Done something really stupid?

[ski3pin]

Dumb, dumb, dumb. We've all done really dumb things while camping. Forgetting to put the top down ranks pretty high from my reading of WTW posts.

Here's a couple of my recent ones.

On our recent trip to Mammoth area - we set up at our first camp spot and are all settled, or so I think. I'm outside. The Lady is inside. I hear her turn on the faucet. "Why does the pump sound so funny?" she asked. "Oh shoot (yeah, sure), turn it off! I forgot to fill the water tank!"

And now just this morning. Yesterday we did a nice cross country hike and hit the tops of both Potato Peak and Bodie Mountain, the high points in the Bodie Hills. While dropping down the steep east side of Bodie and working around snow banks, I found a broken Orvis Silver Label graphite fly rod with an intact Orvis Battenkill fly reel. I figured I could clean up the reel and see if it worked. We picked everything up. I also figured I could make up a good story about why in the world a nice fly outfit was abandoned high up on a desert peak far far away from any trout water. We set up camp for the night at the end of the day. There was a quick couple hour hike we wanted to do before supper. I pulled the fly reel and reel seat I had harvested off the rod out of the side pocket of my pack as it didn't need to make this hike with us. I placed it on top of the driver's side rear tire because I was SURE I would see it when I removed the drain hose right above it. You can figure the rest. We got home. "Where did I put that reel?" I asked. "Did I put it back in my pack?" A check confirmed what I already knew. I probably even drove over it and crushed it. Anybody want the coordinates to go check?

 

[Lighthawk]

I've left my rod behind more than once. Once I got lucky and recovered it. The other rod was not so lucky. I left it hanging on my lumber rack, after fishing late on Timbuktu bend on the Lower Yuba. Somehow I realized it and returned to drive the gravel bar after dark, back and forth in vain. That was my first graphite rod and it stung to lose it so foolishly. But it's not the first time I've done something like that, and I'm sure it's not the last.

Too bad about your mystery rod. Very curious it would be left up on a peak, but then you left it too, so maybe it wants to be there.

 

[ski3pin]

Very curious it would be left up on a peak, but then you left it too, so maybe it wants to be there.



I like that thought!

 

[imcolej]

Done something really stupid? Finally a thread I can contribute too!

Last September, I locked my keys in my truck about 20 miles in during a hunting trip in the Malheur National Forest in Central/Eastern OR.

I thought about breaking the window with a dramatic bow/arrow session but the look on my friends face told me to settle on a nearby rock.

With a completely shattered rear window, that 100+ mile ride home to Bend sucked. My buddy and I smelled like a campfire by the time we got home due to the raging forest fires at the time.

 

[chnlisle]

I locked my keys in my truck at West Marine in Oxnard several years ago. My phone was in the truck so I started walking home. Luckily my wife was driving by and saw me. She had a key to the truck. She took me back to the truck and mentioned that the passenger side window was open...........

 

[Ted]

The stories about keys reminded me of something that happened when I was very young. My Father had a pilot's license and we often flew places for family outings. Once we flew to Sea Ranch for the day. When we went to leave my Dad realized he had lost the keys to the plane.

A couple of hours of retracing our steps later they were found by a gate to a hiking trail. fell out of his pocket.

 

[ski3pin]

Loosing and finding keys (at some later time) is an everyday occurrence for the Lady.

Mr. chnlisle, open passenger window? That one deserves special recognition!

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

This is something I observed at Yellowstone last September.
We had pulled int the Pebble Creek campground to use the biffie.Two women pull up in a Chevy pickup extra cab.
They get out to also use the biffie.Just a few seconds after the driver closes the door their little dog jumps up at the driver side window.Guess what it hit the door lock button,not a problem but the keys,phone everything was inside they had no way to open the door.The older mother suggested"break a window",the rear slider would have been the best I think.The daughter didn't want to.She had "on star" but that had lapsed.
I called a friend at home to get the onstar number and she used my phone to call.Short story of it the onstar people would only open the doors if she had the program,which she would have signed up for there and then,but she didn't have her credit card info.
There wasn't much I could do and getting the dog to push the door button wasn't going to work.
She called the ranger and they said someone would be there in about an hour as they were heading out the Cooke City gate.
I left her with some sheet plastic and tape in case she changed her mind about breaking out the window.
A couple days latter we saw her at one of the park stores and everything worked out.The ranger was there soon and used the "jimmy"to open the door.
Lesson,#1 have a extra set of keys out on the truck somewhere,#2 watch out for those jumping dogs.
Frank

 

[craig333]

Ummm, no nothing to add here, nothing at all, certainly not the time I camped at 7800' in October with a storm coming in and then finding out I hadn't brought a jacket. Really makes your appreciate having a warm dry place to hide.

 

[MarkBC]

Craig's confession reminded me of an amazingly-clueless -- yes, stupid -- camping-related error that I made many years ago. (it was even at the same elevation -- 7800' and probably the same month...what are the odds of that?!)
It was my first camping trip to Steen's Mt -- the crown jewel of southeast Oregon. It was fall, but the loop road was still open, and I drove up to camp in the little BLM campground at Jackman Park, arriving after dark. I set up my small backpacking tent (this was at least 2 trucks ago and long before the camper era), put the Thermarest pad in place and...hmmm...where's my sleeping bag?
WHERE IS MY SLEEPING BAG?!?!

I had forgotten to bring my sleeping bag...and at 7800 feet in fall in arid southeast Oregon it can cool off mightily at night.

I didn't have a heavy parka with me either. I did have a huge vinyl-canvas zippered bag -- like a giant cargo bag that zips on 3 sides, so I used that like a bivi sack to try to retain warmth. It came up to mid-torso...which was better than nothing.
I made it through the night without lapsing into hypothermia and death...

The next morning I was eager to light the Coleman stove to make warm food and coffee. I then discovered that the only flame-producing means I had was a book of matches, containing just two flimsy paper matches...maybe just one. (nowdays I think of Survivorman Les Stroud and all the clever ways he has of making fire -- but I was not and am not that experienced). I'm not and have never been a smoker, so I don't have thousands of trials of flawless use of paper matches, and many times I've gone through a couple of paper matches to get one lit. But I got lucky and got the stove going and made warm stuff to eat and drink.

My next task of the day was to drive down the mountain to Frenchglen to buy a of box of strike-anywhere kitchen matches. I didn't buy a sleeping bag, but after enjoying the great Steens loop that day I camped below 5000' where it was warm enough in my funky cargo bag.

But I learned from these mistakes, and I created a master "Trip List" of anything/everything that I might take with me camping. This was a long time ago, but computers existed (not at my house, but at work), and I created an Excel spreadsheet of this master "to bring" Trip List so that I could print out a fresh copy to aid in packing for each camping trip.
The power of The List is that I only had to do heavy-thinking once to remember what to bring -- at the time I created the list. After that all I have to do is look at the list and don't check off an item until it's in the rig. (any item on the list that I won't bring -- such as Sorel boots for an August trip -- gets lined through) I used it for many many years, only abandoning it when I moved into the camper era, since most of my camping equipment (and guidebooks, camera tripod, etc) live in the camper or truck now.

Live and learn.

 

[Smokecreek1]

No sleeping bag-that's good, no keys or as they say" stupid is, stupid does! stupid better learn or stupid is no more!!" Yet somehow we survive. Anyway, the key thing we all have learned about the hard way, but for at least the last thirty years I've always carried a spare key in my wallet for those emergencies (don't remember who told me to do that but it saved me so much grief over the years) and a couple a months ago a friend of mine (who is 60 and a fellow out doorsman) stopped by my house and was bitching about locking himself out of his car and I said " did you ever think about keeping a spare key in your wallet?" and he looked at me like God had come down off the mountain and said "what did you say-why have I never thought about doing that before?" And a new convert was born! That still was a worry though when I was using my gov't rig and "officially" not being able to get a spare key made, so those keys always went somewhere where in my field pack or front pocket-walking out of allot of the places I worked in wasn't a real good option. On the same Idea, stopping your truck and saying "Hey, wonder what's on that hill over there and off you go, no canteen,no nothing and several miles later there you are, no water no nothing and the truck is a little speck in the distance-I think we a had a thread about these "miss-thinks" (is that that a word?)a couple of years ago! No Stupids here!

Smoke

 

[Ted]

I'm not trying to brag or say I'm perfect, but I have never done anything stupid in my life. Not once. Zip, zero, zilch. Nada, not at all.

 

[Smokecreek1]

I'm not trying to brag or say I'm perfect, but I have never done anything stupid in my life. Not once. Zip, zero, zilch. Nada, not at all.

Story?

Smoke

 

[MarkBC]

Story?

Smoke

Yellowstone, I believe...though I can't find Ted's original report of it.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Looks like the Lamar Valley between Slough Creek and Pebble Creek.
Boy Ted sure got himself in a bit of a bind.Or is that the "Ted" way of parking.
Frank

 

[ski3pin]

.................Or is that the "Ted" way of parking.
Frank


Made my lunch break, thanks Frank!

 

[Ted]

Looks like the Lamar Valley between Slough Creek and Pebble Creek.

Frank knows Yellowstone! Pegged the location exactly. not the "Ted" way of parking, just have my anti-theft device deployed. If anything, it is the "Ted" way of getting into 1000+ tourist's photo journals. Buses were literally stopping on the road so everyone could hang out the window and get their photos.

Story?

Sigh, ok. Grizzly and wolves on a carcass in Lamar Valley. Cars parked along both sides of the road. Saw an opening and pulled into it. It looked no different than any other part of the ditch other vihicles were straddling. Suddenly we're looking up. A culvert was low and hidden by grass. Must have just straddled it with the front wheels when I pulled in. But the rear right dropped in the hole. I was told I wasn't the first. After photos show they coned it off once we were out of there.

 

[Foy]

Battling stupidity with OCD:

After leaving important stuff at home a number of times (including my sleeping bag, Mark, don't feel bad), and in particular after some locking of keys in the truck, but only at the most inopportune of times/places, I started an admittedly OCD exercise to assure it wouldn't happen again: I carry two sets of truck keys EVERYWHERE I go. A small key ring with just the door/ignition and a camper shell key stays in my pocket AT ALL TIMES. The main set, with house key, office key, other essentials, etc, etc, stays in the ignition until I've gathered up my stuff at a stop (wallet, cell phone, etc). I then open the door, remove the key from the ignition, step out, hit the automatic locks, look at my main keychain in my right hand, hit the locks a second time, look at the keys a second time, and only then do I close the door. Yes, my wife thinks I'm crazy, and maybe she's right. But I don't lock my keys in the truck any more.

I also came close to breaking a window about 33 years ago. I was working solo, out of Crystal Falls, Michigan, way up on the UP. I was a good 15 miles from US 141 and two or three "tributary" turns off of a former main logging road/rail trail. I hadn't seen a soul all day. I know, I know, one would think "why lock up". I had sensitive prospect location maps in the truck and leaving them unsecured would get a guy fired in a New York minute. As I swung the door closed, I saw my keys in the ignition at the instant the door slammed. It was a 1980 Chevy LUV 4WD and had old-style lock buttons on the door, just inside the window. I had a spring of some sort in a bin in the bed, so I popped open the camper shell window and got it, plus some Vise Grips and Channel Locks, and managed to re-work part of the spring into a coat-hanger configuration. By the way, spring steel is REALLY hard to bend with just pliers and a rock hammer. The whole thing took me two hours and I boogered up the paint on the door, the body, and ruined the foam seal, leaving me with wind noise for the 4 more years I had the truck. Didn't have to break the window, however.

Foy

 

[craig333]

Speaking of keys, since I may have locked myself out once I now have a spare camper key hidden in a difficult but not too hard spot to get. Then I have a truck key hidden inside the camper. I have used it a couple times so far but oddly enough, not once when camping\traveling.

 

[Alley-Kat]

Look Carefully.

Pre-ATC days and post Class C RV days (camping was supposed to be more "basic").

Where are the ten poles? Aren't they in the same bag as the tent?
Nope they are vacationing at home.

Good thing I took that Rube Goldberg engineering course at Cal Poly, SLO, back in the day, and had a lot of spools of mason line with me. Both the tent and the rain tarp are held up with line. It rained and snowed on us (lightly), and this photo was right before we left (after two days of sun).

Tent poles, don't leave home without them!