Camping Experiences thread

GoingNowhereGoingNowhere Global Moderator
edited May 2011 in Life
Describe your camping experiences, good, bad, or disastrous!

I went camping with friends when I was younger, and one of my friends put a battery on the fire without us noticing. We lit the fire, climbed into our sleeping bags and enjoyed the warmth. BOOM!! The fire exploded and burnt holes in the tent. My friend was asleep in his sleeping bag, and it caught alight due to the explosion. He woke up due to it being on fire; you should have seen him shift lol!!!

Probs one of the most eventful camping trips, however I do go on camping trips regularly up the mountain on rough terrain. Tis good fun :)

What about your camping experiences?

Comments

  • DaktologistDaktologist Global Moderator
    edited May 2011
    Having it begin pissing down with rain the night we got there, pissed down for days and nearly got flooded out when the river we camped by nearly burst its banks
  • angryonionangryonion Just some guy
    edited May 2011
    Racoons everywhere!!!
    The year was 1993 Me and the Misses was camping in Maine"the five islands area".
    I woke up at about 11:30 and fucking racoons were into everything.
    I never knew they could hiss,sounded like a pissed off cat or some shit.
  • BigHarryDickBigHarryDick Cock Bite
    edited May 2011
    We ran out of beer :( @ the beach far far from a store
  • jamie madroxjamie madrox Sith Lord
    edited May 2011
    My best camping experience would have to be, Me and 6 other people in the middle of the woods, all of us sitting around a fire, with glow sticks, tripping balls on 2c-e. We heated Glow sticks untill they were super bright, and painted each other and the woods. Good times. Also there was a lighter placed in the fire at one point, but all it did was make a loud pop noise.
  • edited May 2011
    I remember camping somewhere once with a bunch of people I know. The trip itself was great, it's just the camping kinda sucked for me. I went to bed and woke up at 3am the next morning with a killer migrain, and everyone who had paracetamol was asleep in other tents. I had to wait it out until the morning, and I ended up throwing up when I woke up again. I eventually got some painkillers though, and all was good in the end.
  • edited May 2011
    Gasp, pant, ehhhhh? After an hour or so of sizing and uploading photos I am ready to make one long ass post, not much reading required, and some nice photos, I think.

    Last June, after having my ass served to me for 6 months at the worst resort hotel on gods green earth, I decided to take a month or so on the road. I bought camping gear, a small cheap tent, a sleeping bag that said it was rated to -5c, but I damn well knew wasn't, and a self inflating ground mat that turned out to be fucking great. I started off in Golden, B.C., Canada, and after a good piss up at a local bar, and a day spent recovering and organizing my shit, I had this to deal with;camping1.jpg

    You will notice some very non essential things, like my DS, some porn, etc. Such is the pack of someone just setting out.

    I found the nearest road out of town and wound up the magic thumb that had let me travel so much for so little in my 20's. My first ride was a couple of hippie chicks on their way to the Spilli Chilli festival, a chilli cookoff in Spillumcheen. As I wandered through the crowd, had a cheeseburger, and eventually ended up chatting with some folks, I realized I was finally free.

    I don't know if you have ever experienced this moment, but if you haven't, I advise you to arrange your life so as you can. The beautiful, wonderful moment when you realize you have everything you need in one weighty pack on your back, and nothing aside from physics, weather and the whims of fate are the slightest bit important. Do this, it will give you one clear point in your life you can draw strength from when things get muddy down the road.

    I spent the night in a barn, a classic affair, complete with a cool ass German Sheppard that kept me company. The folks that put me up also gave me breakfast, and drove me a few more miles down the road. Common courtesy in situations like this is essential, and if you are cool folk, people will go out of their way to help you on your journey.

    A night at an overpriced Provincial Campground, and a few rides later found me here;
    camping2.jpg

    The headwaters of the Columbia River, a ride gave me a tip on a cool place to camp not far from here, and I spent a couple of days getting used to sleeping in a tent, and cooking over a fire. It was cool to think that every piss and dump I took in the river would eventually find their way to the Grand Coolie Dam.

    I got into a good routine then, hitchhike till someone told me about a good place to camp, or dropped me off at a Provincial campground. An average evening would find me like this;camping3.jpg

    This lasted for 4 days till a few things came together and I decided to find a hotel. One, I was quite filthy, and dirty hitchhikers don't get picked up, two, the weather was lousy, and three, some kind soul had given me two t-bone steaks, both of which I ate cooked on a rock, and when I woke up the next day I had gas that made my first ride kick me out of his car. Also, even though I was rationing myself to a half hour a night, my DS was out of juice, hardship of the highest order.

    Fortunately he chose the town of Yahk, a wide spot in the road, near the U.S. border. I will have a fond spot in my heart for Yahk till my dying day. I chose the Blue Moon Hotel, and will be forever glad I did. The innkeepers were a nice couple and let me check in even though it was 9am. I was soon clean, and with my laundry and tent drying on the nice deck behind my suite I set out to see what Yahk had to offer. Of course I found the liquor store first., and put aside any thoughts of exploration in favor of getting hammered.

    I awoke with no inclination to go anywhere, the $50 suite was easily a match for any resort I have ever stayed in. A view of the mighty Moyie river and these sublime moments;
    camping4.jpg

    Kitty came with the room, the wine was a rough Chilean red, and I was reading Trinity, by Leon Uris, as close to heaven as I will ever get.
    camping5.jpg

    Humming birds are cool, I got a dozen good shots staking out the feeders set around the hotel. An exercise in patience to be sure, but when you have nothing to do, patience comes easy.
    camoing6.jpg

    I now know what sculpted this rock, my Dad actually clued me in. I found it beside a creek just outside of town, it is about 2'x2'x2'. If anyone on this site can tell me what made this mark on it I will send them a jar of this years blackberry and port jam, regardless of location.

    I spent 3 nights at the Blue Moon, I tried to leave after 2, but the dude told me he usually gives 3 nights for $100, so I spent another, free. As I was packing, he asked me where I was going, I said I was in no hurry, and was going to keep on going till I was down to around $400. He told me about some campsites up a logging road that had shit shacks built by locals, and if I helped him cut some firewood, he would let me off at one. Giggidy, go.

    This is when I begin to bush it in earnest, a weeks supplies, some booze, some work, and I found myself here;
    gumpung.jpg

    I find it hard to describe the beauty of the place, the pic does it no justice. Meadows filled with songbirds, limitless logging roads to explore, i have a 2gb sd card full of shit that could keep calendar makers in business for years. And of course, these;
    graplo8.jpg

    Hygrocybe conica, Witches Hat, and whomever classified them as potentially poisonous obviously did not try the genotype I indulged in. A handfull dried in the sun for a few hours, and mixed into my evening tea, gave a good solid psilocybin buzz, short, but nice. On the subject of mushrooms, I found a few spring morels, but the boleta's were awesome, if I could find them before the worms, even mixed with canned corned beef on rice. I also took a billion pictures of mushrooms as I had just discovered the "super macro" setting on my camera.

    Then there was this guy;
    turducken.jpg

    I am assuming it is a wild turkey, when I first saw it, the fucker came right at me hissing like a bastard. I stalked it for a while, and almost nailed it with a rock, I let up when the momma turkey and a trailing bunch of turkleylurkeyfuzzballs broke cover, and settled for a picture. I really would have liked to have eaten it, though.

    Somewhere around here something changed, the worst parts of my days camping so far had always been the nights, cold, damp, and the only good sleep I got was in the nice hour's between when my tent started to warm up and dry out, and when the sun hit it full on and made it too hot. After a few days, when I retired to my tent after a long day of hiking and exploring, my ground mat could have been a 4 post down filled bed. I slept like a fucking stone, from a couple hours after nightfall, till the sun started to warm my tent, I was out like a light.

    This is one of those moments that I could hear my mother yelling at me, "Get the hell away from the edge of that cliff 'C/O';
    gurpug.jpg

    Birchbark really does have a billion uses, I used it as firestarter, cigarette filter, and wrote poetry on it;
    gampug.jpg


    After 6 days I broke camp and headed back to Yahk. I needed booze and a wash up. I resupplied and spent another 5 days at a "provincial recreational site", closer to town, with some picnic tables, and an outhouse well stocked with toilet paper, but still free. I don't know who stocks these outhouses with toilet paper, I call them the "toilet paper fairies", and I am glad my tax dollars are used for this purpose.

    Eventually I met this dude;

    dimpugh.jpg

    Miles "happy feet" Howe, a bluegrass musician, taking his time going back to the coast after a tour. I cooked, he drove, good times. Eventually I found myself back in my home town, crashed on my moms couch as I searched Craigslist for my next job, nothing but pictures and memories to remind me of some good times.


    C/O
    "road warrior"
  • Habaner0Habaner0 Regular
    edited May 2011
    @the rock carving - wouldn't that be from glaciers?
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