The Camping Circle of Life

[Wandering Sagebrush]

Campers are moving back to cotton canvas tents. While grouse hunting last week, I saw four or five set up and waiting for elk season.

 

[AWG_Pics]

I worked with a guy that went elk hunting in central Oregon every year with his buds. It seemed he was as in love with the ritual of setting up and hanging out in the wall tent with a wood burning sheep herders' stove. Getting his elk was almost secondary.

 

[Wandering Sagebrush]

I worked with a guy that went elk hunting in central Oregon every year with his buds. It seemed he was as in love with the ritual of setting up and hanging out in the wall tent with a wood burning sheep herders' stove. Getting his elk was almost secondary.

I kinda miss the days of heading to a destination, setting up camp, and staying put to enjoy the area. We used to do that in the high lakes, but those areas seem to be “discovered” by the hordes. A favorite was a lake near Bend that had a healthy population of big brook trout and Atlantic salmon. Mostly flyfishers, no motors, but it’s a different crowd. In our last time there, we had a lady dump her gray water through our campsite. Alas…

 

[AWG_Pics]

In the 80's I took a few weeks off, loaded up the 2WD Ford f-150 and camped with a big tent in central Idaho and western Montana. It was not hard to find a place to set up for 4 or 5 days and not be bothered by others the entire time. Can still do that with the 4WD and pop-up camper, but have to research more carefully and go further back into the remote places. There are a lot of people out and about nowadays.

 

[ckent323]

Never mind how few people were out camping in the 1960's when I first started camping.

But the desert was mostly empty, as were the mountain areas (except for some small communities), and large swaths of Southern California such as San Bernardino, Riverside and Orange County, CA were agricultural fields and Orange Groves in those days.

The US population has more than doubled in size since 1950 when it was 157.8 million to the population today of about 345.4 million.

{8-o