How Did You Get Started Camping?

[Theosus]

We camped when I was a kid, to save money. I don't really remember much about those early trips, except a few things here and there. The first time I camped alone was Tennessee near Chattanooga about ten years ago. Cold night, but fun.

[Hazel]

My dad taught a land surveying class for 8wks out of the year in the jungles of Guyana.Every year he'd pack up the family along with a convoy of supplies and his class and troop everyone into the "bush". I've been hooked ever since.

[ponderosa]

I grew up with a dad and grandmother who loved the mountains and deserts. My mom didn't have quite the same level of obsession, but was always a good sport. I've been camping since infancy, dayhiking since I could toddle, and going on extended backpacking trips since I was seven years old. I can't imagine another way of life.

[briansnat]

Originally Posted by Mary Beth

My parents enjoyed camping, when I was small, so naturally I grew to love camping. When you are little, camping seems like a big adventure, and I still feel that way.

I wish my daughter had the same reaction. We started taking her backpacking when she was 3. By the time she was 6 she had spent dozens of nights under the stars and had climbed 15 Catskill peaks. By the time she was 9 she had spent a week paddling and camping along the Allagash Wilderness Waterway.

When her 3rd grade class had a project where the students had to teach their classmates how to do something, she chose teaching them how to build a campfire.

She continued to backpack with us through her early teens. She seemed to enjoy it especially if we brought one of her friends along, but about the time she turned 16 she announced that she hated camping and would no longer go with us. She's 22 now and she hasn't spent a night camping since she was 15.

[Pathfinder1]

I usually don't trek very far,
when all around me black bears are.




Hi...

When I was a pre-teener, I used to set up a blanket like a tent. I also wondered why it didn't keep the rain out...!!

Not long afterward, I built a "camp" in the woods, using saplings for a framework, and metal-roof tin from a nearby abandoned/rotted barn. Also used saplings for bunks, stretching chicken wire over them to sleep on. Wasn't bad, and was a lot of fun.

One night I slept there on one of the two chicken wire bunks with nothing more than a blanket. That night, i was COLD.

I've learned a lot since then...!!




I said toss that hand grenade back before it explodes...!!

[charley]

I started "camping" when I was 13. I went with some other poor kids in the neighborhood. We didn't have any equipment. We took some pans, skillet, and food from home, stuffed it in some sort of sack and walked into the woods. Some of us had fishing poles and we went down to the crick and spent several days fishing. We cooked over an open fire and just lay on the ground to sleep. If it rained we went home and when we ran out of food, we went home. We spent a big part of our summers there.