What makes a campsite a “good campsite?” That really depends
on some very strange conflicts of comfort expectations. I will present three
examples of campsites with some contrasting examples.
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Example 1:
In August of 1998, my daughter Marie, my son Will and I spent three nights in a campsite in the Dolly Sods Wilderness
Area in West Virginia
that we all claimed was “good.” However, if you examine the realities,
all it had to offer was isolation and “moving around” space. It was a clearing under a high forest canopy where
pine needles, roots, and rocks defined the site. A thick under story of pines, laurel, and deciduous trees all competing for
growing space surrounded the campsite.
The clearing had tall trees within its boundaries, but we just used them for coat racks, or rather T-shirt racks and
pack racks. Ignoring the hanging racks, the clearing was the size and shape of
an L-shaped living room / dining room in a medium size house.
The rocks, roots, shrubbery and tree trunks left only one spot to pitch the three-man backpacking tent. That spot was far from being ideal. Marie’s side was
up against some roots. My area in the middle had a two-inch thick root about
four inches long where my knees would lie. Will’s side overlapped “The
Cliffs of Insanity”, as he called the rock ledge that poked at his shoulder through the floor. Both sides were slightly up hill from the middle, gradually causing family meetings throughout the night.
I maintained my location in the middle by using the center seam on the rain fly above me as my lighthouse. This lighthouse got its light from whatever starlight could filter through the thick canopy of trees overhead. The nearest city lights were at least twenty miles away, so in order for me to take
a bearing on this lighthouse, the seam just twelve inches above my face, I had to look to the side of it. The human eye needs bright light to see in the center of the visual field.
The periphery sensors of the eye provide perception in very low levels of light.
Yet this campsite was “good.” It had a source of water, the
Right Fork of Red Creek, just fifty feet away. It had a fire ring constructed
of rocks laboriously lugged to a convenient spot by some unknown campers before us. Other than that fire ring, some sitting
rocks (almost comfortable), and a string hanging from a tree, there were no signs of prior human habitation.
We kept the hand trowel and T.P. near a narrow passage between the underbrush that lead in a serpentine route deeper
into the woods. Dig your own facilities, folks, six inches deep and cover it
back over when you are done.
The food needs to hang ten feet off the ground and away from any climbable trees.
We call this hanging a bear bag, although it is just as important to think of other hungry varmints like raccoons,
skunks and mice when picking a location and engineering for your “bear bag.”
In our case, I had located a nearly horizontal deciduous tree trunk arching across at fifteen feet above a boulder
field infested with many small branch-to-branch evergreens. Getting to the bear
bag to raise or lower as needed involved walking on mossy sloped boulders while pin-sharp pine needles stabbed at your legs.
We believed that it was bear proof and raccoon proof and all other non-human critters proof. A smart bear would have figured out that the green nylon rope tied off at the trunk of a nearby tree could
be chewed for a few untasty moments to release a veritable party piņata of goodies for the effort.
We loved our campsite. We were in no hurry to leave it each morning for
our day hikes, even though we knew they would provide never ending entertainment for all our senses.
It was a lovely home away from home, but don’t try to walk around after dark without a flashlight. I did, walking toward Marie standing beside the campfire. The
rock that had been Will’s chair during meals was completely invisible in the contrasting darkness adjacent to the bright
fire. It is a miracle that my fall came up short of emulating a marshmallow near
any campfire. I caught myself with my hands on rocks I could not see at the edge
of the fire ring. Only a few knuckles hurt afterward.
Somertimes, we could hear the sounds of some other campers to the south near where Blackbird Knob Trail crosses the
creek, but not often. During the day, there were some hikers across the creek
from us taking a lunch break as their dog investigated the banks across the creek from us.
The dog never sensed that we were there just out of sight. The sounds
of the creek drowned out any of our conversations.
Isolation! It lets the mind clear.
This campsite was good.
I have heard others complain, “I can’t camp where there are no hot showers.” I have even heard a lady on a pay phone in Badlands National Park in South Dakota complain, “It’s really rugged
here. There are no TV’s or telephones in the motel rooms and I can't even
get cell phone service here.”
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Example 2:
My wife, Ann, has declared that the Crabtree Meadows Campground on the Blue Ridge Parkway
was one of he nicest we have ever had while camping with the pop up trailer. She
said so because of the apparent isolation. We had a short walk to tile and ceramic
rest rooms with running cold water. We heated a thermos of water on the stove
and took washcloth showers in those rest rooms.
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Example 3:
On the same trailer camping trip, my wife and I stayed at a KOA Resort Campground with game rooms, indoor and outdoor
miniature golf, batting cages, swimming pool, and of course private shower stalls with piped in music and benches you could
sit on while changing.
Neither of us liked that bustling haven of humanity as much as Crabtree Meadows, which only offered a grassy field
and tortuous trails for entertainment, and no showers. But it had its own form
of isolation. The nearest next campsite was a hundred feet away, partly hidden
by a grassy knoll. In contrast, at the KOA, the nearest campsite was eight feet
away. The view out of our window was a tan aluminum camper side. Literally, that is all we could see out a four foot by seven foot window.
We had hookups for electricity and water at the KOA. At Crabtree Meadows
we had to run the trailer lights off the car battery and had to hand pump the water in our galley or walk up the hill to a
spigot. But we had a discernible level of isolation and a lovely cooling breeze. It was a good camp site.
I once heard someone say that a good camp site for them was a room close to the elevator in a Four Seasons Hotel. I suspect that that person would be in absolute misery at either the backpacking site
or the car camping site at Crabtree Meadows.
They would be so busy paying attention to the discomforts, that they would forget to turn on their sensual awareness. They would not smell the heady scent of the woods.
They would not feel the gentle breeze on their skin, or hear the rustle of the leaves that it caused. They would not hear the songs of birds or the calls of woodland animals.
They would not perceive the light green new growth ends on the evergreen trees as a beautiful color. They would even miss the different taste of smog-free air on its way to grateful lungs.
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Perhaps I have been describing a good camp site all wrong. A good camp
site is not one that provides isolation. A good camp site is one that allows
you to UN-isolate yourself; to open up your senses to the natural world around you.
Do it. It clears the mind.
--
Bob Kuhns
P.S.
Comments on 11/14/2005: After attending Leave No Trace training, my concept of a good campsite in wilderness is different.
Now, a good campsite includes the concept of minimum impact on the wilderness. Good rocks to sit on around
the campfire ring should not be left in place when departing the campsite. In some wilderness areas, no campfire
can be used. In fact, it is very difficult to "leave no trace" when you have built a campfire.
