What was your worst camping experience?

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I wasn't exactly roughing it with a hot shower and breakfast nearby, but the lightening was pretty intense, and I never want to sleep in a wet sleeping bag again.

What was your worst camping experience? Slow room service doesn't count.

-- Anonymous, August 09, 1999

Answers

I remember this one time I went out with these two guyx. We had these cameras and we were walking along and we found these PILES of rocks on the ground and these bundles of STICKS hanging int he trees...

Oh wait... that didn't really happen...

My *worst* camping experience would have been September 4, 1998.

The group of folks that I'm friends with had decided they wanted to go camping on Labor day weekend.

I don't know WHAT was going on with me, but I didn't particularly feel very "planny" around that time, and told them that I would *PROBABLY* go, but that I didn't have the time or energy to get into the whole planning part of it.

This wouldn't have been a big deal, except for the fact that this group of people is the type of group of people that decide "Let's go camping" the day they are going to go. Not smart for LABOR DAY weekend.

So anyway, LONG LONG LONG story short, the spot that we were GOING to go to was, shock of all shocks, BOOKED and the only place that they could find was this JEEP campsite.

At this time, I drove an 87 Honda Prelude.

They called me at work (I had to work from 10 - 7 on the day they were crack-headedly thinking they were going to get a campsite) and let me know where they ended up finding a site.

I told them that that was fine, and to have fun and that I would see them when they got home.

They were outraged, and begged and pleaded for me to come up.

"You don't know what we went through to get THIS site."

Ummm YES, YES I did... cuz I was the one that went through it the past TWO times that we went camping - so a very hearty F*** You on that point.

So, they finally talked me into driving up there.

I got to Placerville and it starts raining.

*Sigh*

Not only do I hate driving at night, but I hate driving in the rain.. so driving AT NIGHT in the RAIN was traumatic enough.

So, again, long long long story short, they say they posted THREE signs, I only saw TWO, took a wrong turn and came thisclose to driving off a cliff.

In all honestly I *should* be dead right now and someone(s) was/were watching out for me that night.

T'was NOT a good weekend. It caused a lot of anger and resentment between me and those folks - gee, imagine that?

But we *seem* to be over it.

Sorry for the length. It REALLY could have been longer... hehe

-- Anonymous, August 09, 1999

My worst camping trip (or best, depending on your attitude) would have to be the time my friend Gavin and I were tweaking, and I had just gotten a new truck, and we had both been up for two days. We decided that camping would be really cool (I don't know what we were thinking, there are no carpets to pick at on the ocean)...so we went, and ended up going into paranoid mode. We thought that everyone knew we were tweaking, so we stayed in the truck the whole night. The next morning, we went out to the shore and were amazed by how many rocks there are on an ocean beach (um, duh.) I Think we spent the whole day (third night of not sleeping) picking out "pretty shiny rocks" (none of which were shiny or pretty by the time we came down.) Oh, and coming down. I spent the next two nights of the camping trip coming down.

Yuck, I say.

Smokey the Bear says crank and camping do not mix!

-- Anonymous, August 09, 1999

My family and I go camping at least once a year. It's a bit of a tradition in my family and I've been going since I was born. I always shared a tent with two of my cousins and this one memory stands out in my mind clear as day....

We were sleeping one night in our tent and one of my cousins had to go to the bathroom to pee. The only problem was she was sleeping. In her sleepy stupor she got up, pulled her pants down, squatted between our sleeping bags and peed. I woke up to catch her in the act and screamed like hell. We all started screaming and crying and my one cousin started beating the shit out of her sister for peeing. Well, all hell broke loose, our parents woke up, WE ended up getting in trouble for "being insensitive" and the rest of the trip sucked. We refused to sleep in the piss tent after that and wouldn't even go near our sleeping bags. Soooooo we ended up sleeping in the van and sweating bullets all night because it was so damn hot....

we got revenge though...the next camping trip, we pushed her off a cliff *heheh* (cruel I know)

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

All camping is a "worst experience" for me. I hate camping. I have not been camping for 25 years, and hope to never go camping again. I love being out in the woods, but in a cabin with a bed and a bathroom and a kitchen.

Judy

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

I've been on a lot of camping trips, most of which I loved.

By far, the worst trips are when it rains. There's nothing so horrible as laying in the middle of tent trying to stay away from the water creeping in on you. And eventuallly it starts to drip from roof of the tent.

That's almost as bad as getting stuck in a canoe in the middle of the lake when a thunderstorm comes up fast. That sucks!

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

...my worst camping experience was my first trip to desolation wilderness out in tahoe...i leave you with a list of things that went awry:

...and once back at the parking lot, suffering from mild hypothermia and severe pissiness...

...once driving on something resembling a highway and trying to get back to san francisco [where it doesn't snow]...

....and worst of all, after it was all said and done...

...isn't that always the case?....

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999

watching the blair witch project. scary!

-- Anonymous, August 10, 1999
An Explorers trip, circa 1985. We camped at the saddle of two hills and experienced heavy rain. I woke up to discover that my air mattress was floating: enough standing water to buoy me off the tend floor had poured in through the poorly-secured tent door. Fortunately my frame pack was standing up and my gear was dry--I got dressed and headed, with my tent-mates, to spend the night in the Explorer post school-bus. Cold, mostly wet, hideously uncomfortable (ever tried sleeping on those green vinyl sleeping bus seats?) and generally Not Fun.

-- Anonymous, August 13, 1999
Well this one time, I went on a school camping trip. Some kids and I had to pee really badly, so my hiking leader announced a bathroom break. Well, I guess that I didn't realize that my "spot" was so close to some people, and it came out so fast and far that I ended up spraying a girl in my class that I liked. :-(

-- Anonymous, April 14, 2001
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