Camping 101

I recently went on a wonderful camping trip to the Rocky Mountains National Park with one of my close junior college friends, Supriya. It turned out to be quite an expensive trip as everything was planned in the last minute which is not surprising as I was one of the subjects.

It was a two day trip and we camped, hiked, and river rafted. It turned out to be very hectic for a two day trip but was great fun nevertheless.

This also happened to be the first time, we set up a tent, started fire, grilled, all on our own without any prior experience. With scant knowledge and inadequate preparation on our part, the camping turned out to be quite a challenging experience but for the presence of helpful campers around us. The adventurous experience made me swear that I would go and make a note on camping basics.Some of the requisites and pointers for camping:

1) First and foremost, make a reservation for a campground. All of the campground were full in the RMNP when we visited!
2) Make a reservation for camping gear - sleeping bags (2/person if the place gets extremely cold (check weather)), sleeping pads/ tent pad FOR SURE (prevents cold from seeping in, tent gear-poles, and the tent dome. MAKE SURE THAT POLES ARE OF RIGHT SIZE THAT FIT THE TENT DOME OR THE DISASTER BELOW COULD HAPPEN. Also, make sure that you have nails to prevent the tent from collapsing.



That is our measly tent. We managed to entertain campers around us with our unique tent. The bugger gave us the wrong (long) poles and did not give any nails. See, how the long poles are hanging out of our tent. We conveniently assumed that everything rented out would be alright. If it was not for this helpful old man below, we would have shivered to death. He was obviously a pro at camping and somehow managed to wrap, twist, bend, and make something habitable out of the wrong combinations.



Another interesting thing about this pic is that one can see a lightning scar on the tree :-D. I thought that was very cool.

3) For grilling/cooking - Firewood, fire starter, tongs(a MUST), ingredients for s'mores, barbeque kit for pros.

And, there we go, the camp fire and cooking :-). We grilled marinated chicken, mushrooms, and bell peppers. And of course s'mores. Camping is incomplete without s'mores. Btw, that is Supriya standing by the tent.



4) Safety/ Wildlife - We were warned of bear attacks and advised to not leave any food remnants in the camping area. I recently heard of bear attacks at the Yellowstone national park in the daily new. So a bear pepper spray may be a good thing to add to the camping basics list.Oh, and also an insect repellent is a must.

This is after the sunset. This photograph struck as very serene to me. The moon just looked lovely that night beside uncountable stars. It was extremely tranquil that night but for the fear of bears.