Author Topic: Your best and worst camping night?  (Read 1376 times)

forgotmyoldpassword

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #15 on: 13:40:10, 23/03/20 »
Best night: Tough one.  Probably any night where I fell asleep instantly, brought proper food and woke up to sunshine.


Worst night:  Scotland trip about a decade ago where I threw everything in the car after work and drove all the way up.  Stuffed everything in the rucksack, headed off to Glen Affric to do some of the areas I had yet to explore - great day on the hill before dropping down to camp.  All going well so far.  Unpacked my tent and realised I hadn't packed the poles for it.  Too late to walk back out again so I cracked open the bivy bag and had a terrible night.  Unsurprisingly I now unpack my tent and check everything is there before every trip.

gunwharfman

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #16 on: 18:54:50, 23/03/20 »
I remember another good camping night. I arrived on a Sunday afternoon at the campsite in Horton in Ribblesdale a few years ago, there were only a few tents on the site. I paid my fee, chatted with the owner for a while and he said to me would you like whiskey? Being polite I said yes, I'm not really that keen and I thought at first it was a sales pitch and he wanted to charge me for it. I put my hand in my pocket to get out my money but he didn't want to charge me at all. I had one, then another then a couple more and I was happy and contented. It was soon after that I resolved to always pitch my tent BEFORE drinking alcohol! By the time I got to the dip in the field on the site, I was muddled, totally disorganized, I even fell over a couple of times and I know I made a complete fool of myself. I eventually sorted myself out got in my tent and slept like a log!

Yorci

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #17 on: 01:02:21, 24/03/20 »
A difficult one, I haven't had any particularly bad experiences under canvass.

The site I was most impressed with was the Knight Stainforth Hall campsite near Settle.

I did a wild camp at Angle Tarn in the Lakes a couple of years ago, it was midweek, I got their late, I was the only one, I went for a late dusk walk, then on my return there were another 4 tents, for a wild camp it became a wee bit crowded. Still got on well with everyone.

I had a bit of a bad experience at The Boe Rigg in Northumberland, access to my pitch was up a steep hill over crushed rocks. It wasn't kind to my car.

I had some bad luck June last year when I went to the Sunny Lyn Holiday Park in North Devon, I go there every year, but won't be going this year. Last year, I had to put my tent up in the rain and got swamped, three lovely clear days of sunshine, then the following morning as I tore everything down, the heavens opened up, so had to pack up in the rain, and it wasn't light rain. It was like being in the Army again.
Leave only footprints, take only memories and photographs.
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Birdman

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #18 on: 11:44:57, 24/03/20 »
Camping in the Sonora Desert in Arizona features very high on my list of favourite camps. Falling asleep by the song of Great Horned Owl and Elf Owls that make their nest in the giant saguaro cacti and howling coyotes.




Another great camp was in Cotopaxi National Park in Ecuador, where I camped at 4100m elevation to find the hummingbird with the highest elevation range (3500-5200m) in Ecuador: the Ecuadorian Hillstar. They feed on Chuquiragua flowers that only occur on the paramo at these high elevations. I wasn't sure if I would find one, but they were buzzing around my tent! It was well worth the climb to there.


My travel and walking reports: https://www.hikingbirdman.com/

richardh1905

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #19 on: 11:53:33, 24/03/20 »
Beautiful, Birdman.
WildAboutWalking - Join me on my walks through the wilder parts of Britain

Sonatine

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #20 on: 13:23:17, 24/03/20 »
A few great camps I can remember are:

On the shore in a campsite somewhere between Stranraer and Dumfries, it was a long time ago but I recall you could camp on the grass right next to a sandy beach, and have fires there. It was quite idyllic, my girlfriend and I stayed there a couple of nights and at the end of the stay the owner refused to take a payment from us. After a visit to Edinburgh we hitched down to Carlisle on our way to the Langdales, and got stopped by the police as they thought we were runaways trying to hitch north and elope. They checked our details it was quite embarrassing and scuppered our chances of getting a lift.

Roll on 30 years we’re still together! We went to a great wild camp site in the lake district with a natural pool a couple of summers ago. After a break in the rain I stuck my head out and saw a man and a young woman coming up the path. He had a tripod and she a long trench coat on… They clocked our tent and then acted slightly awkwardly. She shouted to us over the stream that she was going to take her clothes off, and indeed was naked underneath the coat, and a photoshoot took place. Quite bizarre, but I coped.

In terms of bad camps, I recall a canvas tent experience in a rain storm on the med. We got drenched. I suspect many bad camp stories will have the word ‘canvas’ in them. Another time I went camping, set the tent up, and went straight to the pub. After stumbling back into the tent I realised with horror that I had failed to bring a sleeping bag. You realise how cold it is at night when you have no cover at all.

Bigfoot_Mike

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #21 on: 20:50:40, 24/03/20 »
One of the best camping nights was not too wild. We camped in the grounds of High Moss, the Rucksack Club hut in the Duddon Valley. This was for the celebration of the 90th birthday of one of the club’s members. The senior members slept in the hut, while the younger members and guests camped. There were a wide range of ages and backgrounds celebrating a legend of the club around a roaring fire with food, bagpipes and a small amount of alcohol. Walter eventually lived to the grand old age of 101. His 80th birthday had been celebrated on the summit of Tryfan after an ascent of the North Ridge.


My worst camping experience was on Skye, not too far from the ferry to Mallaig. The midges were horrendous in the morning and I was eaten alive. They went in my ears, up my nose and in my hair. I stopped counting the bites on my head once I got to 100.

Doddy

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Re: Your best and worst camping night?
« Reply #22 on: 11:30:57, 25/03/20 »
I think both of mine were in the US.
On the John Muir Trail there is Base Camp coming off Mt Whitney when I woke up a large part of the mountain range was pink, bathed from the sunrise.
Worst was in Boiling Springs on the Appalachian Trail when a roll about thunderstorm went on for hours and on one crack of thunder my tent poles, my walking poles, were lifted out of the ground. I managed to refix them from the inside the tent inside. At dawn the thunder stopped and I got a bit more sleep. I was fortunate to be in some Old Boys garden who let people camp there for free- no facilities.

 

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