Tips & Tricks For The Outdoor Enthusiast

[AJE]

Some Camping Tips

***When using a public campground, a tuba placed on your picnic table will keep the campsites on either side vacant.

**Get even with a bear who raided your food bag by kicking his favorite stump apart and eating all the ants.

***Old socks can be made into high fiber beef jerky by smoking them over an open fire.

**When smoking a fish, never inhale.

***A hot rock placed in your sleeping bag will keep your feet warm. A hot enchilada works almost as well, but the cheese sticks between your toes.

**The best backpacks are named for national parks or mountain ranges. Steer clear of those named for landfills.

***Acupuncture was invented by a camper who found a porcupine in his sleeping bag.

**While the Swiss Army Knife has been popular for years, the Swiss Navy Knife has remained largely un heard of. Its single blade functions as a tiny canoe paddle.

***Effective January 1, 1997, you will actually have to enlist in the Swiss Army to get a Swiss Army Knife.

**Lint from your navel makes a handy fire starter. Warning: Remove lint from navel before applying the match.

***You'll never be lost if you remember that moss always grows on the north side of your compass.

**You can duplicate the warmth of a down-filled bedroll by climbing into a plastic garbage bag with several geese.

***When camping, always wear a long-sleeved shirt. It gives you something to wipe your nose on.

**You can compress the diameter of your rolled up sleeping bag by running over it with your car.

***Take this simple test to see if you qualify for solo camping. Shine a flashlight into one ear. If the beam shines out the other ear, do not go into the woods alone.

**A two-man pup tent does not include two men or a pup.

***A potato baked in the coals for one hour makes an excellent side dish. A potato baked in the coals for three hours makes an excellent hockey puck.

**You can start a fire without matches by eating Mexican food, then breathing on a pile of dry sticks.

***In emergency situations, you can survive in the wilderness by shooting small game with a slingshot made from the elastic waistband of your underwear.

**The guitar of the noisy teenager at the next campsite makes excellent kindling.

***Check the washing instructions before purchasing any apparel to be worn camping. Buy only those that read "Beat on a rock in stream."

**The sight of a bald eagle has thrilled campers for generations. The sight of a bald man, however, does absolutely nothing for the eagle.

***It's entirely possible to spend your whole vacation on a winding mountain road behind a large motor home.

**Bear bells provide an element of safety for hikers in grizzly country. The tricky part is getting them on the bears.

***A great deal of hostility can be released by using newspaper photos of politicians for toilet paper.

**In an emergency, a drawstring from a parka hood can be used to strangle a snoring tent mate.

[AJE]

Life Lessons

Any stone in a hiking boot migrates to the point of maximum pressure.

The distance to a given camp site remains constant as twilight approaches.

The number of mosquitoes at any given location is inversely proportional to the amount of repellent that remains.

The probability of diarrhea increases with the square of the thistle content of the local vegetation.

The area of level ground in the neighborhood tends to vanish as the need to make camp becomes finite.

In a mummy bag the urgency of ones need to urinate is inversely proportional to the amount of clothing worn. It is also inversely proportional to the temperature and the degree to which the mummy bag is completely zipped up.

Waterproof clothing isn't. (However, it is 100% effective at containing sweat).

The width of backpack straps decreases with the distance hiked. To compensate, the weight of the backpack increases.

Average temperature increases with the amount of clothing brought.

Tent stakes come only in the quantity "N-1" where N is the number of stakes necessary to stake down a tent.

Propane/butane tanks that are full when they are packed, will unexplainably empty themselves before you can reach the campsite.

Given a chance, matches will find a way to get wet.

Your side of the tent is the side that leaks.

All foods assume a uniform taste, texture, and color when freeze-dried.

Divide the number of servings by two when reading the directions for reconstituting anything freeze-dried.

When reading the instructions of a pump-activated water filter, "hour" should be substituted for "minute" when reading the average quarts filtered per minute.

The weight in a backpack can never remain uniformly distributed.

All tree branches in a forest grow outward from their respective trunks at exactly the height of your nose. If you are male, tree branches will also grow at groin height.

You will lose the little toothpick in your Swiss Army knife as soon as you open the box.

Rain.

Enough dirt will get tracked into the tent on the first day out, that you can grow the food you need for the rest of the trip in rows between sleeping bags.

When camping in late fall or winter, your underwear will stay at approximately 35.702 degrees Kelvin no matter how long you keep it in your sleeping bag with you.

Bears.

The sun sets three-and-a-half times faster than normal when you're trying to set up camp.

Tents never come apart as easily when you're leaving a site as when you're trying to get them set up in the first place.

When planning to take time off of work/school for your camping trip, always add an extra week, because when you get home from your "vacation" you'll be too tired to go back for a week after.

[AlumniClub]

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[AJE]

Are you a tent camper? There is something about being separated from the night and the great outdoors by a flimpsy little piece of canvas which makes one very aware of their surroundings.



Story One:

My family loved to tour the American west. As children we found ourselves experiencing the great outdoors and the sites of America from our home away from home: a tent. Unfortunately, unlike home, snacking on chips in bed is a dangerous thing to do. After a long, 16 hour road trip we hauled into Theodore Roosevelt National Park. just as the last rays of daylight was fading away. My sister, brother and I were really cranky from the loooooooooong car ride so we weren't thinking sanitation when we brought chips into the tent for a quick bedtime snack. In the middle of the night, mother nature decided we needed to empty our bladders. We woke Mom because the outhouse was quite a walk from the campsite and well, you know it was dark and we were little. The full moon gave us a great deal of light in which to trundle to the smelly building. Shortly after leaving the tent, however, we were shocked to discover we were being followed by a skunk. It was rather unsettling because no matter what speed we assumed, the skunk kept up with us. It was not without quite a bit of anxiety that we left the stinky outhouse because the skunk had really been acting strange and kept hanging around. It took about 20 minutes before it seemed to move on. As we tried to sneak back to the tent, the skunk again tailed us all the way. We unzipped the tent and dove inside in one fluid motion waking up dad in the process who then decided to leave the skunk alone rather than risk a stinky shower or a deadly bite. In bear country, Rangers tell campers not to take food and drinks into tents. We have expanded this precaution to anywhere skunks might reside.

[AJE]

Story Two:
Story Two:

Craters of the Moon, one of Idaho's most incredible geologic wonders, is part of a 60-mile long earthen faulting system where volcanic eruptions have occurred as recently as 2,000 years ago. Volcanic formations easily accessible to monument visitors include cinder cones, spatter cones and lava tubes or caves. Craters of the Moon National Monument preserves a weird and fantastic volcanic landscape.

My family arrived at Craters of the Moon late in the afternoon on a beastly hot day. Not to be deterred from seeing the barren, cinder-filled park, our first activity was a stop at the Visitor's Center. Along the way we passed numerous warning signs indicating possible rattlesnake activity along with the usual DON'T FEED THE ANIMALS signs. At the visitor center the park ranger told ua that just yesterday a rattler was sunning on the ground in front the building. My mother hates snakes and she was not enthusastically embracing a tour of this interesting park.

Anyway, after setting up camp we left to explore the area until late dusk and hunger pains brought us back for our evening campfire. The warm wind began to blow harder after dark, making Mom's hearing a even less effective while she made a quick meal of Hot Dogs and Baked Beans on the portable gas stove. Unknown to the rest of us, she had zeroed in on each and everyone of the "rattlesnake warning signs," and her nerves were frazzled and on edge. With no room to eat at the picnic table, Mom had taken her hot dog and stood off to the side near the camp fire until we heard a startled shreik and saw our mother fly onto the picnic table doing a very creative jumping up and down dance. Everyone at Craters of the Moon knew things were not good at our campsite.

My mother had been unexpectedly touched which signaled her flight reflex. It made no difference that she had been touched in the small of her back, her mind said "snake!" and she flew. Not only were we startled by her reaction, but so was the sweet, black tailed, mule dear mother who was only asking Mom for a handout when she nudged her back. The deer had three fawns with her. Hopefully, the fawns learned not to beg for handouts. People should know better than to feed animals.