Dumbest thing you've ever done while camping?

[Cottontail]

What's the dumbest mistake you've ever made while camping? For me it'd probably be the time we brought hickory firewood with us. Apollo himself couldn't make that stuff burn.

 

[ppine]

Going over Chilkoot Pass between Alaska and BC, we were caught in a 40 hour downpour. I didn't have a pack cover and ended up with a wet down sleeping bag and almost froze to death in a sleet and wind storm on August 31. First and last time for making that mistake.

 

[Fluttershy]

Hiked up Mt. Washburn without bringing any water with us. Should've read the signs and realized that that was going to be at least a two hour long hike going uphill, and that's not counting the walk back down.

 

[Lamebeaver]

I had this great idea once of just covering my sleeping bag with a sheet of plastic. Ultra light, right?

By morning, it was more like ultra wet.

 

[Hazel]

I think it was my ex.

 

[IndianaHiker]

Going out for an over night spur of the moment trip and just bring a 60 degree bag with me. Weather forecast was way off and temps dropped to 40 degrees was only supposed to get down to 60. Cold night.

 

[HikerJoe]

One time I camped with a bunch of hooligans at a Pickle Gulch Campground

 

[Bojib]

I went camping at a friend's cabin once. It was the first time I had ever stayed there, and was assured that it would be warm. There was no electric, but they did have a kerosene heater there.

The cabin was assembled from rough cut lumber, so the planks on the wall didn't exactly fit together. The only insulation was plastic sheeting on the walls.

All I brought with me was the coat on my back, and a few snacks from a gas station. Everyone swore it would be so warm in there that the heat would probably run me out in the middle of the night.

It must have been the coldest night of the year (it was winter time), because I never thought I'd make it out alive. I slept curled up as close to the kerosene heater as I could get, well laid awake shivering is probably describes it better than slept.

Of course, they had all stayed their before and had sleeping bags and blankets on site.

 

[Grandpa]

About 11 years old, me and a couple of buddies decided to backpack in to some beaver dams for the opening of fishing season. We started hiking up the creek, made it about 100 yards and decided the packs weighed too much. We found a nice grassy place along the creek up in the canyon, but it took the rest of the day and three trips to get our stuff up there. Back then we just drank the water out of the creek. We camped that night, next day was the opener of fishing season so we fished downstream that day. Had a good fish supper that night and the third day started fishing upstream. Right around the corner of the creek, about 50 feet from where we had been getting our drinking/cooking water was a very dead cow. WE looked at each other, "you sick? no are you? no" We shrugged and went on fishing. That night we went above the dead cow to get our water. Never did get sick either, but learned to pay better attention to our water source.

 

[Skeeterbait]

Hazel, gotta admit I laughed out loud at that one.

My worst mistake was going on a trip out west with an idiot who didn't understand that the wild animals in national parks are WILD. I'm damn lucky we didn't get mauled by a bear.

 

[pastywhite]

The dumbest thing was back in college and it wasn't entirely my fault. I was working winters as a ski patroller and one of the ways we could get a raise was rank advancement. One of the electives was wilderness survival. I had never backpacked and thought this sounded like fun - naive Pastywhite.

The ski patrol here also provides a volunteer nordic patrol for the Smokies. Because of this we got a few "perks". One of these was access to some of the closed roads. This makes winter rescues possible but also allowed us to get some more remote area. We used map/compass to find a water source near some flat terrain, setup tents and bedded down. One of the worst storms I have ever seen blew in an hour later. The temperature dropped into the teens and the wind was blowing so hard the tents were actually lifting up in the air. I had a Coleman 40 bag in a Walmart type tent - no pad. The guy in the tent with me had a similar bag. We eventually had to get into the same bag to keep from getting hypothermia, we were both shaking uncontrollably.

That was my first (and last for a long time) backpacking trip. I'm glad I eventually gave it another try.

The most stupid thing I have done recently was forgetting the stove. I got to camp with a full bottle of fuel and no stove.

 

[Pathfinder1]

Hi...


My camping faux pas wasn't as dramatic as some of yours. One summer I thought it would be a good idea to keep our bacon cool by putting it in a nearby spring. Well, it did keep it cool...it also blanched every bit of flavor out of it.

Well...live and learn, eh?

 

[wvbreamfisherman]

I guess the keeper out of a huge list of dumb moves was taking a spur of the moment camping /trout fishing trip on a Friday after work in early October. We threw our gear in my buddies car and took off, stopping at a store to grab some groceries along the way. Made it to the campsite about 8:30. Dark as the inside of your pocket, so we unload by the car headlights and set up the tent. I grab the Coleman lantern out of the milk crate I keep it in and shake it a little to make sure it has fuel- good to go. So I pump it up..get all set to open the valve.... no matches. So I look in the cooking gear box...no matches. We ransacked every box and bag we had- somehow neither of us had any way to light a fire. I finally unravelled a brillo pad from the cookware and shorted at across the car battery to get a stick lit, used that to get a fire going, and used a twig from the fire to light the lantern.

Needless to say- the first order of business in the morning was the 15 mile round trip to town to get some matches and disposable lighters!

 

[ejdixon]

Got this crazy idea once of throwing some kerosene into the bonfire to help cook our dinner much faster back in college. Completely obliterated it. Ended up heading over to the nearest takeaway to look for some peace offering.

 

[dinosaur]

The dumbest thing I ever did was forgetting that you can't buy booze in Indiana on Sunday.

 

[wvbreamfisherman]

Ouch, Dino! Hope you had a backup stash!

 

[CozInCowtown]

Myself and Mrs. Coz went horseback up into the Colorado mountains on an afternoon ride.
A couple of hours later we stopped for a rest, lunch and ...uhum...we're married. If you are gonna fool around on a horse ride don't "hang" your pants/clothes on the saddle, horses tend to wander off and leave you stranded.
Thankfully we made it back to the truck and didn't get caught or arrested.
DC

 

[catspa]

If you see a stray horse with clothes hanging off the saddle, you know there's a naked cowboy somewhere who really wants him back. Real Texas wisdom, thanks for sharing that.

Parker

 

[Grandpa]

One thing about it, bad decisions sure make good stories.
:tinysmile_twink_t2:

 

[wvbreamfisherman]

As long as they aren't so bad as to be non-survivable!