Camping

[The Stig]

Been camping recently?

Any adventures or interesting stories you'd like to share with the group?

Gear failures? Lessons learned? Things that worked well? Medical issues?

Maybe post an after action report for us.

[gunbuilder69]

One time in band camp...
No seriously though I too would like to hear a non-military related camping horror story turned lesson learned if any one is game.
Maybe Mitunnelrat or chicom could start a tale,they camp often.

[mitunnelrat]

Hmm... Let me see... I had a Frost Cutlery Kabar copy break last August while I was batoning along the grain of a small-ish log for kindling. I'm pretty sure I hit a knot where it branched. I didn't mind at all though. I'd been wanting a new knife...
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn165/mitunnelrat/035.jpg
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn165/mitunnelrat/051.jpg
I learned on that same trip that I'd rather use a saw of some sort for cutting lengths. The hatchet did the job, but you expend a lot more time and energy that way.
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn165/mitunnelrat/033.jpg
http://i304.photobucket.com/albums/nn165/mitunnelrat/032.jpg

Two years ago in August I ended up in the ER for 6 hours because I was unable to hold anything down - not even 2 oz. of water. Come to find out, the river I used my Katadyn Hiker in was horribly contaminated, and something managed to sneak into my system. I get hazy on exact numbers now, but 2-3 bags of fluids, a "salty Tang" tasting electrolyte mix, and 2 bags of liquid Levaquin later, I got to go home. My primary Dr. was surprised I wasn't admitted. I was that bad off.

This most recent trip, I learned that my coffee can stove was too short and too poorly ventilated to keep a can of sterno alit. In discussion on it elsewhere, I also learned that sterno is a very poor medium for boiling water in the winter. I'll make a new coffee can stove for use as a wood burner, but I do believe an Esbit stove will find its way to me in the near future.

That's just off the top of my head. I have more failure stories than anything, but I'd rather have any and all of the above happen now than learn the same lessons during a crisis situation.

[dragon5126]

Careful with Levaquin. One of the little spoken of but very common side effects of it is seizures. I found this out the hard way when it was prescribed for pneumonia. In the ER (fortunately I knew the Doc so he didn't write it up as unspecified seizures and endup having my drivers license pulled for 6 years), the attending MD told me "Oh that happens quite often with Levaquin"...

[mitunnelrat]

I have some experience with that as well. I watched one of my ex's go into shock from the pills. I was commenting on that even as they set me up.

[dragon5126]

It's even worse when combined with dextromethorpham ( spelling isnt clicking on that one, normally referred to as "DM" an expectorant often used in tussens). Which is commonly used forlung and bronchial issues, and of course Thats one of Levaquin's primary uses as well, and rare is the pharmacist and MD that catches that one.

[Sniper-T]

Got a few, here's one:

The wife and I were camping in a remote part of Ontario a number of years back, and when we got in at dark, it was a beautiful night, so we just threw up the inner part of the tent, without the fly... or tent pegs for that matter, we just tossed our bags in the corners, and good to go.

Sometime around 04:00 the weather turned, some nasty wind sprang up, caught the tent with us and out two cats in it (camping kitties), and rolled the whole works 30 feet off into the bush. It took 5 minutes to calm my wife down, another 5 to find the hole one of the cats slashed in the side to get out, a few more to enlarge it enough to get out and get the wife out. by the time we scrambled the 30' back to the truck, we were drenched, and the cats were ready to claw out our eyes. Spent the rest of the night in the truck, fixed the tent the next day (bubba), and finished the weekend.

Since then it has become a standing joke when we're setting up camp... 'it's nice out, let's leave the fly off'
lol

[TEOTWAWKI13]

Ok, I'll play...

One goes way back to my childhood. We'd go camping all the time. Big Coleman tent with room for mom and dad's queen sized bed, you know. So we're camping along a little river in Ellijay, Georgia...Eagle Mountain Resort. And all of a sudden it starts to rain. Wind whipping around. Last for hours. All of a sudden water starts coming through the tent in the corner. We're getting flooded out of the tent. We high tail it up to dad's old truck with the camper shell on it, and spend the rest of the night in the truck. People are scrambling around all around us too. The next morning, we crawl out of the camper and go down to the tent, where my brother yells "Holy Sh...I mean crap." We look across the little river area, and there are trees snapped all across on the other bank. A tornado tore through there that night. The tent had a tear in a seam about the size of a dollar bill. Otherwise it was good to go.

The next week, mom sent dad to buy a pop up tent camper to pull behind the truck. :)

[JustAPrepper]

Nothing gear related...just a fun story...

This was two years ago on our annual Christmas camping trip...

DH takes the truck up to the Ranger Station to check the weather and I'm alone hanging out in a lawn chair with a cold one. Guy a little ways away asks if I have any food laying around. I tell him no. He tells me I have a bear stalking my site. Turns out it was "Gimpy". Same bear we've seen for a couple of years and has a bad leg. Still, when a bear comes calling you give him a wide berth. I grabbed my camera and a canoe paddle...just in case (firearm was in the truck...not that I could use it in the park anyway). He sniffed around our site and moved on. Turns out Gimpy has since been relocated. He was walking up on campers while they were eating and was considered a threat so wildlife folks moved him to a new location.

http://i255.photobucket.com/albums/hh140/Julie-Girl/StalkingBear.jpg

[Stg1swret]

Quite some years ago went camping with afriend in upstate NY. All was well until about 0630 when a small nose stuck itself inside the tent. My friend , not amused smacked it with a tin coffe cup, and things went south from there. Said nose was attacked to a bear cub, and when it cried momma came a running. I beat a hasty retreat out of the tent via the door I cut in the rear of the tent and headed down hill. My friend decided a tree would be a better escape, it was then that he found out bears climb trees, He was up there an hour or so. Until momma bear gave up.
When we met up later he asked my I ran down hill, it was then that I explained the anatomy of a bear made running down hill a much better option, as a bear will tend to go "ass over tea kettle' if it tries to rune to fast down hill. We had agood laugh about the incident, but also realized how lucky we both were. Moral of the story leave bear cubs alone.

[The Stig]

Quite some years ago went camping with afriend in upstate NY. All was well until about 0630 when a small nose stuck itself inside the tent. My friend , not amused smacked it with a tin coffe cup, and things went south from there. Said nose was attacked to a bear cub, and when it cried momma came a running. I beat a hasty retreat out of the tent via the door I cut in the rear of the tent and headed down hill. My friend decided a tree would be a better escape, it was then that he found out bears climb trees, He was up there an hour or so. Until momma bear gave up.
When we met up later he asked my I ran down hill, it was then that I explained the anatomy of a bear made running down hill a much better option, as a bear will tend to go "ass over tea kettle' if it tries to rune to fast down hill. We had agood laugh about the incident, but also realized how lucky we both were. Moral of the story leave bear cubs alone.

Stg1swret doesn't know this, but we placed a hidden camera in his campsite that evening.

Here's what we saw:

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/01569/bear1_1569136c.jpg

[Gunfixr]

Well, last year when I had an endoscopy (Barretts disease, required every 2yrs), they nicked a blood vessel at the bottom of my esophagus, and din't know it.
Later that afternoon, after having vomited up between 2 and 3 liters of blood, I got a ride in an ambulance. The hospital, in its infinite wisdom, decided I didn't need a transfusion, and only gave me saline. So I laid around the house for a month, building up my blood and energy.
I still went on the planned winter week long hunting trip, which involved camping in the mountains the whole time. I normally live at sea level. After 2 days a freak winter storm blew in, covering everything with snow (awesomely beautiful), and then followed with even more severely falling temps and hard Northerly winds, 40mph with gusts to 50. The tent was nearly destroyed. It was 1 month since my "bloodletting", and I couldn't do much of anything. I was with an experienced bushcrafter, so wasn't in serious danger, but things were getting worse, and we ended up leaving early.
So, don't go from sea level to altitude, in the cold and wind, with low blood levels.

[dragon5126]

This almost forty some years ago. Two friends and myself were camping outside Portage WI. on the Wisconsin River, working on our forestry merit badge in scouts. Some idiots on an adjoining parcel of land we clearing it via a "controlled burn", using a ratty tractor and a drag plate to do the control part. In the early afternoon on that Saturday one of the idiots came running over the ridge yelling to clear out there was a forest fire coming. The rest of the idiots hightailed it out in time for their tractor to explode. Apparently the transmission went out on it and the fire over took it and cooked off the fuel tank. Our counselor and leader, several family members and a handful of property owners spent the weekend fighting a fifty acre fire as the mainstay for the states crews were tied up with a major fire at Spring Green. The Ranger in charge left tanks, a truck, radio equipment and other gear with us, specifically with the three of us scouts, after seeing us use all of it while fighting the fire side by side with the adults. Not bad for three thirteen year old kids. We earned the merit badges the hard way, had letters of recommendation put in our academic records as well as put in our hands for when we entered the job market. Mine helped me gain the job at the lab... The experience also made me realize that there is nothing someone can not do if they have the drive and desire. At the time it happened, not one of us thought about the danger or even not stepping up. It had to be done and we were there. One of the guys became a fire fighter, the other went into the Coast Guard... the experience was a positive point in all our lives, and amazed our parents, not to mention the first time I drove a four by through the woods... If the men in the back knew I was only thirteen they would have crapped their pants over more the the trees burning around them.

[mongoose]

Was shown this by an old timer back home in Campti, La.

What do you do on a cold morning when you didn't pack enough coffee?
Yaupon Holly will jumpstart your morning, and give ya yer caffeine fix.

American Indians and Spanish settlers steeped yaupon leaves and twigs in hot water to
make a stimulating beverage. The Brew is dark brown and tastes much like green tea.
http://news.ufl.edu/2009/06/25/yaupon-drink/

Prefer a cup of non-caffinated tea?
Pine needle tea, clip the youngest needles, chop them fine and steep in boiling water.

Yew (Taxus), Norfolk Island Pine (Araucana heterophylla), Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa), are the
ones you cannot use.
The brew is high in vitiman C,and antioxidants.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/3126/#b