Re: [Paddlewise] Camping - 3 worst mistakes

At 01:51 AM 8/14/00 -0700, Dave Kruger wrote:
>Peter Osman wrote:
>
>> [snip] I am about to embark on an equally hazardous initiation - but with no
>> prior experience of any kind. IE the first time in my life to go camping -
>> Could anyone volunteer the three worst mistakes I could make? 
>
>Oh, boy, is my hopper full of recent experience on this one!  Peter, I can't
>stop at just three.  Please do not ask why I am so acutely tuned to these
>errors (especially the last one -- arrrgh!).

Since I just got back from three days of kayak camping in the Adirondacks I
can add a few items, that though could have spelled disaster actually
turned out all right (mostly, due to blind luck and remembering to pack a
sense of humor.

We all met the night before to plan things out.  The guy that sort of
organized the trip planned on leaving early in the day so that he could get
to Little Tupper Lake and select a campsite.  The other four of us left
Ithaca around 4:00pm and even with a conservative estimate should have put
us at the lake around the time it got dark.  With detours, traffic slowed
down due to a steady rain all the way there, a stop for dinner that took
longer than expected, and a bit of shopping to pick up some extra supplies
we arrive at the lake around 11:00pm.  (lesson #1: factor in lots of extra
time for travel time to your destination)

After arriving we found the campsite check-in board and found that Ed had
arrived but for some reason neglected to write down the number of the
campsite he'd paddled off to.  So now we start checking the tags which
indicate which camps that full and try to figure out which one didn't have
a log entry.  Of course, we also assumed that Ed had flipped over the tag
for the campsite he'd gone too.  That narrowed it down to about four
different camps so we decided to just try and head for one of the empty
sites and look for Ed (I won't mention some of the things we talked about
doing to him when we found him) in the morning.  

The campsite we picked out was about 2 miles (or was it one and a half?)
down the lake.  Of course, none of us had ever been to this lake before,
and didn't know what the markers looked like for identifying the camp
sites, and it was raining so visibility was not good, and we had fully
loaded kayaks (much more so than three of us had ever tried paddling
before).  So given all these factors we did what any rational person would
do;  we got into our kayaks and paddled off into the dark...and the rain.

The kayaks felt very stable with the extra weight and armed with a 8"x11"
map printed off using the Delorme software using an inkjet printer on which
I had marked *most* of the campsite numbers we attempted to located
campsite #20.  We were able to avoid paddling into the shallows most of the
time and made pretty good progress.  After paddling about 15 minutes I got
out the map (lesson #2:  don't forget to bring the waterproof map case) and
we found a couple of landmarks and made a good guess as to where we were.
After passing an island (which wasn't on the map) we began looking for a
little inlet, where by my calculations preceeded camp #20.  After passing
that "inlet" we rounded a point and discovered what had to be the *real*
inlet we were looking for ...in the dark...in the rain.  I got out the map
again and decided that the camp should be somewhere along the next 1000' or
so of shore. 

After going about 1500' or so and reaching the next island I got out the
map again,  pieced it together where it was ripping in half and decided
that camp #19 (or was that smudge an 18) should be on the island we were
next to.  We followed along the shore and didn't see any marks for a camp
(assuming that we knew what to look for) so we rafted up again to decide
what to do.  Camp 18 (or was it 19?) *could* be on that next island...oooh,
there's a light on the opposite shore.  We decided to paddle across the
lake (about a 1/4 mile) and find the source of the light so that we could
find out which camp it was and figure out where to go next.  When we got
across we did find a camp, but as we found out the next day it wasn't the
source of the light.  It was camp #11 and according to my map (which was
now almost unrecognizable as a map) camp #20 should be about due east
(lesson #3:  having a compass is a good thing).  Of course, I couldn't read
my compass in the dark (lesson #4:  check the batteries on your headlamp
before leaving) but was able to pick out a landmark before heading across.
 Hey...it stopped raining. 

We paddled across toward the landmark and within two minutes of reaching
shore located campsite #20.  We managed to get out of our boats without
falling in and started to unload.  I managed to just get my backpacking
lantern (lesson #4:  bring several light sources) lit when it started to
rain again.  We finally got everything unloaded, tents set up, food hung
and climbed into our tents around 2:30am in the morning.  We also came up
with several more ideas on what we were going to do to Ed when we found him.

It rained all night but was much lighter when we woke up and started to
make coffee.  "I think it's going to clear up...", someone said.  It
didn't.  We also found that we were suprisingly awake for 6:00am.  After a
brief breakfast we climbed back into our kayaks to hunt down, I mean, find
Ed's campsite.  We found that we were real close to the island we had gone
around the night before, so we skirted the opposite shore looking for a
site.  Just as we got past it I saw a tent on the next island and there was
Ed standing on a rock waving to us.  We had passed within 200' or so of his
site the night before.

The trip went mostly uphill from then on...except that it didn't stop
raining until that night.

Final Lesson:  don't ever, ever, forget to bring bug repellant.
Fortunately we had plenty.

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