I HATE the cloud of beasties that like to share the camping experience though, don't buy into the Avon Skin-so-Soft party - the midgies love it just as much as fresh blood.

This is why I avoid holidaying in the Scottish Highlands. When I had to spend time up there for work, I'd make sure to take plenty of Deet with me.

(well, apart from the odd joint at school obv)

Where can I buy Deet? Does it keep the little fuckers off?

Oh yeah, couldn't agree more, sitting around the stove or fire just drinking your drink and watching the sky or the sea or whatever is just a beautiful, beautiful thing! And you always talk to each other quietly, not whispering, but just in lower tones so as not to wake anyone, and besides, you don't have to shout cos there's no cars, no tellies, no noise at all, and in that hush, it all feels so much more relaxed and more intimate and somehow more profoundly human, even though you're just generally chatting about nothing at all. God, I love those moments!

Things I don't love quite so very much: needing to go for a leak in the night; it's not so bad really cos you only need to stumble a few paces from the tent before you can let loose (gingerly trying not to tread on either tent pegs or slugs or guys ropes, or worse, the saucepan of cold baked beans forgotten from the day before)(but shhh, don't tell anyone else I just did a pee behind the car!), but that whole thing of having to get back in your bag afterwards with your feet all cold and wet from the dewy grass, I hate that.

Also, I always seem to lose stuff in my tent and it's so frustrating hunting around for things when you've only got so much space to move around in, you can't just chuck stuff out the way. But that's a minor gripe really...

Our favourite campsite is at the bottom of Ben Nevis. A river runs between the campsite and the start of the mountain walk. Sometimes at night we can see rows of torchlights making their way back down in the dusk.

Our tent has another room - we don't put the groundsheet in it, so when I need to pee during the night I go in there....

Ewww!

I've never shat in there though.

This is why, when camping, some sort of sandals or flip-flops are a good idea - you can slip them on easily when you need to pee in the dark, and keep your feet a bit warmer (they don't help keep them dry of dew, but they are good insulation between your soles and the ground)

We never doubted your integrity!

But day hikes are something I should be doing more often, and I regret I've let that go by the wayside. There's a lot of beautiful country out there to enjoy.

Also, the night sky away from city lights is just one of *those* experiences. Too beautiful for words.

OTM. I've been camping outside Vegas a bunch (...some of the best rock climbing in the country, FWIW) and the glow from the strip is beautiful, bizarre and unholy. The Luxor, in particular, dominates pretty hard.

Flashlight
Beef Jerky
Knife
Fruit
Extra pair of socks
Water Purification Tablets

Also, the night sky away from city lights is just one of *those* experiences. Too beautiful for words.

Indeed. I've visited the camp site I'm going to stay at before; and one of the things I remember about it is, it was the first place I ever saw a shooting star.

Nor have I, as I told Caitlin a few moments ago. I've had one opportunity and there have been a few occasions where my family tried to plan such an event, but all of those fell through.

I'm just guessing, but it may be that the hot parts of your body heat up up the air inside the sleeping bag, which keeps the cold parts of your body (extremities) warm. If you wear fairly heavy PJs, for example, this hot-body heat is kept close to its sources, and the extremities are left to provide their own heat, which they don't do as well.

Nick is right about the sleeping bag theory but you need one which is warm and fluffy enough to begin with. However, woolly hats do make a difference. Sleeping bag liner sheets are handy too, in keeping the bag cleaner and drier. Also if v hot you just use the sheet.

Snowdonia - vaguely near Harlech, I think.

....true. However, I'm used to camping at sites w/o facilities (like a vast number of those found in US Nat'l Parks/Forests). I'm not really into the KOA-style campsites. Unless they have sweet playgrounds.

...apparently!

Seriously though, I always thought the whole point of camping was to NOT be crowded in with a bunch of people you don't know and being forced to use grimy public facilities. I'm telling you people: go camp in the desert! Or Maine. Whatever's closer.

only thing shitty about camping in the desert is that it's usually pretty cold at night so you bundle up then if you're sleeping while the sun's been up for a bit you wake up in a pool of your own sweat.

True. On the other hand, there's no better alarm clock than our Bright and Merciless Overlord. It is IMPOSSIBLE to sleep past 8am in the desert.

Backcountry camping is the bomb. Did some in CO a few years ago and found the sweetest meadow right by a river smack in the middle of the Elk range. The best part was that it only took an hour or so to get in there. 3-4 miles or something. No one for MILES (well, 3 or 4 at least).

Pfft.

For another thing, at least in England and Wales, there's hardly anywhere remote enough for you to be able to just pitch your tent on some random patch of ground and not have someone come to tell you to piss off.

* a new sleeping bag
* roll of foam mat
* plenty of blankets
* a Camping Gaz stove (with spare tin of gas)
* a lighter
* a set of nesting aluminium pans (including kettle)
* prepackaged camping food
* proper food that actually tastes nice (and still can be cooked on a camping stove)
* plastic crockery and cutlery (only one of each item, cos there's only one of me)
* several torches, including one that straps to my head
* spare batteries
* a penknife (for whittling)

Anything I've missed?

Breakfast: 1 litre long life milk
1 packet coffee
1 packet cereal
4 bananas

Lunch 4 apples
1 packet muesli bars
1 packet bread rolls
1 packet cheese slices
1 packet salami
1 packet salad greens
1 red capsicum

Dinner (for four people)

1 kg chicken (boneless, skinless)

1 packet thai green curry paste
1 tin coconut milk
500g rice
some oil

1 yellow capsicum
2 courgettes
1 packet baby carrots
1 onion
1 garlic head
2 tomatoes
1 broccolli

Extras 6 packets raro
3 Whittakers chocolate slabs
1 packet of biscuits for after dinner
1 box of crackers for pre dinner nibbles
1 punnet of dip for pre dinner nibbles
1 batteries (AAA)

Will this be enough?

Lots of blankets and whiskey liqueur I think! Yay camping!

I'm going caaamping in 2.5 daaays! spent my dividend @ REI today. woo.

i miss camping.
-- hstencil (hstencil), Tuesday, April 26, 2005 9:00 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark Link

me too :-/

I'd go all the time if I had people to go with. My friends "love" camping but that means parking somewhere and drinking beer around a fire, which is cool and all but can we not hike off into some wildernesses, yo? Really I should just do the Bear Claw Kris Lapp thing but I'm not quite there yet.

F'n A, Cotton: http://aurigids.seti.org/

I don't understand going somewhere that you can run out of beer. This is what corner delis are for.

And bottles too heavy to pack in very many. :(

The rule is a case per man per day. We don't usually run out of beer.

Oh but you mean when we're hiking. Last time I did much of that it was spiced rum and instant apple cider and one bottle went a long, long way.

I can't really go camping because without the gentle urban night chorus of sirens, cars honking and brawling lady drunks, my tinnitus keeps me up all night.

I have never been camping and am going to try it. What do I need to know?

I Love Camping, too!

Tomorrow the school district I drive a school bus for ends its school year until the day after next Labor Day (an ersatz USA holiday on first Monday after Sept 1). For the next 88 days I will be free to camp and hike.

Huzzah! Huzzah! Huzzah!

right, so how do you find places to camp? do you need to make a reservation? how not to die?

To answer the immediately-above question, in re: what you need to know:

1) how to sleep without walls, either in a tent or merely on the ground in the open air. This entails staying warm enough and not having a sharp rock poking you in the back - unless you are comatose enough to sleep under any horrific conditions you might encounter, for which copious quantities of alcohol may be required.

2) how to bring/forage/kill sufficient food to remain viable as a living being.

3) a legal spot in which to camp, or else effective means to evade law enforcement officers.

4) a sense of humor.

what is illegal camping

aka vagrancy

ya'll doing any camping this year?

but of course! I'm still sorting out my choices. I've more ideas for camp trips than can be fit into one camping season.

I used to love camping but then I had kids and camping is a totally different thing now. Same with going to the beach.

I still like those activities, but they are not chill or relaxing any more.

aimless have you ever done desert camping?

i have a decent pad and bag but i need to go tent shopping.

i still find making a list of all the stuff i need to bring and gathering it / packing it to be pretty daunting tbh.

I used a cheap inflatable pad (eBay) when I was camping in Sweden in July and it was basically glorified bubble wrap... and my right hip was so fucked up, all I could do until returning home was to hobble around gobbling ibuprofen... I need to fork out some money for a real mattress

For car/motorcycle camping I have a real inflatable bed that barely fits in my tent

a year ago we went to a big secondhand used and new camping supplies warehouse. they had a rack of 50 or so mattresses stacked next to each other, inflated, so you would feel them out. it was such a good way to find the right kind of structure, and also to avoid over-paying.

after that i'm a firm believer in getting camping supplies in an actual store.

I inherited a decent self-inflating thing but it has a slow-leak and you wake up flat on the ground.. never been able to find where the hole is

never been able to find where the hole is

you did check the valve I hope

have you ever done desert camping?

only a tiny bit. I am a sun avoider rather than a sun worshipper and deserts are not often shady.

not often! creekside cottonwood-covered areas and canyons are ideal. but there is still the heat. and of course bugs which are in every environment you can think of, except for snow camping i guess. the thing that keeps me from jumping enthusiastically into camping with my partner is that he is always swatting at bugs and he is super neurotic about them, which in turn makes me neurotic about him being neurotic. you kinda have to ignore them / get used to them to some degree in order to enjoy camping.

good bug management and bug tolerance skills are Urgent & Key for a good camping experience.

sure. what are your preferences for bug spray, if any?

and more generally, what do you mean by bug management?

I have a bottle of REI 'jungle juice' which is very effective but god knows what it's doing to my chromosomes

I use high concentration deet in the form of a cream that I can apply in a much more controlled and sparing manner than a spray. usually just my face, neck, ears, and the backs of my hands because the rest of me is often covered (see below).

By management I mean using clothing in a mindful way to limit how much skin is exposed to bugs. I much prefer loose baggy lightweight clothes instead of the skintight stuff I see all the time. this puts a vacant air space between the biter and most of my skin. in the cool of the evening when I'm more stationary and bugs are most numerous I may wear a 10 denier nylon windbreaker woven so tight they can't bite through it. I have a pair of gaiters that keep them from biting my ankles through my socks. That kind of stuff.

Tolerance is also a management skill. When their levels are low enough I can just ignore them, I do that.

Lastly, I have a seasonal pollen allergy and take loratadine for it. Because the itch from skeeter bites is largely a histamine response, so the fact that I'm taking antihistamines helps to make the consequences of the bites I get less severe.

Something I always try and pick up when I pass through the UK is a tube of anthisan. It’s a topical antihistamine cream that seems to have been licensed nowhere else in the world. It really is the best for insect bites.

Lemon eucalyptus oil seems to be effective as a repellent but it’s difficult to get - products often have very little or none at all. I did manage to get some in a Vaseline like form that is very effective.

thanks for the info all