Sleeping under the stars is appealing and has its advantages and disadvantages. Here I am at sunset in Arizona's Lake Powell in Glen Canyon in 2003. I was houseboating and kayaking for a week, but the boat was crowded and sleeping was in very cramped quarters. There were no bugs and no rain predicted, so I took the thin bunk mattress out to the sand and slept outside -- and awoke each morning with fresh coyote tracks around my mattress. I had been "investigated" overnight and deemed not a threat (or not appetizing?) None of my fellow boaters joined me even though I survived the first night.
But tents do serve a purpose and over the decades I've had several tents. My compact, lightweight North Face soloing tent was used both for backpacking and on multi-day river trips when space was limited in a canoe or raft or kayak. My mid-size tent for 2 or 3 persons is for car-camping at a campground and my newest of these is just large enough to accommodate my camping cot. I also have a huge 6 person tent for when I'm spending several days or a week in one place, usually on a volunteer trail project. Erecting that huge tent by myself isn't worth the hassle for just one night, but the comfort and space if offers is worth it for longer stays. Finally, one of my first tents over 30 years ago was a full size teepee I inherited from a disbanded Boy Scout troop. There's a photo of it at the end of this post.
Florida's Everglades National Park has a campground at the end of the 30+ mile road that goes in Flamingo, the southernmost headquarters of the park. I camp there when hiking or paddling the eastern part of the huge park, but most often I camp at Long Pine Key Campground just inside the park's entrance where I use the tent as a base of operations for my activities in the Miami-Homestead area which mainly consists of riding various bike trails in the area. This allows easy exit from the park for the bike rides, shopping trips for food supplies, or a visit to the nearby amazing Robert Is Here! fruit stand, and I use my largest tent since I'll be there for a number of days. In recent years the campground added modern washrooms and shower buildings and most sites are shielded on three sides from views of other sites as seen below. There is also a mountain bike trail that begins at the campground.
This larger tent allows my REI "comfort cot" to easily fit inside with a sling chair, and a storage box acts as a nightstand for the battery-powered lantern, etc. It's a special delight to be able to stand up when dressing and undressing. Not exactly roughing it in this tent!
Two thousand miles west in Colorado, I recently discovered a new "favorite" campground -- the beautiful Little Bear Campground on the shore of Island Lake up at 10,000 feet in Grand Mesa National Forest high above Grand Junction. I used my new mid-size tent which still gives me the comfort of sleeping on my cot. The temperatures were sweltering in the mid-90s in town, but very comfortable way up here!
Another 3400 miles or so north and west of Colorado, I was backpacking in Alaska's Denali State Park which is across the highway from Denali National Park. Our Sierra Club group was too large to backpack in the national park (over 12), so we were hiking up high on Kesugi Ridge Trail, camping on the picturesque and comfy tundra with marvelous views of Mt. Denali in the national park just to our west.
Our group had plenty of room to spread out, and the tundra wildfires that were blanketing 6 million acres of Alaska in 2004 were absent from this area.
When I was in Washington State's Goat Rock Wilderness (prior to participating in a week of volunteer trail work) I arrived early so I could do a quick backpack on the Pacific Crest Trail, where I found this idyllic location my first night. I was up on a rise, nestled in some trees, with a rambling brook cascading beside me and lulling me gently to sleep all night.
Smokey Mountain National Park has a lovely campground and I used it as a base of operations one year. Here's my site. Again I had some soothing water effects from a nearby gentle stream all night...
During Spring break of 1996, I went on my one and only cold weather backpack trip. I didn't have any 4-season gear but I figured it would be warmer if I headed south from Chicago, so I went to Land Between the Lakes in Kentucky. Predicted temperature was 60 degrees, but a cold snap dropped it to the 40s during the day, and overnight it went down to 20 degrees. I froze! In fact, my water bottles froze overnight inside my tent, and the nearby creek froze over and I had to break the ice to get water in the morning. Did I mention it was my one and only cold weather backpack trip? And it only lasted one night because I bailed out early! You really do need to invest in proper gear for winter/early spring backpacking up north! Even the trees look cold!
One of my all-time favorite backcountry campsites was in Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. I was hiking up Paintbrush Canyon and spotted a narrow vague side trail going off to my left, so curiosity got the best of me and I followed it for 50 feet where I discovered a knoll outcrop with a magnificent view off to the east. I can say it was the most magnificent view I've ever had in over 300 nights spent backpacking in 52 forests, parks, and wilderness areas across America. I was on a high point with Leigh and Jackson Lakes 1000 vertical feet below me and the Gros Ventre (pronounced Gro Vant) Mountains and Teton National Forest off in the distance. And other than the breeze, it was absolutely silent, with no traffic noise or human voices.
WOW! I sat on the point by the dead tree all afternoon and evening, occasionally looking at my reading material, but mostly gazing at the grandeur spread out before me. The next evening at Holly Lake camp area, I met a backcountry ranger and described to him my previous night's site. He smiled and proudly said, "I found and built that campsite six years ago." I stood up, shook his hand, and fervently thanked him! If you ever get to use this site, look over the edge on the south side and perhaps you, too, will see the bull moose browsing the shrubs below, and also be prepared to spend time with the friendly, curious, and photogenic marmot who lives there. You might notice in the photo above that my pack is hanging on the dead tree to the right of my tent, keeping it out of the reach of this nosy and very curious marmot.
A few years later after that marvelous backpack in Teton NP, I decided to backpack the Jedediah Smith Wilderness which occupies the western slope of the Teton Range. I was greatly disappointed, though, because from this west side of Grand Teton National Park you do not see any of the Teton peaks due to other mountains being in the way. The Hidden Lake Trail was a lovely walk through an open forest to the lake which itself was a beautiful and peaceful locale.
The elevation gain is only 800 feet or so, with a drop of 170 feet down to the lake area. It is a magnificent area but there is only one place conducive to setting up a nice camp at the lake, and it was taken, so I had to create a space for my tent as far away from the raucous teenagers who were already there. I set up camp on the far side of their camp (which is seen across the lake on the shoreline.)
In Yellowstone National Park, I solo backpacked down the DeLacey Creek Trail and then around Shoshone Lake, a trek that required fording six or more creeks and also a mile or so slog through a marsh. A highlight was hiking through the Shoshone Lake Geyser Basin at the far western end of the lake which is billed as one of the world's most important basins with over 70 geysers, including 15 foot by 5 foot Minute Man Geyser. The popular geyser areas in the park have elaborate boardwalks for visitors, but here in the backcountry it was just a narrow gravel and dirt trail, and I had the area to myself since it is so remote and difficult to access.
Below is my first night's camp on the shore of Shoshone Lake. The signage with the campsite number had a metal sign, and when I took off my backpack, I leaned it against the signpost. Oops! A corner of the metal sign sliced my sleeping pad and I was unable to repair it, so I ended up sleeping on the hard ground both nights.
New Hampshire's 45,000 acre Pemigewasset Wilderness in the White Mountains was my first ever solo backpack trip and use of backpacking tent, a loop hike that included a section of the Appalachian Trail. This was my first night's campsite. I was glad the tent was small so it could fit in the narrow space. There was downfall everywhere and accessible camping areas were rare.
Our very first backpacking tents 30+ years ago are seen below as my sons and I backpacked in Utah's High Uintas Wilderness. One night at dusk as we sat around our campfire, two browsing deer with their mouths to the ground came out of the woods, and on a straight line passed right through our camp and continued onward, seemingly unaware we were even there!
I've been on numerous week-long canoe, raft, and kayak expeditions over the years, and beaches are among my favorite camping locales.
You're always guaranteed a soft camping surface, but if the river has a dam upstream, you better make sure you're well above the river level in case they release more water through the dam overnight! These next photos are from my two paddles down Utah's Green River.
Desert camping is also a bit different from forest camping. The sand is comfy, but slithering, crawling things make you glad you have fabric walls and a floor surrounding you! Below is Arizona's Hells Wilderness where we were on a volunteer trail project northwest of Phoenix.
If you are looking for a wonderful campsite, Wyoming's Bridger Wilderness in the Wind River Range is a winner. The northern shore of Upper Green Lake has three or four sites, each providing views you will not soon forget. Our campsite the fifth night was by Squaretop Mountain. In the middle of the night, the wind picked up and two adjacent treetops began rubbing against the other making some scary noises as if one of them was about to fall. The term "widow maker" jumped into my mind and made it difficult to get back to sleep!
A two-day backpack up Colorado's Big Blue River Valley in the Uncompahgre Wilderness offered us this lovely view from our tents.
Using this as our basecamp, we then hiked to the top of Uncompahgre Peak (14,309 feet high) -- a peak my Dad had ridden up on horseback in 1939 with his cousin, Jake, who was the U. S. Forest Ranger assigned to this area and the one who encouraged me to do this backpack trip in 1993.
When we first began teaching jobs, my buddy Fred and I camped at Illinois' Mississippi Palisades State Park and did some hiking in the park and canoeing on the Mississippi River. We borrowed this tent from a friend and this helped stimulate me to continue camping and to start acquiring my own tents.
For 5 years, I was scoutmaster of a troop composed of higher-functioning mentally-challenged boys who were residents at Chicago State Hospital. My fellow volunteers and I took the boys camping a few times using my friend's tent and also a teepee I acquired when my old troop disbanded (which the boys loved sleeping in!)
Here I'm camping with my young sons at Cottonwood Campground which is halfway up the north rim of Grand Canyon National Park. We began on the south rim and over the course of 9 days, we backpacked rim-to-rim-to-rim. Great trip!
My newest soloing tent replaces my original backpacking tent. Here I'm backpacking in Kentucky's marvelous Red River Gorge with my cousin's native Kentuckian husband.
Across the highway from Mt. Rushmore is the Black Elk Wilderness. The Black Hills National Forest is a wonderful locale for backpacking though it is overshadowed by the more famous presidential faces on the mountainside.
The best backpacking in the midwest is undoubtedly Michigan's Isle Royale National Park, an island wilderness 70 miles north of Houghton, Michigan, but only 15 miles south of the Canadian border. Though much closer to Canada, it was annexed to the United States at the 1783 Treaty of Paris, probably due to a cartographer's error. The island is 45 miles long by 8.5 miles at its widest point and it contains 210 square miles of wilderness. I've backpacked here twice, covering the entire island. There are 36 campgrounds, all accessible by foot or boat, and all provide tent sites, water source, and outhouses. A few offer screened shelters and picnic tables.
In the photo below we are lunching along the shore at the Moskey Basin Lakeside Campground. The drop-dead scenery is awesome no matter where you stop! One superlative I read about the island: Siskiwit Lake is the largest lake on the island; it has Ryan Island, which is the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island (Isle Royale) in the largest freshwater lake in the world (Lake Superior)!
Michigan's Porcupine Wilderness is a true wilderness, one of the largest in the midwest comprising 63,000 acres. Of these 92 square miles, over 51 square miles contain virgin hardwood forest. Twenty-five miles of Lake Superior shoreline border the park which has over 90 miles of trails.
Around dusk, a scout troop had hiked past our campsite and one of their leaders said: "One of our scouts fed a Kudo bar to a bear a few miles back, and its been following us ever since. Sorry!" They then left, but the bear obviously stayed. Twice the bear came to our tent after midnight, walked around us sniffing the tent, and then left. We have never had food or attractants in the tent, so there were no tempting odors to entice the bear. I can attest that black bears have really bad breath because we smelled his breath as he sniffed the tent. Afterwards, I always thought it strange that its breath registered in my memory instead of my fear that its razor sharp claws would decimate the tent fabric. I also was glad I had my .357 magnum revolver in my hand as the bear circled our tent. The next morning when I retrieved our untouched food bags, I noticed fresh bear claw marks on the tree bark where it had tried to break my parachute cord and failed. It did not get my food, although another backpacker in the area lost his entire food bag to the varmint.
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