How far do you camp from your car?

[Wayne]

I was wondering what the average member on here considers remote.

How many of you stray more than 1km from your cars?

Many prolific posters and YouTube hero’s seem reluctant to travel beyond easy contact with their cars.

 

[Broch]

It depends what we're doing:

- Overlanding, obviously, the Landy is part of the trek and stays with us. I may even just sleep under a tarp attached to the Landy.
- Backpacking, unless heading out from home, I will usually get dropped off and be without a car (but I won't be carrying the Dutch oven ). It's all too easy to take 'the kitchen sink' if I know I'll be with the car so I quite like the forced discipline of getting it all in my rucksack. If I do drive myself I'd typically be several kilometres away from the car before I pitch.
- Camping in the woods - well, my camp is only a Km from home so I like to walk in. If the grand children are coming down I may run some gear over in the ATV.

 

[BJJJ]

Anything from 200 metres to 15 kilometresfurther if I am in kayaking around Anglesey. For preference as close as possible, I can take everything then

 

[John Fenna]

These days I camp quite close to the car - but only because my duff knees, hips and SI joint preclude carrying weight any distance.
It used to be I would be trekking for weeks or months at a time...

 

[mousey]

I have constraints on my time [8-5 mon-fri job] and how far I can travel [usually have a child or two with me = maybe 8 mile walk with them carrying stuff]. These days I mostly go car camping with the kids or to a semi civilized site with cubs or scouts.

In my youth weeks or longer around UK. I'd love to go on some longer trips again but that'll have to wait till my kids are bit bigger and I've paid off the mortgage...

 

[Robson Valley]

My forest/wilderness resource values are very different from what they were even 20 years ago.
How about yours? Doing things differently as your interests change?

I need tools for wood, sand, stone and mineral crystals. It's always cold and windy up top.
A lot of that is grazing lease so most piddle-creeks are probably contaminated with ka-ka.
Bog-rolls, towels, 5 gal water tank.
Everybody appreciates a hot Coleman lunch. Maybe we shoot some grouse for supper.
Social occassions, day trips, Cooler full of lunchy snack stuff. Nights in the big wooden hot tent in the village.
My Nikon spotting scope is 1.7 kg, the wooden surveyor's tripod must be 5 kg.

There are thousands of square miles of real wilderness around me. It is roadless.
What logging roads there are go nowhere. You can walk up skidder trails for weeks if you wish.

Temperate jungle with visibility of 3-5m in many places.
I am done with coping with the bears and the big cats. You never need to think about it.

 

[Paulm]

Does it matter how far ?

If you're out and about and doing stuff, that's the important bit !

 

[Wayne]

Does it matter how far ?

If you're out and about and doing stuff, that's the important bit !

It does in my opinion. On here and other social media sites there are lots of self proclaimed bushcraft experts making videos posting prolifically, when taken outside their very narrow comfort zone are incapable of making the necessary adjustments in attitude and their skills are found wanting.

Terribly easy to be bushcraft guru when the most challenging thing you have ever done is open a rat pack after two cans of special brew.

These people are deluding themselves and others that they have the necessary skills and expertise to survive when the the going gets tough.

 

[Broch]

It does in my opinion. On here and other social media sites there are lots of self proclaimed bushcraft experts making videos posting prolifically, when taken outside their very narrow comfort zone are incapable of making the necessary adjustments in attitude and their skills are found wanting.

Terribly easy to be bushcraft guru when the most challenging thing you have ever done is open a rat pack after two cans of special brew.

These people are deluding themselves and others that they have the necessary skills and expertise to survive when the the going gets tough.

Did you get out of bed on the wrong side this morning Wayne?
(only joking - I understand what you're saying)

 

[Nomad64]

I was wondering what the average member on here considers remote.

How many of you stray more than 1km from your cars?

Many prolific posters and YouTube hero’s seem reluctant to travel beyond easy contact with their cars.

Is this the kind of thing that’s bothering you?



FWIW, he’ll have a bit of a trek in the morning when his battery is flat!

 

[Janne]

In UK I set up my camp about 150 meters from where I parked my car.
It did happen I set up a camp in the garden.
Almost as much fun as pitching my tent 50 km from the nearest road....

 

[woodsorrel]

I enjoy backpacking more than car camping. Many developed campsites are like small tent cities.

However, I don't hike as far when I carry a full pack. I usually hike about 6-8 miles (9.7 - 13 km) per day. For some trips I hike-in, camp at the same spot for several days, and return to my vehicle. On those trips, the maximum distance from my car may only be 6 miles.

- Woodsorrel

 

[Greenbeard]

Is this the kind of thing that’s bothering you?

View attachment 50801

FWIW, he’ll have a bit of a trek in the morning when his battery is flat!

Hahahahaha, that happened to me once. Hate land rover hahaha

 

[Sundowner]

It does in my opinion. On here and other social media sites there are lots of self proclaimed bushcraft experts making videos posting prolifically, when taken outside their very narrow comfort zone are incapable of making the necessary adjustments in attitude and their skills are found wanting.

Terribly easy to be bushcraft guru when the most challenging thing you have ever done is open a rat pack after two cans of special brew.

These people are deluding themselves and others that they have the necessary skills and expertise to survive when the the going gets tough.

Hear, hear!!!!!!!

 

[Chalkflint]

Forest Knights.
I understand what you are saying about remoteness as it can make a big difference to your survival mentality. I help run a scout pack and have just been teaching them about what to do in an emergency and remoteness plays a massive factor in that.
We have different classifications of expeditions that needs a permit. The first one is a fairly minor one of below 500m from sea level but more than ½ hour from a road that an ambulance can get to. That straight away makes a sprained ankle a lot more of an issue than doing it at home. However the highest permit is above 800m sea level and more than 3 hours from a road or occupied building. You break your leg now and it starts to become a life threatening situation with shock and exposure a serious reality. Add to that fading daylight and bad weather and that one casualty is now starting to endanger everybody else in the group.
Its good to have a back up plan and a vehicle nearby is a perfectly valid one. However if any help is hours away you really need to have thought seriously what your contingency plans are and be comfortable that you could actually cope.
Chalkflint

 

[Wayland]

It depends how I'm camping.

If I'm camping like this it's less than 50m if possible.

If I'm camping like this it's about 1200 miles.

I step into my garden with the same intellect, knowledge and attitude as I step into the Arctic so I don't think it matters how far you travel, what is important is what you take with you.

 

[SGL70]

It does in my opinion. On here and other social media sites there are lots of self proclaimed bushcraft experts making videos posting prolifically, when taken outside their very narrow comfort zone are incapable of making the necessary adjustments in attitude and their skills are found wanting.

Terribly easy to be bushcraft guru when the most challenging thing you have ever done is open a rat pack after two cans of special brew.

These people are deluding themselves and others that they have the necessary skills and expertise to survive when the the going gets tough.

I think that this is a social media phenomenon, where the group 'experts' are over-represented. It's tiresome, for sure. I try to approach it by 'normalising' the group and try to find the sensible info (if there is any).

Getting a long way away doesn't make me an expert - I am still misable regarding mushrooms, for instance. Regardless of the distance to civilisation.

Survival...an unattainable long term strategy

Greger

 

[Robson Valley]

There are people who live in my district, 15-20 km off the grid up in side mountain valleys.
No such thing as "camping." Takes a long, long run-up to be even half prepared for a local bush winter.
That makes foraging a suicidal act. The productivity of the landscape won't feed pairs of people.
It's October, I expect to see them in town at least once more before real freeze-up.
Then after the road melts out next May.

I'm reduced to very long day trips and home for the nights. Those places are just about side by side
so I don't ever plan any more to strike out with a compass. You can use Google Earth to fly all over my district.

 

[Joe tahkahikew]

I understand that the furthest you can go from a road in Britain is about ten or twelve miles so you may no be surprised that many of us Cree here in Canada travel a hundred or more miles from our main home/cabin. We often travel several nights stop away from our village some times more. When I was a younger man I spent many weeks, maybe much of the summer travelling from home by canoe staying here and there as I felt I wanted to.. (You can't walk through our northern forests much).

There is one man Mïskwysïsin, of about 85 yrs old in our village has spent every winter since he was about 18 travelling to his winter hunting grounds which are around 200 miles away by dog sledge. Until three years ago he did this on his own but now his grandson travells with him in case his grandpa dies whilst away from home.

 

[Robson Valley]

Miskwysisin must be a very strong man. Good to read that a grandson can learn those things.
Joe, you know somebody who is good at making snowshoe bindings? Size 12 moccasins.
I need 2 pairs. I'm not ready to wish winter on myself just yet.