This item is to discuss camping.

Where do you camp?  How often?  Are you going camping soon?

What kind of camper are you -- big fancy camper-bus, trailer camper, 
tent camper, sheet of plastic and build your own?

Do you have any camping stories?  Either good ones or bad ones.

What gear do you consider essential for the ultimate camping experience?

58 responses total.

My son and I are going camping next month.  We're going to the UP of 
Michigan, staying for a couple of nights near Mackinaw City so we can 
go see Mackinac Island, then we're going up to Hancock and visiting the 
waterfalls in the Copper Country and west of the Porcupine Mountains.

We're going to camp in a tent.  We'll have a propane Coleman stove and 
lantern, and other stuff like that, but nothing really fancy.  It'll be 
our first time on vacation in a tent, but I grew up vacationing that 
way.  John's mother grew up camping in a pop-up camper, and so has John 
so far.

In addition to the waterfalls, we'll do some fishing, and maybe even 
try a little swimming in Lake Superior.  (I will; I'll bet John won't, 
he being sensible.  Lake Superior is *cold* in early June.)  Also, I'll 
show John around Michigan Tech and some of the places I remember from 
when I lived up there.

This is item #200 in the Spring 2002 Agora and #117 in sports.

I've camped on the Pictured Rocks lakeshore a couple times.  I used a standard
tent and backpack (and froze at night until I discovered down).

I do medieval camping (pavilion instead of tent) several times per year at
SCA events.  It's lots of fun.  Pennsic is coming up.  That event gets around
13,000 people, and it's all medieval period camping.  No electricity,
plumbing, etc.  We're insane, but it's fun.

UP?  Take a couple extra blankets!

Yes, we'll be taking some blankets.  I'm pretty familiar with the UP, 
though.  I lived there for 8 years.

I'm also taking a lot of warm clothing.  If we don't need it, fine.  If 
we do, we'll have it.

        I got the old Ryan family tent.  Actually the family size tent
was the overflow tent for the kids that did not make it into the
pop-up, pull-apart trailer tent camper.  Anybody interested in a 
real canvas tent?  It's still perfectly practical and does not
need to be replaced by some petrolium depleting plastic one.
        I used the two man (or daddy and two boys) tent when I was
in the UP last.  That was a mix of car/state park & motel camping.

        The small rustic state park site near Hell seems to have
disappeared.

resp:3  insane?  not really.. it's been ages since I've camped, but I 
did snow houses and backcountry camping when I was in Scouts.  You 
just have to get used to holding off bathing and some things like 
that.  Definitely not for the vain.

resp:6  Real canvas tents are nice-- I think my family still has 
theirs.  Quite heavy, but tough as hell and fits about 4 people.  
However, if you are doing backcountry camping where weight is 
everything and have to hike into the campground, well, then petroleum 
depleting plastic ones are preferrable.  Canvas ones necessitate a car-
- which is petroleum depleting, too.

Canvas tents are heavy and difficult to set up compared to newer nylon 
tents.  In my case, especially, where I'll have to set it up by myself, 
a canvas tent that isn't a pup tent would be out of the question.

When I was in Boy Scouts, we had a winter campout for which we took 
sheets of plastic and bales of straw, and built our own tents.  It was 
about 10 degrees out that night.  That's when I learned not to wear my 
pants to bed in a sleeping bag.  I woke up sweaty-wet, and had damp 
pants for the first couple of hours.

I used to have a VW camper van, the kind with the pop-up roof with the bunk
underneath.  I don't miss having to fix it all the time, and I don't miss
the lousy gas milage, but I do miss the camper part.

Plastic makes a terrible tenting material unless you have some way to screen
out the insects and also ventilate.  You want something with a separate
waterproof fly, and then another layer that breathes.  Otherwise it gets very
damp and therefore cold inside.  Down is not a good idea in damp climates like
Michigan, try Hollofil or other synthetics that stay warm when wet.
For camping you need some sort of shelter (to keep out rain and insects) and
bedding, and something to cook on (it can be wood and rocks, or a tiny stove
that runs on a small can of fuel) and something to cook in.  A wok with a
cover can be used for both boiling and frying - we also took a small pressure
cooker which cooks grains much faster.  A metal bowl and spoon to eat with.
A change of clothing and a small towel.  Lots of food.  Transportation (in
this country you need your own but in others you can take a bus to the park).
Raingear.  First-aid equipment.  Summer camping does not require lanterns or
flashlights.

I camped last summer with my mom and brother in a State campground in St.
Ignace.  We spent a day going up to Whitefish Point (?) to see the Shipwreck
Museum and I got to see Lake Superior (damn, it was so pretty!), we went to
Tahquamenon Falls - very very cool, and then the next day we went over to the
Island, which was cool.  

The campground was very nice - we were maybe 75 yards from a bathroom - the
campsites weren't that close together (in my opinion), but it was nice to get
to know everyone around us, too.  

I have something to say about gear advertised as "warm when wet" I have 
done quite a lot of wilderness camping including several winter trips. 
It has been my experience that "warm when wet" does not 
mean 'comfortable when wet' but instead means 'warm enough to survive 
but wish you had hypothermia to end the misery'

The moral of the story is: Stay dry :)

Re #7:  Well, bathing can't be held off.  Most people go to Pennsic for a week
or two.  We use shower bags or the really cool shower tower a friend invented.

Andrea and I got engaged at Tahquamenon Falls, and went there on our 
honeymoon.  I plan on skipping that this time.

I love the Shipwreck Museum.  I've seen other such museums, but none I 
thought were as good as that one.

I might take John on a Pictured Rocks tour.  He likes boats all right, 
but I don't know how impressed he'd be by the actual tour.

I'm looking forward to showing him the Houghton Lift Bridge.  I'm sure 
he's never seen a lift bridge before.

Some things I've never seen/done, that we might go and take a look at 
are Drummond Island, Lake of the Clouds, and a trip into a copper mine.

Some things I've seen many times and refuse to miss: Brockway Mountain, 
Lac La Belle, Estavant Pines, McLain State Park, the many waterfalls of 
the Keeweenaw Peninsula, the wonderful waterfalls of the Black River.

I, at least, will get a decent pasty somewhere.

Coachmen pop up trailer, sleeps ~6.

Jep - can I be your honorary kid for a week?  I miss the U.P.  ;-)

I thought the Pictured Rocks tour was cool, even as a student up there.  He'll
love it.

I have not seen any of those things on the UP. Lucky little John!  When we
went camping for two weeks with my parents we used to get clean in the lake.
Through most of history people have not bathed every week.  You can use a wet
cloth to wash the smellier parts of you if swimming is not enough.
I hope it does not snow on your trip.

I do most of my camping while traveling by motorcycle.  Small 2 person 
sized tent, plus a vinyl poncho as a ground cloth.  I need to replace my 
sleeping bag with one better suited to cooler temperatures, but it is a 
standard rectangular sort than rols up nicely, and which I then cover 
with a piece of material which seems to be two layers of spandex with a 
layer of rubber bonded between them.  It's waterproof, durable, and has a 
slight thermal quality to it.  Usually I use my rolled up coat as a 
pillow.  As for cooking gear, I am not usually out of civilization for 
days at a time, so all I really need is a bunch of strike-anywhere 
matches in a pharmacy pill bottle (waterproof seal), a pair of 
chopsticks, a flagon, and a jug of water, which I usually strap to the 
gas tank of the bike.

I prefer to camp in as rustic an environment as possible, which is not 
often what I get.  National Forests are far better than Parks.  I have 
managed on occasion to forego showering and bathing for extended periods 
while on the road, but that only makes it feel better to peel off the 
black leather when the opportunity comes to do so.  ;)

I can't stand camping in parks.  It's too "easy".  :)

Sindi - baby powder, deodorant, and a damp cloth or Baby Wipes do the trick,
but it's nice to wash my hair every few days if it's really hot outside. 
Plus, Pennsic involves dancing for hours and fighting in armor.  I'm glad most
of our guys take showers.  ;-)

re #16: Heh.  Ask me again next year and I'll probably consider it.

re #17: Sindi, I had a friend in college, with cerebral palsy, who used 
to ride from south of Lansing to Houghton.  If you and Jim are into 
long-distance bike riding, you could make it to the UP and see quite a 
lot of it in a week or two.

As for me, I like to take a shower every day, even when I'm camping.  
Or at least go for a swim.  If that makes me a wimp, so be it, but this 
is the 21st century and there's no such thing as really enduring 
hardship in America.  State park campground have modern bathroom 
facilities.  I don't object to that at all.

It probably won't snow in the UP in early June, but Lake Superior will 
definitely not be fit for swimming, not even in the bays.  John and I 
will give it a try, of course, being men, but I don't anticipate 
staying in for long.  Maybe some of the smaller lakes will be 
tolerable.  Maybe we'll stay a night or two in a hotel, since he loves 
to swim and we could go to a place with a swimming pool.

I highly recommend a swimming pool.  I used to swim in Lake Superior in late
August, and it was *never* warm enough to stay in for longer than fifteen
minutes, despite the hot weather.

I also recommend Da Yooper Tourist Trap on your way through Ishpeming.  I make
it a point to stop there every time I go up.

I used to do a lot of camping.  There was a year when I slept one night
in 8 in my tent.  We have a family sized tent now that we are a family
sized family, but haven't done much with it.

Isle Royale has some spectacular camping but it's pretty
much only open to the public during summer.

It is a lifelong dream of mine to get to Isle Royale some day.  I fell 
in love with it when I first heard of it as a kid, but I've never been 
there.  I'll have to wait until John is a few years older, I think, but 
we'll go someday.

The Yooper Tourist Trap was not there the last time I was in the 
Western UP.  I have no doubt we'll be stopping by.  And probably buying 
some tapes or CDs.

Re #14: These days the lift bridge only goes up on a regular basis for the
Ranger III.  If you check the schedule for its runs to Isle Royal you can
probably figure out when you'll have a good chance of seeing the bridge in
action.

The Quincy mine's hoist, on top of the hill on US-41, is worth seeing, if
you're into old steam engines at all.  They'll also take you into the mine,
though there are probably better mine tours.  The Quincy has been pretty
extensively altered on the only accessable level with modern equipment,
since MTU used it for some research projects at one point.  I haven't taken
any other mine tours, though, so I can't recommend any to you.

We were headed to Isle Royale and discovered that Porcupine Mountains is the
other end of the same geological formation and is much easier to get to.  You
can camp anywhere in the park (hang up your food to avoid bears).  No burning
of wood.  There are cabins to reserve. No vehicles in the park.

We know someone who bikes to northern Michigan in a hurry but he does not
carry on his bike a tent, mat, sleeping bag, pots and pans, and food.  He
stays in hotels, that is his idea of fun.  We carry up to 50 lb of gear (Jim
does - I get the lighter stuff so I can keep up) and avoid the roads with
traffic which means we bike mainly on dirt roads, which is slow but more fun.
We have stayed in farmer's fields or gravel quarries or people's yards - at
one point two people at the supermarket were bidding for our presence.  We
spent a few days on the last family dairy farm in Michigan and climbed the
silo (I watched).  Nobody is afraid of someone on a bike.  Even car camping
in the boonies (more than 100 miles from a big city) can be done like this.
Having a little kid ask permission would be a big help.  Even with me asking,
we would be offered a place to camp way back in the woods on a private lake
owned by someone with a large collection of exotic birds, or someone with an
egg farm and a restored steam tractor.  You have to be prepared for an
occasional suspicious rejection.

re 14:  The Library Bar and the Homnomem(sp?)!

re #25: When I was living there, some people had private yachts, and 
the bridge had to go up for those.  You'd get the bridge going up 
several times per day in the summer.  We'll find a way to see it go up 
and down, anyway.

Hmm, come to think of it, once the ice broke up, they used to raise the 
bridge; there was a road going across it in it's lowest position, then 
in a higher position as well.  It still had to be raised for the 
tallest boats going under.  Is that what you mean, that the Ranger is 
the only one tall enough to need the bridge to be raised to it's 
highest position?

re #26: From what I know of the people in the UP -- a fair amount, as I 
used to be in the National Guard with them -- if a tourist came by and 
asked to camp in someone's yard, they'd react adversely.  Call the 
police, get a shotgun, send you to eat dinner at a horrendously bad 
restaurant, something like that.

If you were a stooooodent, you'd get worse treatment than that, but 
that's another subject.

I'll stay in public campgrounds, I think.

No one has mentioned the Soo Locks as an attraction in the UP.  I don't 
think we'll be going there, unless John really wants to; I've seen them 
several times and took a boat tour through them once (with the family, 
including John).  It's an interesting place to visit, watching 500-700 
foot ore freighters come through, and watching them be raised or 
lowered 50 feet or so to be able to pass through the straights.  It's a 
worthwhile trip if you've never been there.

re #27: We'll certainly visit the Library if it's still there.  It 
burned down some years ago, but hopefully has been rebuilt by now.

I like the Soo Locks. When I lived in the Sault, I would often go there 
and sit for hours. I liked the solitude of it. (not a lot of tourists 
in the park by the locks in November or early spring but there are 
still boats to watch). 

Re #28: Right, they move the bridge up a notch in the summer and let
traffic run on the lower deck, so they don't have to raise it as often.
 Originally trains ran on the lower deck, but the rail lines have been
abandoned for at least a decade now and were torn up about eight years
ago to make bike and snowmobile trails.  The Ranger III is the only
dependable traffic that's tall enough to need the bridge raised, since
freighters don't generally try to thread their way through the canal
anymore -- they've just gotten too long.  The bridge does have to raise
for the occasional sailboat, too, though.

Re #29: The Library has been rebuilt as a restaurant, with a nice view
of the canal.  They have their own microbrewed beers now, too.

I think you're right about camping.  People up there are protective of
their property and probably not likely to invite you to camp there. 
Most of them moved up there because they don't want neighbors, and a lot
of them probably have trouble with deer hunters trespassing and are
cranky about people on their property as a result.  There's not really a
shortage of state parks anyway.

Oh, incidentally, people who feel the state parks aren't rustic enough
may want to check out the state forest campgrounds.  They're more
rustic, with no electricity and usually no bathroom facilities other
than pit toilets.  They're usually more secluded and less busy than the
state parks, not to mention cheaper.  I don't know what the fee is now,
but the last time I was at one (about ten years ago) it was something
like $2 per night, on the honor system.

<echoes everything gull said>

I found the Soo Locks quite boring when riding in the tour boat, but it was
neat watching them raise a ship.

Da Yooper Tourist Trap has much more than CDs and tapes.  They sell lots of
great UP-related items: t-shirts, books, music, posters, figurines, magnets,
copper jewelry, hats, and Trenary Toast (yay!!!)  There's also a cool walking
path outside that takes you by replication mines and deer camps with story
plaques and dummies dressed as miners and hunters.  It's much fun, and you'll
start seeing billboards for it as early as Munising.  The store is just past
Ishpeming on M-28.  If you miss it, you're blind.  There's a chainsaw on the
front lawn that is the size of a cottage.

Oh, and they just added a rock shop.  They have some beautiful crystals and
rocks made into clocks, paperweights, jewelry, etc.

I don't know if it's still operating, but the Big John Iron Mine (near Iron
Mountain, if I recall correctly) was an interesting trip.

   I'm going camping for a week next month.  Since I'll be able to
drive to the campsite and then go park my car for the duration, I'm
taking some substantial stuff.  There's the 30-year-old canvas tent
my father gave me last Sunday, which I'm going to set up this weekend
to see if it's still any good.  If it is, I'll camp in it for
sentimental reasons (it's from the camping trip where I met the bear).
There's a 28'x48' tarp, black on the underside and silver on top,
which I'll be using as an enormous sunshade and place for people to
gather when it rains.  The stove is a battery-powered Sierra Zip stove,
which burns solid fuel like twigs, small sticks, pinecones, charcoal
from other people's fires, and so forth.  The stove fits inside a
one-quart pot which came with it and has some other accessories as
well.  Since I hate percolated coffee, I take along a French drip
coffee pot.  Mine is a used Revereware pot which I got from E-Bay. 
I also have a sleeping bag and self-inflating pad, though I think this
time around I may take an air mattress to sleep on, since it also
provides a convenient place to sit inside the tent.  I don't want to
go through my entire list of camping gear, so I'll stop here for the
time being.

Where are you going camping, void?

In addition to not trying to camp in people's yards or farms within 100 miles
of Chicago, it is not a good idea to try this in a tourist area or within 50
miles of a state park (unless you are on a bike and can point out to people
that it is getting too dark to bike 50 miles).  Where we have camped is
usually some agricultural backwater such as SW Michigan or South Dakota.  In
South Dakota they asked if we were with the bunch of people on the bike tour
that went through earlier (we had a Jeep, so no) and then offered to leave
the bathroom at the only restaurant in town open all night for us and told
us we could shower at the firehouse.  We headed for the little park in the
center of town and discovered in the morning that it was the John Deere
parking lot - nobody seemed to care.  At Havana on the Mississipi (which used
to be a mecca for fisherpeople in the thirties) we asked the local police for
permission to camp in the little park on the river and they came by later to
check that we were okay and not being bothered by local kids.  When we got
100 miles south of Chicago the local police in small towns tried to steer us
to a state park.  On bikes, you can often stay in school or church yards in
the summer.   In Tennessee someone who let us camp in his yard was really
disappointed when we refused his offer to run an extension cord out to our
tent as we had nothing to plug into it.  He wondered if we had been to
Indianapolis as he had been there once.

   re #36: I'm going to PSG, which is held on some privately owned land
in southern Ohio.  There will be about 800 other campers there as well.

What is PSG?

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