Camping Away From Everything Else

[Ryan Jordan]

Companion forum thread to: Camping Away From Everything Else

I love camping in really remote places. I think the reason for this is related to two things. One, I have a pretty hardcore type-A, driven personality

[Keith Johnson]

Absolutely agree. Same animal. I heal in the wild places.

[Marcus]

I’m 100% on board with this. Car camping in a busy campground is hardly a get away to me. Nothing is more annoying than waking up to the jackass with a Harley rolling out of camp at 6am for a sunrise cruise.

My favorite spot is at a secret watering hole and I often can camp a weekend in the off season without seeing anyone at all.

Highly trafficked trails are a little better, but still feel like a city without buildings. Even moderately trafficked trails trails have a different feel than low traffic.

By far, I prefer trails where I can count the number of hikers passed on one hand, maybe 2.  I’m lucky to live close to the Los Padres forest which is pretty easy to find low-traffic trails and camp spots, although the well known watering holes are crowded in the summer.

[Keith Johnson]

In the Cascades (if you don’t go super deep) we now have happy backpackers who insist on finding the largest logs they can and burning them in a must have campfire and then leaving the massive charred remains for us Leave No Trace advocates to stumble upon. There has to be a movie where this was done, and we all know how movies about the wilds represent a fictional (comical?) version of what the rest of us do. I keep trying to educate as I go… but best to just head deeper where they ain’t.

[Tipi Walter]

Some delusional people call going out with a 40 foot RV “Camping”.  Backpacking Camping is a whole other beast.

A news show once said “walking has been engineered out of American society”—which means if you can walk and carry all your gear and find some rugged backcountry you probably won’t see anyone as 99% of Americans are indoors and/or rolling—and there’s nothing much worse than a Rolling American.

[jscott]

I like camping in remote places too. However, as I most often hike alone, I really don’t mind a bit of human interaction on the trail.

I usually get pretty far into the moutains; the people I encounter there tend to be pretty dedicated and usually interesting. I don’t find the occasional presence of other people ruins my sense of the wildness and beauty of a place. In any case the notion that a place is more ‘mine and mine alone’ is a bit of a fantasy.

Of course loud groups are murder. Boy scout troops…oof.

[Keith Johnson]

I love meeting folks in the deep. Awesome people. Fun to visit with. 8 hrs alone on a trail is enough time to make kind company seem special.

[jimmyjam]

Definitely agree. I am lucky to live only 100 miles from the Shenandoah National Park and although it is a popular park I have several “get away” spots that I head to for a night for a quick recharge and recovery where I know my chances of seeing more than one or two people are slim, especially during the week when I usually go. I always return home feeling much better having been able to get away even if it’s just for a night.

[James Marco]

Yup!

[Josh J]

I love remote camping,  my wife doesn’t understand. I’m an introvert,  don’t mind being by myself or 1 other person at all. Parties,  big cities overwhelm me.

Unfortunately I live in the worst place for remote camping,  it’s almost hell

[Geoff Caplan]

Oh boy – this rings true for me.

And all it takes is a little imagination.

I live in the English Lake District – a legendary hill area that’s a magnet for the harassed residents of the many nearby cities. Lancaster is 20 minutes away – it’s hardly remote.

But campers tend to cluster around the honeypot locations like Angle Tarn – attractive and relatively accessible. On a typical sunny evening in summer evening it will be crowded.

But just think a bit differently and you can find dozens of deserted spots away from the crowds. Or go out in wild weather. Or go out in winter.

If you can find solitude in the Lake District, you can find it pretty much anywhere.

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