MAXIMIZE YOUR TENT TIME

Summer 2008

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

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Twelve ways to get out more

by Neil Schulman

If you're like me, you've probably had weekends that you let slip by. The weather was great, but you were out having a beer on Friday night and didn’t make a plan. You could have gone paddling somewhere, but you figured that by the time you made a plan, checked the tides and currents, called your friends, and sorted through the piles of gear, it would have been nearly noon, and then there’s food shopping, boat loading, and an hour and a half to the put-in. It was just too much trouble, and so you ended up mowing the lawn and wishing you’d gotten it together.

But there’s hope! You can fit kayak camping into regular two-day weekends—no need to wait for your too few vacation days.

And it’s not just about getting out paddling more—it’s about sleeping out under the stars more. Remember why you started kayaking to begin with? I bet it wasn’t only the paddling; it was love of the outdoors, camping out, slowing down, watching sunsets, listening to the birds in the morning, and poking around in tidepools with the kids.

As time goes by, we’re camping out less. Statistically, the average North American spends less time each year camping out. Author Richard Louv has noted the effects of less time in nature for children in his landmark book Last Child in The Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder. I’m a firm advocate for spending as many nights as possible camping out. And it can be close to home—in fact, very few of my nights out are a two-week paddling vacation to faraway locales. Camping out is still camping out, even if you’re only 45 minutes from your bed.

So here are some tricks to spending more nights out under the stars.

Have A List

You probably have a list that says things like mow the lawn, clean the garage, and buy more light bulbs. Have one for paddling trips too, and not the “spend three weeks paddling the west coast of Vancouver Island” kind of trips. This list is for trips close to home—the island you’ve paddled by but haven’t camped on, the cove that promises a sweet sunset view but is usually a day trip, nearby coastal bays. The list should fit regular two-day weekends. Post it on the fridge next to that other list so you see it often.

Last summer, I did an overnight on a place called Sand Island in the Columbia River, where I’d paddled dozens of times. I could have paddled another ten minutes and been home in another thirty. But instead, I sat in a hammock and read, watched two woodpeckers chase each other around the trees and the sunset light up the Columbia and Mount St. Helens. Much better than being home in time to catch a movie.

Plan Wednesday

Wednesday may seem early to start thinking about the weekend, but this is the key to getting out more in the summer. By Wednesday, I’m usually laying plans, recruiting my paddling buddies, and hatching the plan and a route. I’m looking at charts, tides and currents, which means that I can…

Pack Thursday, Leave Friday

You probably know this one, but how often do you do it? If you plan your trip on Wednesday, after work on Thursday all you need to do is get your gear together. (This needn’t take a whole evening, as you’ll find out in a moment.) Now you can leave directly from work at 5:01 pm on Friday—no waiting while someone tries to find his sprayskirt.

Paddle Friday Evening

Make use of the long evening hours of daylight—it’s one of the best times to be on the water anyway. You might end up setting up camp in the dark, but being on the water at sunset can make up for it. Then you’ll wake up on Saturday with all the getting-there hassles behind you. And if your night navigation skills are solid, it will open up your options even more.

Take Less Stuff

I’m an expedition paddler at heart, so I have lots of stuff—three tents, a cooking shelter, tarps, two stoves, two camp chairs, tons of camera gear, you name it. Forget most of that and pack like a backpacker. The less stuff you have, the less time you’ll spend carrying loads between the beach and the tent, fitting gear in your boat, and setting up and breaking camp. Which means you’ll spend more time communing with nature, going for a hike, taking photos, and doing the things you came to that place to do. How likely are you to need a folding hatchet in a weekend, or even a tent if the forecast is good? Keep it simple, and enjoy being out there more. Note: this rule does not apply to good single malt.

Have a System

We paddlers have already spent far too much of our lives trying to figure out how to pack everything into our boats. If you don’t have a system down already, come up with one. The simplest way is to pack your boat once, using the smallest dry bags possible, and then write numbers on the bags, starting with #1 at the bow and moving toward the stern. Now, once you pack everything into dry bags, you know they’ll fit in that order, regardless of what’s in them. You can use a different system, but be sure you use a system. Chances are that if you don’t, the impatient glares of your paddling partners will inspire you to find one quick.

Organize the Basement

Keep your paddling and camping gear organized in the basement or the garage. This makes a simple process of grabbing stuff off shelves and chucking it into the back of the car—no trying to remember if the stakes are packed with the tent, or where to find the tow belt in a mountain of gear, or if the VHF is still upstairs on the charger. A particularly organized friend of mine has gone as far as to stick a laminated list to the big tub she throws everything in. The trick is to keep stuff organized so you can find it automatically—and to remember to put everything where it should be when you get back. Now all you need to deal with is the chow.

Keep the Pantry Full

Ah, yes, the “quick stops” at the grocery store where “I just need an onion and two peppers” turns into a 45-minute menu re-planning process. Start with a sealed tub in your basement with pre-packed, non-perishable camping food that you can augment with fresh produce. The perishable stuff you can grab on Thursday, now that the rest of the gear sorting only takes half an hour or so.

Go Solo

Flakey friends? Bob wants to go, but he has tuba practice or a meeting or something on Saturday. Heck, Bob can meet you out on the island later. Weekends are great for solo trips—you can get out there with minimal hassles, can often cover more distance, and the solitude is great after a week at the salt mines. Your paddling and safety skills and judgment will need to be up to par, but solo weekends are a wonderful way to experience the watery world, and to prep for longer solo trips. The rewards of solo paddling can often outweigh the risks, especially if you’re in familiar waters.

Enjoy the Wild Edge

In my quick, local camping trips, I’ve come to appreciate the edges between civilization and what we call “the wilds.” I camped once across a narrow channel from a county fair, with the lights from the Ferris wheel like a fireworks display, and where I met a local city councilor walking his dog. Too often we think of “nature” as being in the remote unpeopled wilderness, and everything else is “civilization." In reality, the two are merging more every day, and you don’t have to go to remote national parks and designated wilderness areas to have a wilderness experience. Camping close to home will show you that the human and the wild often exist in the same place.

Weekends as Shakedown

Camping a lot over the weekends will make your big trips easier, more instinctive, and more fun. You’ll have on-the-water and in-camp routines down, you’ll be used to paddling a loaded boat, you’ll be unfazed by a day of rain, and you’ll have established a group of paddling and camping buddies.