I Forgot the Poles

During our very first camping trip as a married couple, my wife and I were excited to go to a campground and setup our tent. We pulled out the tent, the groundcloth, and the rainfly. Then, my wife asked, "Where are the poles?"

I couldn't believe I forgot the poles! We took them out of the tent bag the last time we used them to arrange the tent in our backpacks and I forgot to put them back in before this trip.

If there weren't a chance of rain we would have slept out in the open because it was a warm summer day. There was a chance of rain, though, so we had to think of something else.

Luckily we had purchased a large blue tarp for something else and had it in the trunk kof our car. I was used to using a tarp in place of a tent but my wife wasn't. For an easy anchor, I tied the tarp to the picnic table and we had a comfortable night under the tarp during our first camping trip as husband and wife.

We still laugh about that trip to this day!

Exercise makes camping more fun!

Everytime we workout and we're getting tired and sore, I remind myself that we are exercising so that our camping trips will more enjoyable. The better shape we are in, the longer we can walk and the less sore we will be on the trails and mountains.

Almost any exercising that you do will be beneficial for camping. There are also a lof of specific exercises you can do to target different types of camping and hiking. In a pinch, if we need to get into shape quickly, we do three main types of workouts:

1) Jog every other day. This will help with your cardiovascular fitness. We usually jog three miles a day.

2) Do stairclimbers or mountain hiking every other day that you don't jog. We start out with a light stair climbing workout so we don't overuse our muscles when we're first getting back into shape. Then, the next time we do this type of exercise, we hike up a steep hill (about 500 feet elevation). The next workout we do is the same mountain hike while wearing our backpacks.

3) The third workout we do every other day is shoulder presses. We lift a light dumbbell (the weight depends on your own strength and size) straight up above our heads ten times and do three reps for each shoulder. This type of exercise really helps avoid shoulder soreness from wearing your backpack.

It is always best to maintain your fitness at all times. However, like us in the real world, we tend to get out of shape now and then. When that happens and we need to get in shape quickly, we follow the above routine with pretty amazing results. One time we did a hike that took us three hours. The next time we attempted that same hike, we followed the above routine for one week and then the hike took us only one hour!

Internal vs. External Frame Backpacks

Which is better? External or Internal frame backpacks?

This is a personal answer to a question about comfort. I like external frame backpacks because they seem more rigid to me. When I walk, it seems the pack says firm.

My wife likes the internal frame packs. To her, the frame says rigid and is compact and softer.

I still don't know how an internal frame pack can be rigid. It seems that an external frame is wider and by it's nature is more stable.

Please let us know your opinions.

Breakfast on a hill in Alaska

Here I am eating oatmeal on a rocky hillside near our tent. It was a foggy morning, August 12, 2005 at 8:00 am. The weather was unusually hot during the day and unbearably quiet. We would have normally been awakened by deafening birds but because the weather was so hot, all animals must have been hunkered down somewhere.

This is true wilderness camping, which is what my wife and I love best. There are no trails, no park rules, no other people for miles around. The environment is unspoiled and we leave it as we found it.

For this particular camping trip, we canoed for about 2 miles and hiked only about 50-100 feet straight up to this location. We live in Southeast Alaska and, so far, this is mainly where my wife and I have camped. We hope to camp and hike everywhere eventually.