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How to Conduct a Camping “Trial-Run”
If it’s been a while since your last jaunt in the woods, it’s fair to say that your camping skills are, shall we say, a bit rusty. You won’t necessarily be able to start the fires and set up the tents with the same speed you did years ago – unless you practice. You never know what kind of challenges you’ll face until you actually go camping, which is exactly why you’ll want to conduct a camping trial-run to make sure you’ve got everything planned for. Here’s how to do it.
First, set aside one day and one night before you go camping, preferably not too far in advance of the actual camping trip. You’ll be using this day and night to conduct what is essentially a camping simulation. Set up your tent, bring out your own water, and even so far as to avoid using the indoor bathroom – unless you’re in a highly urban area. (Note: If you live in a city apartment, find the closest camping spot and simply use it for a night.)
The goal is to avoid civilization for an afternoon, evening, and through the night so that you’ll know what it’s like to be camping again, without access to a hotel or restaurant. Make sure to take a notepad and pencil with you so that you can write down anything you’ve forgotten to purchase; make sure to pack this with you when you actually head out camping with your family and/or friends.What skills do you want to work on? Try to gather wood and start your own fire, hopefully bringing a tripod grill along with you so that you can cook any meat you packed in a cooler. You’ll also want to make sure you know how to build your tent – some tents are more complicated than others and require a little more effort. Also, keep note of how you clean yourself – if you’re feeling stinky and dirty by the following morning, there’s a good chance you may want to invest in a device like an outdoor shower.
The key is to treat your trial-run as finding your blind spots. You probably wouldn’t be able to plan for everything while sitting at home on your computer, but if you actually go out and experience what it’s like to camp, you’ll finally see where your blind sports are and what you need to do in order to make sure they don’t detract from your camping experience.
Photo Credits: jaygooby
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The Beginner’s Guide to Stargazing
Part of the fun of camping, especially for the city slickers among us, is getting away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Living near the bright lights of a major urban area also have one drawback – the light from the city drowns out your ability to see stars at night. This is an unacceptable situation for the stargazing nut, but if you’ve never been much of an amateur astronomer, you can get started on your next camping trip. Here’s a quick guide for getting your feet wet.
Use Binoculars, Not a Telescope
There’s no sense in buying a $600 telescope if you can’t even identify the North Star. Bring along binoculars for your stargazing. You won’t exactly be able to see the footprints on the moon, but you will get a better view of the night sky, including stars behind brighter stars that the naked eye can’t quite make out. Buying a telescope before you can identify various points in the sky will probably be a frustrating experience.
On a clear night out in the campground, you should be able to make out plenty of constellations with your naked eye alone. Spotting even one or two constellations you weren’t aware of before can be an amazing experience, like the night sky is revealing something that was there all along.Identify the Easy Constellations First
It will help to bring a skymap that shows where the constellations are at a given time in the Earth’s orbit (for example, summer). Once you do this, however, try to start with the constellations that are the easiest to find. In the Northern Hemisphere’s summer, you won’t have much trouble identifying Ursa Major (including the Big Dipper), the North Star, and the Summer Triangle. For example, if you lay flat at night with your feet facing south, you shouldn’t have much trouble seeing the Summer Triangle in the left side of your view. Directly above you will be the constellation Hercules.
Finding constellations isn’t as hard as you think, it just takes a little persistence and a little knowledge of the sky. Try to study up a little bit before heading out camping this summer.
Once you know where a few constellations are, you’ll have reference points to discover all sorts of other constellations while camping in the summer. If nothing else, knowing some of the constellations and being able to star gaze will give you something to tell your kids about later in life.
Photo Credits: xamad
