CAMPER'S COMPANION EXHIBIT

VARIABLES:
WHO'S GOING WHERE AND HOW?

Getting Ready

Car Camping

Bicycle Touring and Mountain Bikes

Canoeing

Backpacking

Special Considerations

Where to Go

How Far Can You Go

How Many Are Going?

Anyone who has ever camped out in the backyard as a kid or whose children have waved goodbye after supper and gone off down the back steps and disappeared into a tent knows that there are things to do to get ready. Complex things: Which cookies to take? Which friend? And simple things: Knowing the fastest, safest escape route back to bed in the event that the yard is overrun by goblins. A grown-up camping trip farther afield isn’t much different. While you don’t have to gird for battle to get ready, you do need to answer some fairly basic questions: Where to go? When? How far? How long? With whom? And the answers depend in the first place on the great locomotion dilemma: To go or not to go by car, by bike, by canoe, by horse, by foot. Once you resolve that, proceed to the section which applies to you, and then browse the others. You may be persuaded to try another way another time.

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Car Camping

We know two people whose names are Ed and Edna. They are not related. They have never met. They have nothing to do with one another. But combined, their stories ought to prove once and for all that car camping comes in as many hues as a smoggy sunset in Passaic or L.A.

Edna is a biker. She rides a 750cc Harley, wears leathers and a tattoo, and is, we swear it, sixty years old. She looks bad and we’ve heard teenagers exclaim, "Awesome, dude!" when she pulls into the parking lot. The parking lot in question abuts REI (Recreational Equipment Incorporated), the great Western states’ equivalent of EMS (Eastern Mountain Sports) and other outdoor provisioners. Twice a year without fail Edna shows up there to check out the latest in camping gear, everything from stoves to tents to orienteering compasses. She plunks down a bundle and leaves the staff agog from the tales she tells of her latest adventures on the camping trail. Edna and her women pals have been to every campground from the San Juan Islands in Puget Sound to Death Valley. She likes to keep moving, but she also knows how to hike, cook, fish and strip down her bike and rebuild it in a campground. She rides for the feel of the wind and the speed of her wheels, and camps for the companionship and the beauty of the places she finds off the road. She’s one of our all-time favorite campers–daring, eccentric, funny and good at what she does.

Ed is a retired body shop owner whom we met in a campsite on the Oregon coast a couple of years ago. Every summer he takes off in his camper truck, fishing the coastal rivers and the ocean beaches for three months. But when we met him he was a shattered man. He hadn’t slept for a week before he pulled into this particular campground. This was no insomniac. He told us he could sleep through a fender job on Al Capone’s Packard. But he had made a mistake and tried the mountain campgrounds in the Cascade Range. They were clean, accessible, friendly and uncrowded. Still, he couldn’t get to sleep. It was too quiet! He realized when he got back to the shore that what he had missed was the sound of the sea. It was part of his routine; it defined his environment, and he swore he would never leave the coast again. For him, being confined to the coast was a blessing, not a constraint. His vistas were bounded by tidewaters, but within them he found unlimited possibilities.

You’d be surprised at the number of people who settle into a favorite campground for a whole summer (or winter in the warmer climes). They’re called "seasonals," and you’ll recognize them by the little gardens and workshops they create in their campsites, the neighborly village atmosphere they create for all comers. And while most of us can’t afford to take off three months to camp out of our cars, the number of people visiting parks and campgrounds for a few days alfresco is growing. And camping with your vehicle has a lot of advantages which other kinds of camping (such as backpacking) lack. You don’t have to haul anything any-where but out of the trunk of your car. (And if you have a motorhome, you don’t have to haul anything out at all!) Your tent can
be old or new, heavy or light, or you can sleep in the backseat of your car. You can bring a lightweight backpacking stove or a four-burner extravaganza with a cantilevered oven or a ten-pound bag of briquettes for the campground grill. Car camping is great for small kids, who can’t carry a pack or walk for miles. It’s also just the ticket for disabled people if the campground has the necessary access facilities and construction. For campers who like conveniences like showers, flush toilets, picnic tables, and possibly a nearby Foster’s Freeze, it provides a happy alternative to urban life.

Campground Reservations

Most campsites, whether in county, state or national parks, are available on a first-come, first-served basis, and it is possible and often necessary to reserve a site by mail or phone well before you leave on your trip. In the northern tier states and Canada, where the summer season is short, camping pressure is heavy and often campsites are sold out by January! The same is true in heavily populated or touristed parks (e.g. Yosemite, Yellowstone and Acadia). So:

Once you get to a campground, you may want to hike the local trails for a day. That means you may need a map (and may want to know how to read it), a day pack, and some food and water to bring along. You may want to take your all-terrain bicycle for a trail ride. You may want to fish in a nearby lake or stream, spend some time cooking, or just sit in the shade and read.

Whatever your preferences, you can enhance your experience by using the sections below which apply to you and your particular needs. If you want to hike off the trail, read the section on topographic maps; if you like to fiddle with the menu, go to the chapters on food and cooking; if you’re bringing a bicycle, check your tool set against the list in Chapter 6. And if you’re a first-timer, you’ll want to know what equipment is necessary, what is optional, what can be rented, and what is useful to buy if you’re on a limited budget. Check out Chapter 4 for hints and some unconventional wisdom.

Crime in the Campground

Alas, the age of innocence is over. It’s a fact of life that there’s crime out there in the outback. Not surprising given some estimates that almost 35 million Americans camped in a tent in 1993! In 1994 there were 398 reported burglaries in the National Parks, 3,180 reports of theft (excluding motor vehicles), 201 reports of stolen vehicles, and 237 assaults (with firearms, knives, sticks and fists). The Park Service produces annual figures on all reported crimes, from aggravated assault to sex offenses, from fraud to drug violations, and if you’re interested in this sort of thing, a call to the Park Service’s Division of Ranger Activities in Washington (202/208-4874) will get you a copy of the report. Unreported cases would swell these figures. Car camping grounds are a lot safer than the mean streets you left behind, but still you need to take some common-sense precautions to assure that your holiday remains a holiday.

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Bicycle Touring and Mountain Bikes

A bicycle is one of the best ways to reach choice and remote camping spots. You move faster than on foot, and you notice things that you would miss in a car. Bike touring is marked above all by self-sufficiency. You carry all your own gear in panniers, the cyclist’s equivalent of saddlebags. You can cover a continent or your local neighborhood, cross Canada or mosey through the backroads of Denmark: As long as you are camping along the way, you’ll find a great deal of useful information here.

Bike Touring for the First Time?

Mountain biking means using your bicycle to travel on hiking trails or rough logging roads. As these are often steep and rugged, it’s nearly impossible to carry a lot of weight on the bike. Furthermore, mountain bikes are heavier than touring bikes, for they have to stand up to the constant jolting of rough terrain. You don’t take the Encyclopedia Britannica along on such a vehicle. Mountain bikers are essentially day hikers on bicycles, and they need to have map-reading skills, adequate food and drink, and protection from sun and rain, just as day-hikers do. In addition, they have to deal with the possibility of breakdowns miles from the nearest shop. That often requires innovation and ingenuity, as well as having the proper equipment and parts in the toolbag.

Talk to touring cyclists or mountain bikers. You’ll discover that most of them love and know the outdoors and take pride and pleasure in combining camping and cycling. Like canoeists and backpackers, some camp in order to travel and some travel in order to camp. Either way, it’s the combination that counts, and you’ll find a wealth of valuable camping and traveling hints in this book, in addition to the specific sections which deal with bicycles and the outdoors. 

Bikers and Hikers

A great trail-use controversy has surfaced in the past few years as more and more mountain bikers are beginning to show up on what once were exclusively hiking (or horse packing) trails. We know of one case in Northern California where mountain bikers secretly carved out a trail on county backwoods land and used it for several years before it was discovered. Feelings flared, sides were taken, politicians got into the act, and the trail was filled in at the cost of public monies and a lot of excess spleen.

Six years ago there were some 15 million all-terrain bikes in the U.S. Now that figure is close to 30 million, and some experts estimate that over seven million bikes are being used in forested and mountain areas, along some of the 77,000 miles of trails maintained by the National Forest Service outside of designated wilderness areas. Who has got the right of way? Do peace and solitude take precedence over equal access rights? Are the trails being ruined? The answers aren’t in yet, and the partisans on each side still outnumber those who are trying to work out compromise solutions.

Researchers meanwhile are trying to come up with hard facts which may change the tone of the debate. Debbie Chavez of the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW), for example, completed a mid-1995 national study of "Mountain Bike Use in Our National Forests: A Management Perspective," in which she found the following: 6 in 10 managers of the forests found evidence of mountain bike damage to the natural resources; 5 in 10 reported mountain bike accidents; 7 in 10 reported conflicts between bikers and horse-riders and hikers. Just who was at fault varied from report to report. The good news is that conflicts are being mediated by the provision of information, use of signs and posters, and through active Forest Service cooperation with the various trail users. Addictive readers may also want to check out "Conflict and Issues Related to Mountain Biking in the National Forests: A Multimethodological Approach," in the USDA Forest Service’s second Symposium on Social Aspects and Recreation Research (February 23-25, 1994), published in October, 1995. You can get copies of these and more from the PSW Research Station, USDA Forest Service, P.O. Box 245, Berkeley, CA 94701.

Meanwhile bikers are beginning to learn the art of "soft cycling," walking their bikes over fragile terrain, slowing down on heavily hiked trail sections, making way for hikers and horses, learning trail etiquette. Here are the six "Rules of the Trail" put out by the International Mountain Bicycling Association (for their address and phone, see Chapter 2):

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Canoeing

Helen Kass is a self-professed klutz. She doesn’t know a rocker from a gunwale, freeboard from waterline. She insists that the genes for grace and athletic skill were removed surgically from her body by aliens at an early age. Yet she proudly points to almost 40 years of New England canoeing experience and insists with a kind of triumphant resignation that if she can do it, you can too. Helen thinks that it’s the only way to travel on Maine’s rivers and on the inter-island itinerary along the coast. She and her family have been at it for a couple of generations, and the first time you find yourself waking up unexpectedly in a field of wild strawberries (having disembarked after dark), or the first time you take a wrong turn up the local sewer outlet with a dachshund who abandons ship, you will not be a pioneer. They beat you to it and lived to tell the tale.

Canoeing is the nautical equivalent of cross-country skiing, an invitation to random discovery. In many areas, you can combine hiking and canoeing, taking day trips on land and then heading out for another site down or up stream. In other areas, you can combine river and lake canoeing and literally go on for weeks, portaging between launching sites. Canoeing is also one of the easiest ways to transport yourself, your gear, and your entire family across a lake to your favorite campsite in the woods. A 70-pound, 16.5-foot canoe holds just about as much as a VW Bug, so you can toss in the lawn chairs and the old five-person canvas tent along with the spouse and close relatives. (An 18-footer will induce comparisons with the QE2, and you might as well bring along the dance band.) Made of everything from ye olde wood and canvas to hybrid miracle laminates, canoes are almost indestructable, and for Class 1 (lake) and Class 2 (slow-moving river) travel, no special repair kit is necessary (see Chapter 6, page 151). Because it’s a shallow-draft craft, the canoe is ideal for exploring tidal waters. Other boats are at the mercy of the tides. Not the canoe.

Canoeing, like car camping, is a glorious way to travel with small children. You can stop as often as they like–to explore a tidal pool or mud hole, to examine a bird’s nest, to romp and stretch, swim or pee. On a lazy river, you can always have a hand free to get food, comfort a crank, play a game, steady a fussbudget or pet the dachshund. Children even love the tipover drills you put them through before their first trip, and the drills themselves help demystify water-borne transport. You can even let small children help paddle. They’ll grow up to take you canoeing.

Experienced canoeists agree that the "tippy" issue is much exaggerated. Of course, you can tip over a canoe. You can tip over a Volvo, too, if you’re not careful, or fall off a bike or trip over your shoelaces while hiking. With a modicum of care and a sense of weight displacement that should come naturally, you’ll board and exit the canoe, shift positions, pack, and paddle it safely and smoothly. If you’ve never paddled a canoe, take the Red Cross hands-on course, pass their test and be on your way. Read their big book, Canoeing (see Chapter 2), and you’ll get all the hard information you need, from loading a canoe on your car to portaging, from handling a canoe in rough weather or water or fog to stashing gear and dealing with emergencies. After that, come back to us here, for all the news you need to make a canoeing trip a fabulous camping trip as well. What we say about backpacking below applies to you, too.

Whaddya Do With Your Car While Canoeing?

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Backpacking

Some years ago, Rick discovered a gem of a lake in the high Sierras by just the method we want to get across to you here: a combination of memory, guile, imagination, curiosity, map reading and schmoozing. Here’s the story.

Back in college when he was young and spry (he is now old and spry), Rick had a classmate whom we shall call Alice for national security reasons. Alice came from one of those unconscionably rich families that owned real estate–like half the South Pacific. As a little girl, she would be taken to the mountains by the family, its well-lardered pack train, a couple of spare aunts and uncles, and of course, its retainer, a grizzled wilderness guide right out of central casting named Big Buck. B.B. got them to this storied lake filled with giant golden trout and pure water, and Alice’s fragmented memory of it provided Rick with the first shards of the information he needed.

The horses were left at a base camp, before the terrain got rough. The party had to hike, climbing ridges and walking through snowfields. "We hiked forever," Rick recalls Alice saying, "upwards, always upwards." (Alice, it must be noted, has never won a drama critics award.) The trail climbed a steep ridge over an 11,000-foot pass, and then at some predetermined point–there were no markers–Buck turned off the trail and began winding his way up a rocky streambed. The going was slow and steep. "I remember thinking that the top of the mountain was near, only to find that over each crest lay yet another rocky basin. And over the crest of that basin, there was still another."

Finally, of course, the party stopped at Big Buck’s command and followed his gaze and ancient arm. There below, couched between snowfield and evergreen grove, lay Lake Nirvana, Buck’s private Shangri-la, and the most beautiful place on Earth.

Years later, Rick was determined to find that place. He knew the lake’s name and its general location. He gathered up maps and guidebooks, checked indexes and keys, and finally found it on a topo map. It was several miles off a main trail, nestled in a bowl surrounded by steep pinnacles and spires. Big Buck’s route was easy to spot, over one crest, then another, then another, climbing upwards from the main trail toward the single passable entrance among the tall crags. Even the snowfields were on the map.

The map told him even more. The stream flowed into the lake year round, providing fresh water even in the late summer when the trip was planned. Just below the lake there were several flat, meadow-like areas in the forest. These could provide a sheltered campsite with running water nearby. So Rick set off by himself for the lake in mid-September.

The trip itself was too good to be true: wonderful fishing, secure campsite, superb weather, and above all, a breathtaking panorama of domes, spires and steep crags burnished by the late summer sun. Using maps, a compass, planning and common sense, Rick had decoded Big Buck’s secret. To this day, he is touched by the memory of that experience. Before it, he had never left the trail with a pack. But his trip to Lake Nirvana gave him a new sort of confidence about backpacking. The wilderness beyond the trail was no longer a mystery. Shangri-la was open for business.

Backpacking doesn’t always take you to a special place like Lake Nirvana. We have hiked "off trail" all day only to come to a lake that recently had a logging road cut into it. Four-wheel drives and boom boxes greeted us at a shoreline fouled with soap suds, garbage and dead fish. At that point, it was nice to know that we could keep on hiking–over another ridge, to another stream–to a campsite still untouched by civilization.

Like all the other forms of camping, backpacking requires planning, knowledge, practice and desire. But done well, it confers special rewards: a feeling of independence as you and your pack comprise a total environment for survival and pleasure, an exhilarating sense of distance from the nervous noise and speed of the city, a knowledge that the only way into this arena of high mountain grandeur was by foot, and a total conviction that it was worth every hard step.

Horses, Mules, Llamas and Goats

Hal wouldn’t get on a horse unless he lost an election bet; Rick’s an old hand at packing into the wilderness on horseback. It doesn’t matter–the point is that you don’t need to be an expert equestrian to utilize pack animals and saddle horses to enhance the possibilities of a backpacking trip. Small children can be carried in the saddle with you. They love it. Disabled hikers, if secure in the saddle, can get farther into the wilderness than they would otherwise, and their special gear can be carried in on the pack animals.

Pack stations will help you arrange your trip (see page 43 for information). If you’re an experienced rider and have the facilities for transporting a horse, you may be able to rent a mount and take it on your own. If not, a station hand will accompany you and lead the mules and your horse to your destination. You can contract to be left off and picked up a week later for the long trek out, or you can arrange to have the pack station "do" your whole trip for you.

All National Forest Service and National Park trails are required to be maintained for horse travel. That means clearance for a mounted rider and secure footing on the trail. Don’t expect horses, mules, llamas or goats (increasingly available as pack animals) to leave the trail when you want to go cross country. They can’t and won’t, so plan to have the animals tended during the time you are gone, be it hours or days.

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Special Considerations

Camping with Children

Traveling with the very young–ages one to seven–has been a special and wonderful experience for us, and it can be for you. But it requires special forethought and follow-through. After all, they don’t necessarily want to go camping; you do. They’re following Mom, Dad or some other irrational parental figure who positively insists on getting back to nature. If they’re too young to care, they’re probably in a pack on your back, happy to be along for the ride. If they’re old enough to think about it, they may have decided that they’re doing you a favor. Hal’s cousin Elizabeth remembers four things about her early days in a canoe: the black flies, the mosquitos, the dachshund, and the fanatical enthusiasm of parents who insisted that everyone was having a good time. Children are not necessarily born to the outback, littler versions of John Muir. They have to learn, too.

Car and canoe camping are naturals for the very young. Horse camping can be, too. In all of these cases, small legs don’t have to go far, and big appetites and natural curiosities can be immediately satisfied. We don’t know anyone who has ever tried long-distance bicycle touring with a young child, though it no doubt has been done, too. Backpacking takes a little more care in planning, but we’ve done it pleasurably with infants, toddlers and active five-year-olds. Special arrangements for sharing loads and responsibilities need to be worked out beforehand. Really worked out. Otherwise one or two people will end up harassed, overworked and unhappy. Throughout this book you’ll find ideas and suggestions to make kid camping so good that they’ll want to come back for more. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

A Basic Primer

"Camping with Kids": A Sampler
"Around Katie’s third birthday, we discovered pack goats. An eight-year-old nanny goat...carried 30 pounds with faithful devotion over the course of two summers...We formed an odd but able pack string in those days: mother, child, father, grandfather, dog and goat, united in common endeavor."

"The hike becomes a game. You walk for half an hour and get a lemon drop, some raisins, or a chocolate square. It takes us 45 minutes to fit in half an hour of pure walking, since we often stop for birds, bugs, and berries...But Katie never lags behind. In fact, she brags about her prowess....After those grim first steps, there is astonishingly little grumbling."

"‘Horsey!...Horsey!’ shrieks Pat [the two-year-old]. We peer into the woods to find a small mule deer just 20 feet away....We watch quietly until the deer crosses the trail and heads downhill. The kids are quiet and big-eyed with their new knowledge: The woods are alive!"

[As they reach the trailhead and the car at the end of the journey:] "‘There’s the outhouse, Mom...There’s the sign....There’s the cars! We’re home!’....‘Aren’t you glad, Mom?’ Katie asks. ‘Not really,’ I say. ‘It was a wonderful trip.’ ‘It was a stupid trip,’ Katie says. ‘No garbage cans, no picnic tables, no bathrooms. When I get home, I’m going to stay indoors for a long time.’ I have no rejoinder. Preaching wilderness appreciation to Katie is futile....She’s young...stubborn. [But] she’s determinedly on the way to discovering hiking, camping and snooping around the woods for herself."

—Joan Hamilton, "Camping with Kids,"
Sierra, July/August 1986
Camping with the Disabled

Bonnie Lewkowicz, an experienced outdoor hand, took 30 Japanese disabled persons on their first camping trip. There were the usual language and first-timer problems but everyone muddled through. There were also the usual unusual problems which disabled people have to deal with all the time: inadequate transportation and assurances of campground accessibility by operators who don’t understand what "accessible" means to disabled people. For example, a sandy campground, which on the surface looks comfy, may be so soft that a disabled person can’t get enough purchase to turn over at night, or can’t negotiate a wheelchair sunk to its hubs in the sand. One wheelchair-accessible restroom is better than none, but is so inadequate for large numbers as to render "accessible" meaningless. Some trails are in fact wheelchair accessible–for example some old fire roads; some are accessible to the blind and are known as "braille trails."

Things are getting better, if all too slowly, and for any disabled person who wants to participate in outdoor activities, including all the forms of camping we talk about here, there are a growing number of resources–organizations and publications–to turn to for assistance and advice. Need to know about adaptable equipment? About the kinds of questions you should ask about a campsite–are food-storage lockers reachable? Are picnic-table extensions available for wheelchair access? About rafting and canoe gear? About transportation? About clinics and clubs? About the "rails to trails" conversion program to make old railroad beds suitable for hiking by those with disabilities? See our resources list in Chapter 2, pages 48-51. Disability need not be a constraint on outdoor enthusiasms. Don’t take our word for it. Take Bonnie’s. Though she uses a wheelchair, she hasn’t let the barriers overshadow the joy of being outdoors.

Agenda for Improvements

  • A new classification system of "accessibility."
  • Federal legislation requiring wheelchair lifts on major transportation carriers.
  • Adequate, as distinct from token, facilities in publicly maintained campgrounds.
  • Less expensive specialized conversion equipment.
  • A change of mind among the "abled." The outdoors belongs to all of us. Lend a hand.
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Where to Go

The absolutely best way to find a destination for a camping trip is by word of mouth. Ask your friends. Ask their friends. Check with salespeople at the outdoor outfitters, seek out local photographers, ask old-timers. Get in touch with the Sierra Club, local outdoor clinics and clubs, even the Boy and Girl Scouts. Check with resort owners, guides and camp counselors.

Another way to choose a camping destination is through a book or magazine. Check the library, bookstore, or camping store for trail, stream or route guides and commentaries. Local newspapers, newsletters and magazines often describe campsites and trails. (See Chapter 2 and the Book List for suggestions.) Be careful to notice the difference in difficulty between outings for beginners and those for experts. Don’t start toward a scenic wonderland only to discover that you overlooked the section that mentioned the whitewater you have to negotiate, or the cliff face

The precision of the answers you get from your research will be determined by the precision of the questions you ask. Figure out in advance how far you want to drive, and how far you want to hike, bike or paddle. Do you expect to hang out in a campsite or pile up the miles? Do you expect to catch fish? Need firewood? Well-defined trails or routes? Then hit up the experts with, "We’re looking for easy paddling downstream for a four-day trip with really good fishing and no portages." Don’t worry if the answers are vague, and don’t limit yourself to one or two suggestions. Any spot you might choose has its advantages and disadvantages. Keep checking out people, places and possibilities. If you’re car camping, call the campground authorities for this kind of information: campsite availability, fire restrictions, entrance and overnight fees, opening and closing dates, fishing, swimming and boating info (are boat ramps open or closed?). Collect people’s secret spots like a CIA agent collects microfilm.

Then locate the spots on a map. If you can’t find them on paper, there’s no sense setting out into the wilderness to look for them. Figure the distances and elevations; study the maps for possible difficulties: obstructions, streams to ford, logging trucks to avoid. (See Chapter 7 for a short course on how to read maps.) Once you’ve had a little practice, this will be easier than you think. Once you’ve figured out where to go, you can start thinking about how far to go and for how long.

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How Far Can You Go?

It’s one thing to return from camping feeling exercised and healthy; it’s quite another to limp home with blisters and sore muscles. A slow pace starts you off on the right foot.

A lot of people, especially beginners, take off after work on Friday, fight traffic on a long drive to a trailhead or campsite, and start out bright and early Saturday morning after five hours of sleep toward a destination that is just beyond their ability. By the time Saturday evening rolls around, they’re exhausted, blistered and cranky. Whether you head for your campsite via bike, canoe, horse or foot, it’s important that you don’t overextend yourself, especially in the first day or two. The muscles you use on your daily job and those you use on a camping holiday are very different.

Long uphill grades can be disheartening if you’re on foot or on a bike, and you should plan to stop often. If you’re riding horses, remember that they need rest, too. If you’re canoeing upstream or against the wind, you’ll work harder and need more rest. Make time for it.

Backpacking is a little more complicated because pack weights vary according to the length of a trip. A half day of hiking is plenty on the first day, regardless of how much ground you cover. Most people can cover three to five miles uphill with a heavy pack in that time, usually at a rate of about 45 minutes per mile (about four hours of hiking). Reach your destination in early afternoon, have a swim, lunch, and then hang out for the rest of the day. You’ll be able to hike farther as you acclimate to the altitude and as the pack gets lighter. If time permits, try a day or two of rest and relaxation after two days of hiking. And don’t even think of the hike home. It’s always easy. Most of the food is gone, the packs are light, and it’s mostly downhill. That’s the day you can expect to cover 10 to 12 miles, back to the trailhead and the ride home.

A Guide to Moderation

  • Almost every morning of travel, whether by bike, canoe or foot, deserves an afternoon of rest.
  • A full day of travel deserves a full day of rest.
  • The first day: by bicycle, no more than 30 miles in distance and 750 feet in elevation; by canoe, no more than four hours of paddling; by foot (backpacking), no more than five miles in distance and 1,500 feet in elevation.
  • On succeeding days, no more than 50 miles/1,000 feet by bike; five hours by canoe; seven miles/2,000 feet by foot.
  • The last day: Go for broke! Vacation’s over, and you can sleep at work the next day.
  • On horseback: Know your horse’s limits and don’t exceed them. Follow the advice of the pack station or your leader.
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How Many Are Going?

There are no rules about the number of people that can go on a trip, but you should have some idea of what the different numbers mean. Going alone is a lot different from going with one other person, or with two or twenty. We once met a party of 15 far off the trail in the Sierra wilderness who seemed content and happy. We never figured out how such a large group could hold together, and we shudder at the thought of having to organize such an expedition, but clearly it can be done. However, if the object is to recapture a bit of solitude and to relax, keep your forces down. We’ve traveled alone, as a pair, in a threesome, with four and with six.

Soloing
Solo camping is a special and satisfying art, though going one-on-one with nature has its own requirements. Four or five days is a long time to spend by oneself. And while being alone is not the same thing as being lonely, it does call for a good set of inner resources in top working order. Keeping busy isn’t hard, but since the kind of trip we’re describing isn’t a 20-mile-a-day grind, if you don’t like tinkering with fishing lures or boat repairs, devising new ways to cook trout or just sitting, you may get antsy. That’s okay, you’ve got plenty of room in which to be restless and plenty of space to pace. When solo camping, all your emotions become more intense: the questions, worries, phobias, as well as the rewards, highs and joys. Also, you alone get to make and unmake all the plans. And the only problem you’ll have with "human dynamics" is figuring out how to get along with yourself.

If you go solo on foot, you’ll have to sacrifice some weight that would otherwise be shared. The inflatable raft you might want for those lazy days on the lake will stay behind. The extra cooking pot, set of lures, roll of film, cinnamon container–may have to go as well. But for almost everything you leave behind, you can improvise with what you’ve got. You can make a raft, roast fish in the coals, sketch instead of taking pictures, fashion lures with your hooks, or substitute flaked chocolate for cinnamon.

The more experience you have camping with others, the better equipped you’ll be to go it alone. The same is true of solo hiking off the trail: Experience in a group is a prerequisite. Any kind of hiking is safer, more fun and more confidence-building when done with others at first.

With Others
But how many others? First, it’s useful to understand that camping is not a personality-altering experience. For all the solace and rejuvenation that a trip in the backcountry provides, you’re apt to take in and bring out the same likes, dislikes, habits and concerns that you carry around every day. The same is true of your friends. What pleases you or irks you about them will tag along, and may well be heightened by the unfamiliar environment.

The more people there are, the harder it is to achieve compatibility, and the more time and patience are necessary to make the trip work well for everybody. With larger groups, decision-making takes longer and is more emotionally draining. There are more ideas and opinions to deal with. Complications increase exponentially. A six-person trip is not three times as complex as a two-person trip: it’s nine times as complex.

Try to straighten things out as much as possible beforehand. Talk over what you each like to do and eat, and what you can’t stand. Discuss relative experience, physical fitness, allergies and ailments. Figure out who knows what. Share any information you can. The expert who makes you feel like a fool is dispensable; leave him or her at home. The one who makes you feel like an expert is, at 9,000 feet, the most wonderful human being on earth.

There are other advantages and disadvantages to numbers. The more people, the more you can bring–an extra book, additional chocolate bars, a tripod. Tasks can be shared and loads lightened. On the other hand, some lakes you want to camp at have only one small campsite, barely room for two. And the bigger the party, the harder it’ll be to concentrate on the sounds of silence.

Count animals in your calculations, too. Dogs are wonderful companions in the wilderness and can carry their own food on the trail, but off-trail you must carry it for them: The probability of their tearing a pack on rough terrain and losing the food is high. And remember, unless you have a Siberian husky, malamute or some other pooch who is happiest in inclement weather, you’ll share limited tent space with wet fur on those rainy nights. But as long as the trail is not too rocky for their footpads or off-limits to pets (as in National Parks), they’re great to have along.

Traveling with Dogs

  • Prevent dehydration. Carry water in the car for them.
  • Exercise dogs if confined to a campground or a long canoe ride.
  • Keep ’em on a leash in cattle or sheep country. A dog that starts a stampede is fair game for ranchers.
  • Keep ’em on a leash if they’re carrying their own food. They can lose their packs if they go off-trail chasing local wildlife.
  • Don’t overload a dog’s pack. They get tired, too. A name-and-address tag is essential. Dogs lost in the wilder- ness have been found and returned. Ask Rick: He lost Punkie in a thunderstorm. She was carried out by campers who found her, paws cut to shreds. Great campers!
  • Protect a dog’s feet above the tree line. Pads are easily cut on the granite high ground, and they are easily burned on extremely hot terrain. If you plan long hikes in those areas, consider fitting out your dog with dog booties, or apply commercially available treatments to toughen his or her pads. Ask your vet.
  • Dogs are not allowed on trails in National Parks.
Regardless of the number of people and pets, there are several useful rules to go by:
  • The slowest person sets the pace. Plan distances for the day or week with this in mind. If you have to stop short of those goals, well–it just doesn’t matter. This is particularly important with children.
  • Stay together. This is crucial if you’re going off the trail ("cross country") or into new waters by canoe. If there are four of you, you can go in pairs, but even then all four should follow the same route. Stop at all trail forks and wait for the others. Most serious accidents occur when one person goes off alone.
  • Cater to individual needs. If people hate to cook, don’t make them feel they must. This isn’t a test, it’s a vacation. If others don’t know how to cook but want to, help them out, but let them do it. This isn’t a three-star French restaurant, and if the bread burns or the fish falls in the fire, so what? You’ll still eat and you’ll go home with a funny story.
  • Share leadership and decision-making as much as possible.
  • Let everyone take the lead on the trail. This is a matter of courtesy, and it’s important. Many guidebooks suggest appointing a leader, someone who knows in advance he or she will have the final say in any difficult decision. This is good advice in emergency situations. The person with the most experience might be best to lead you up a mountain- side or through rough water, but in most cases, there doesn’t need to be much structure. Most decisions are better made by consulting everyone and finding a common denominator. Flexibility is the key: stay loose and happy.

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