Some hikers put their campfire down any old place. Others spend as much time choosing a spot as a couple of newlyweds spend choosing a house. Your comfort isn't the only issue to consider when choosing a site for you're campfire: You also need to follow minimum impact guidelines that will help protect the area for future users.

Choose even surfaces. It might surprise you to learn that the most comfortable sleeping spot isn't a soft meadow (which can be bumpy, wet, and mosquito-infested). Instead, look for forest duff or pine needles-or even mineral soil, sand, or gravel. On a closed-cell foam mattress, you'll find that it's more comfortable to be camped on a hard flat surface that a soft, bumpy one.

Spend a little time. Sometimes it's hard to find a flat spot. The ground might be too rocky or hummocky or densely vegetated. Once you've spotted a possible home for the night, lay out your ground cloth and lie down to check out the slope and whether there are big protruding rocks that will poke you all night long.

Look for overhead dangers. These include the possibility of rock-fall from a scree-slope and widow-makers (dead trees that have started to fall but are held in place by other trees).

Drainage. Choose sites that will drain well, even in a downpour. This means avoiding flat areas that lie in slight depressions- especially on non-porous hard-packed soil. In dry country, avoid flash-flood zones, like the sandy creek bed of a canyon.

Bug-free. Mosquitoes are worst on a warm, humid night, especially if there is no breeze. Heading for an exposed knoll or a wind tunnel (look for a saddle between two hills) might find you a breezy spot.

Campsites and water. Be sure that your campsite is at least 60 meters from water to prevent inadvertently contaminating the water or scaring wildlife away from their nightly drink. Also, avoid game trails: animals might not be willing to approach a campsite, and that could mean they'll go thirsty if you are camped between them and the water they depend on.

Avoid fragile areas. Don't camp on meadows, especially in alpine areas, where several years of growth can be destroyed by the stomp of a Vibram sole.

Use established sites when possible. It's more aesthetically pleasing to come to a lake with ten or twelve heavily used sites than it is to come to a similar lake with signs of a hundred different sites scattered every which way, sometimes only a few yards from each other.

Practice leave-no-trace. When camping in pristine areas, try to remove all traces of your camp. so that the next party that comes through sees no evidence of your site.

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