How did you get into camping?

[PackRat]

My story is easy, although I grew up in downtown San Francisco, I joined the Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts and we actually used to camp in Golden Gate Park! Later, summer camp at Camp Royaneh was an annual event for our Troop. As a family, we went off to other places like Yosemite to camp a couple weeks each summer in the valley. My parents bought a couple acres on the Russian River when I was about 12 years old maybe? It would flood so we couldn't build on it and used an old trailer and my cousins (six of 'em) and my Aunt and Uncle had a big tent. That place was the best $50.00 a month my parents ever spent (mortgage!) as we virtually lived there on weekends and all summer long for years after Yosemite got a little crowded and too far to go.

I continued camping a few years later when I was around a little more often and even had an Army pup tent pitched over the bed of my '55 GMC pickup for one summer. That led to a slide in aluminum sided camper that was barely over cab height but a real upgrade for me. That led to the '85 F150 and my old 8 Ft. NCO AK which led to my F250 and Lance.

Now as soon as I can find a decent older (70's) 8 Ft, CO we will be back out this summer (hopefully!) for more camping up in the Sierra Nevada mountains or up the coast.


So...How did you all get hooked on this outdoors thing anyway?

 

[Mighty Dodge Ram]

Similar story. My Scout Troop backpacked 9 out of 12 months a year, including at least one "long term" summer trip a year in the Sierras. I owned a VW Westfalia by the time I was 20 so the die was cast with vehicular travel. I really have to thank my mom for making sure we got out and saw the sights.

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Seems like the boy scouts got a lot of us started.

I grew up in the Philly area and out scout troop was one of the oldest in the country.
Our troop was very active camping. Our patrol was more active then the rest of the troop.
Around the old presidents birthday time we would camp at Valley Forge where Washington
and army spent the winter. Usually temps well below freezing.
Did some backpack trips,short ones.

After the Navy I enjoyed tent camping/mild pack packing here in California.
In the early 80s we bought a very light weight hard side and did traveling camping through the west/Canada.

Mid 80s built a cabin at Dorrington Ca. did day and overnight/tent trips out of there. And yes we took our 2 daughters along.
We made 2 driving/ferry trips to Alaska,they actually had a great time.
As they got older they went less with us on these trips.

In 07 we purchased a "Kamperoo" tent type trailer to pull behind out Escape Hybrid ,made several trips to Yellowstone and a few around Ca for 2 years then we got bitten by the pop up camper bug.

After 5 years with the ATC camper we decided to sell the cabin which we had kept for 30 years. Kids didn't want nor use it so put it on the market,gone in 4 weeks.

Now as older senior citizens we take several trips a year through out the west and Alaska once in a while.
Lots of great memories of places and sights we have seen.The kids at the time may have complained a bit but now as adults it's fun to hear them tell their friends about this trip or that one and what a great time they had.It puts a smile on your face to hear that they really did enjoy the trips.

We still do a lot of outdoors activities,to keep us fit and young.

Great topic will be interesting to read other posts.
Frank

 

[craig333]

Not scouts. My dad started taking me camping when I was three. Traditional stuff, campgrounds, tents, coleman lanterns and stoves.
In high school we took camping and backpacking trips (not your traditional high school). Then CDF finished me off.

 

[longhorn1]

Boy Scouts, scout camp, and then trips to Wisconsin with my buddies. Several trips with my wife in the back of our pick-up camper she'll and then the lights went out for nearly 40 years (call kids sports). Researched pop-ups and bought a FWC in 2014.

 

[The Unshaven]

Grew up back packing and hunting the back country of my local hills from about six years old. Camping in an actual campground with a tent was a peculiar luxury. We lived in and out of town depending on income and river flow. Times were best, in my opinion, when times were tough and we had to retreat to our no electricity, no plumbing one room cabin. For fun I used to follow the boy scouts, sneaking along, into the hills and knock over their rock cairns. My back and front "yards" were both about a half mile of wilderness (my parents set the boundaries of where I was allowed to wander alone - I was only seven). My dad would notch my boot hill in case he needed to track me down. When in my twenties I started exploring some back roads in the west and started to roam. After I got a decent paying job I bought a pop up and started exploring more. What an improvement! No more mornings waking up wet, cold, and snow covered! The rest of the story is waiting to be written...

 

[Mark G]

Woke up one morning, walked out of my place in LA, the smog had been blown away, and there were mountains! Right there! I started with hiking and it just became some kind of obsession.

 

[Tuff Guy 62]

As a kid, my folks idea of camping was hotel room service in Santa Barbara. Needless to say, I did not camp as a child.

My first camping experience was when I was taking historical geology in my junior college days, way way back in the last millennia. We spent several nights out in the field in what is now the Mojave National Preserve. Daylight hours bashing on rocks and structural geology arm waving. Followed by nighttime campfires, libations and more arm waving, at that point I was hooked. Geology and camping are synonymous.

Started sleeping on the ground with a Thermarest pad, then tent & pad, tent & air mattress and now......pure decadence and loving it!!

 

[Foy]

Just a taste of campground camping in a Cox canvas fold-out pop-up as a small child. Then "camping out" for a night or two in the woods near our home later in elementary school and junior high. Did some backpacking during college in the Southern Appalachians, mostly the Blue Ridge near Boone, NC. Each of our core courses such as Petrology, Structural Geology, Stratigraphy-Sedimentation, and Paleo had 3-4 weekend field trips and we always camped, most often in the Valley and Ridge in southwestern VA. Did a 6 week field trip to ND, MT, ID, and WY in 1975 which was my first exposure to the Rockies and it was on like Donkey Kong after that. Married right out of college about 172 years ago and took my bride on her first backpacking trip for our honeymoon in Rocky Mtn NP. Car-camped with our backpacking gear until the babies came along, then generally had a long hiatus since the boys gravitated to stick-and-ball sports all weekend and we had access to family vacation homes in the Blue Ridge and at the coast for longer vacations. Took them to MT for two weeks as teenagers and camped mostly in Forest Service "ranger cabins" which was plenty rustic given no running water and mice everywhere. Made 3 return road trips to Southwestern MT since 2010 and the most recent included our new hardside A-Frame pop-up in 2015. I must say I don't miss sleeping on the ground and dealing with wet canvas/nylon one little bit, though I am secretly scheming to do a bit of backpacking with my grandson, who just turned 4.

Foy

 

[hebegebe]

My Pappy was at fault It was the desert,mountains,rivers or lakes every weekend. He died young but my brother and I were already infected. God bless him!


Sent from my iPhone using Wander The West

 

[buckland]

In college...I was an inner city kid...what's a tree? ... I'm from immigrant parents from Ireland...met and became best friends with a guy on same dorm floor, he was from the suburbs, and was African American... a real American story... he took me camping ...I was completely a greenhorn. He was a guy that ran supplies up the AT to huts and did "outward Bound" program. Could not have had a better teacher. Still have the backpack and knife we went and bought together A Kelty Pack and a Swiss Army knife. That was 42 years ago. The bum lives in Hawaii now and I'm stuck in mudville New England! We get together still once a year.

 

[ski3pin]

That is a very nice story, buckland. Thank you for sharing it with us.

 

[Vic Harder]

Tenting as a kid with the parents at the same lake every summer, but that was more like a "church picnic" than what I think of as camping today. As a teen, lots of backpacking. Roped my gf and now wife into backpacking and hiking - we went backpacking on our honeymoon! Kids came and we kept on backpacking... it just meant I had to carry her pack and mine, because she had the kids/diapers. Kept that up until the kids hit puberty and discovered they knew everything.

Took up car camping/hiking in a Miata after the kids lost interest, road trips to Utah, Alaska, Colorado, California... We actually had to buy smaller/lighter gear to get it to all fit. The side benefit was that our backpacks got lighter too!

Utah got me wanting to go off road, so the Miata went, the BMW M3 convertible is for sale, and we bought the truck and camper! Looking forward to weaning my wife off of pavement and into boondocking

 

[iowahiker]

We (my wife and I) are camping creatures by devolution. I started hiking in the woods alone and bird watching in junior high school. Later, hiking became our primary purpose on all our weekend and vacation trips after marriage including our honeymoon to the Canadian Rockies. At first, we started staying in motels and hotels as well as many of the park lodges. We then devolved to cabins to reach more hiking trails. The final step down to tent camping was driven by traveling with our three young children. Entertaining three kids in a restaurant and motel room proved to be exhausting and unpleasant. Camping gave the kids a lot of room to explore, observe, and play. The kids never lost interest in camping and hiking as they got older since we let them plan the trips (anywhere in the lower 48 states as long as the activity was hiking) and pick all the hiking trails. The kids always helped setup camp and break camp even as preschoolers holding up tent poles as well as helping with the dishes.

Planning hiking trips with my wife to places we want to visit is a treat since the kids went to college.

Reversing devolution, from the tent to the truck camper, was to increase camping during the flank months of April, May, September, and October when the crowds are smaller. With the kids in high school, I solo tent camped and hiked in northern Minnesota in those flank months and met cold rain, wind, and ice. Forget doing the dishes outside in 45 mph wind driven 40F deg rain for two days and two nights on the shore of Lake Superior, Split Rock Lighthouse SP campground. I broke a tent pole at Gooseberry Falls SP in another all night wind and rain storm. I always scratch my head when folks post they never cook and eat in their campers (they must just hold out the dish so the wind and rain does the cleaning). The wind was strong enough to blow over a nice parked BMW touring cycle in the campground parking lot. We love the indoor sink, stove, and furnace, see "cold rain, wind, and ice".

 

[Canyonglamper]

In 1961 when I was 5 years old my dad had the foresight to buy a slide in cab over TC for the 1958 Chevy pick up we had, all our nieghbors thought my dad had lost his marbles. We lived in San Diego and we would do weekend trips to the Salton Sea and down to Rosarita Beach area mainly to fish but did other things like rockhounding in the desert. Every summer we went to Colorado for 2 weeks to visit the grand parents and camp/fish in the mountains. Memorial and Labor Day weekends we would do mad dash trips to the east side of the Sierras around Lee Vining to camp and fish we always base camp at the Big Bend camp ground. I don't know how my dad did it, he would get off work Friday night hop into the truck drive all night to big bend fish his brains out, drive around to other spots to fish then drive back home to San Diego on Monday after lunch and go to work on Tuesday Morning. In 1967 we did the big trip, a whole month traveling from California to Colorado up to Montana then Washington then down the coast back to San Diego. The first couple of years we had the camper when ever we stopped somewhere people always asked to see the inside of our camper since there were not a lot of them around at that time.

Back in those days my mom and dad rode up in the truck cab and my sister and me rode up in the cab over on our stomachs looking out the window, I know probably not the safest thing to have done (we didn't wear helmets when we rode our bikes back then either) but I saw a whole lot of America from that cab over and wouldn't trade that time for anything. A few years after my dad had bought that camper quite a few of our nieghbors had bought a camper also, my dad wasn't so crazy after all.

I'm still wandering the west after all those years!

 

[PackRat]

I've told this story before, but its a good one! In around 1958 or so we were tent camping in Camp 7 in Yosemite. We always stayed in the very same campsite for many years right next to a huge tree on the bike path next to the river just below the bridge to the Curry Tent Camp. Many of the same families stayed there each year at the same two weeks. My Mom had us go down along the Merced and pick some apples and she made applesauce on our Preway stove in camp one time. We kept it in the ice chest under the table that night. It seemed every night those bears raided the two garbage cans in our area even if they were empty, it was just a part of their routine I guess. It probably sent something like this between the bears... ("Well, Bob, let's hit the cans in Camp 7 and then go down to the Stoneman Bridge, OK?")

Anyway, in the middle of the night I hear a noise...I'm in my army pup tent and my parents are in the umbrella tent we had...and it sounds like we are being hijacked by aliens or something...when I look out my Mom is trying to scare off a bear who has opened the ice chest and is eating all the applesauce....Mr. Bear isn't fazed by her one bit...he ignores her until she grabs a big bucket of COLD water and gets up REAL CLOSE and gives him a shower! With that, Mr. Bear takes off in the direction of the two garbage cans to continue his midnight foraging!

I guess we had an audience in the campground because the next morning the Ranger came by to hear the story and almost busted a gut but tried to remind us that Mr. Bear is a cranky, dangerous bugger when surprised or threatened when eating or with a cub around. We listened to the Ranger but my Mom simply explained it took a lot of time to make that applesauce and she wasn't giving it and the rest of the food in the ice chest up without a "fight". I guess Mr. Bear had become complacent about food raids and the shock of cold water and her bravado surprised him and gave him a startle so he took off on a loping run followed by our flashlights.

Mom got some pretty good street cred with the neighborhood campers after that!

Mom passed away last year at 97 years of age...she was a strong woman in business as well and did not take crap from anyone, even Mr. Bear.

 

[Vic Harder]

awesome story Packrat! I would not try that shower stunt myself though!

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Packrat, your mom sounds like she was a delightful lady! Thanks for sharing!!