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.