Your lowest point...

[rommy]

In bushcraft terms only I mean. Someone raised the point tonight and it made me think deeply.

I remember on one of my walks sat in my tent bathing my infected big toe nail. I'd already lost my little toe nails but this was giving me grief. I'd just past a hospital earlier in the day and wanted to get sorted but feared they would stop me from continuing.

As I bathed it , it started to slide and I ended up cutting the remaining skin attachments with the scissors on my SAK by torchlight until the nail detached. I felt so alone, had a couple of tears, then took a couple of sleeping tablets and the next morning I felt only relief.

Carried on for another three hundred miles to the finish. Then I felt good!!

 

[wanderingblade]

Lowest point?

Being pulled from your tent at gunpoint at 6am and forced to lay in 6" of snow in just your boxers in a forest in south Germany.

The rest of the story will cost you a few pints.

 

[Sanji]

Lowest point?

Being pulled from your tent at gunpoint at 6am and forced to lay in 6" of snow in just your boxers in a forest in south Germany.

The rest of the story will cost you a few pints.

Dare i ask what happened next....

Lowest point for me was, went hammocking, thought was going to be nice warm night, didnt prepare for -5*C night that happened lol

 

[jackcbr]

Hmm, I guess it was being on a conventional campsite and having a family of chavs next door. Why are 5 year olds still playing at 1 am? And why are the parents screaming at them to be quiet. Nothing like leading by example.

As for being in the wilds - that would have been on the Coast to Coast. pitched a tent on quite a steep slope in the pouring rain and a gale. My dad was one hell of a snorer and we'd run out of food. 2 Mars bars to last 24 hours.

But still second place to the chavs

 

[durulz]

Out camping mid-autumn sort of time many years ago (we were probably in out mid/late teens). It had been quite hot for the previous few weeks, so we thought we wouldn't need that much to keep warm at night.
It snowed (a light dusting, but snow nonetheless).
I lay awake all night, chest heaving and shaking. I knew I had to move to keep warm, but just kept willing myself to sleep. Realising a friend was also awake we decided to get up and get a fire going. I got a small ember going with just the tiniest of flames when the friend came back with a log the size of King Kong's first dump of the day. He just dropped it on the fire and blew the entire thing out.
That was a truly miserable night.
Next day was really hot and sunny again.

 

[BushEd]

walking through the Masai mara in Tanzania; got huge blisters. We stopped in a wee Masai village, and my guide applied iodine to the blisters - me wincing like a baby!! All these masai looking on at me with the most easily discernible look.... "what a wimp"

 

[Asa Samuel]

Not had that many failures (thankfully) so my story isn't all that bad. I was scouting out a new piece of woodland and I decided to bring some noodles along, it was baking hot and I hadn't brought enough water out with me, the woods were on a slope so I levelled out a bit of ground just to put my square-set honey stove and trangia burner on, while burning the cooker fell over and spilled meths everywhere which I put out with the now empty pan, I got stung quite a few times on my legs cause the place was full of nettles, I didn't get any food, the walk back was up a hill with no shade and no water and the woodland didn't have a flat bit for ground dwelling and no trees big enough for a hammock! Pah!

 

[torc]

Lowest point?

Being pulled from your tent at gunpoint at 6am and forced to lay in 6" of snow in just your boxers in a forest in south Germany.

The rest of the story will cost you a few pints.

Did they have banjos?
Happy trails...torc.

 

[Harvestman]

Overdoing it in rough country west of the Elan valley. Coming over the top of a ridge to be hit by a fierce wind into my face, realising I had very little energy left, and I had miles to go in trackless country into that wind. 20 steps and sit down, 20 steps and sit down. Totally exhausted. The knowledge that no-one knew where I was either didn't much help.

Made it, but only just. You learn from your mistakes.

 

[MSkiba]

I re-experience my lowest point every month when my camping comrads cancel on me and I end up sleeping in my bedroom.

 

[Retired Member southey]

Going on my first course in surival type things with typical squaddie bluster thinking i knew everything, and being made to feel like a small child by the native guys showing how they live in the forest. still ment i had lots to learn wich is the fun bit anyway!

 

[Ray Britton]

I have had a think about this, and can't really think of any really low points points in an outdoors sense. Yes, I have gone without food, and been very cold or alone, I have been scared, and have had by basha invaded at gun point, and done the same to others lol.

I think my very worst times were similar to MSkiba's, in that being let down, after months of planning hit home very hard.
Out of bushcraft scenarios, I once had to carry on with a job, until I was literally exhausted and go no further. I managed to complete the task, but then simply collapsed on the spot, and spent the next ten days in hospital being drip fed etc. It was four days before I even had the strength to stand up unaided. Ever since then, I never say I am 'exhausted' I simply say I am very very tired. The positive side, is that if I am out walking and can only just put one foot in front of the other, I still know that I have plenty of 'get up and go left' inside me.....its just a case of finding it lol.

 

[Man of Tanith]

I re-experience my lowest point every month when my camping comrads cancel on me and I end up sleeping in my bedroom.

i used to get that a lot-result no longer invite them camping
as for personal low must be trying and failing to produce fire by bow drill on fundamental course that really was a downer

 

[Timbo]

camped out beside a beach with some mates in 'budget' tents, that night there were gales and rain which tore both tents and left them in a collapsed pile with us in side getting wet along with all our gear, the weather was so bad you had thought someone was shaking the tent violently and at the same time using a firemans hose on the outside. There was honestly so much water in the tent you could have started bailing it out, needless to say best remedy was close your eyes and pray for morning while trying not to laugh at my mate who was almost in tears. It was pretty funny the next day, guy in a car stopped and gave us a lift home because we looked so sad and battered, that saved us walking about 15miles. Thinking back I wouldn't have changed that night as its still a good memory.

 

[WoodenMoose]

Having to drive 4 friends down to northampton for a camping trip, I left one of them to pack the car while i went to pick up that last guy before we set off. On arrival we started to unpack the gear and set up camp, to fiind that my helpful friend had turned into the bane of the trip by getting my tent and a wind break mixed up. It might stop a little breeze, but it struggled with horizontal rain. The 2nd night i opted to share a small 2 manner with someone else .. more wind was broken in that tent than by the windbreak thats for sure ..

 

[sasquatch]

Having to drive 4 friends down to northampton for a camping trip, I left one of them to pack the car while i went to pick up that last guy before we set off. On arrival we started to unpack the gear and set up camp, to fiind that my helpful friend had turned into the bane of the trip by getting my tent and a wind break mixed up. It might stop a little breeze, but it struggled with horizontal rain. The 2nd night i opted to share a small 2 manner with someone else .. more wind was broken in that tent than by the windbreak thats for sure ..

You drove from South Yorkshire to camp in Northampton? Any particular reason why?

 

[gowersponger]

all you lot talking about gales and rain, well i didnt quite realize but it was a gale and it was raining ,,welsh style,,.
the ground was boggy marsh comeing half way up yor shin i had a one man tesco value tent just a bout managed to set it up in the strong winds
looked at it and thought bloody hell it lookd bigger than that when i set it up in my kitchen ,any way i was soakd the tent was bowing in the wind
i thouht sod this iam going home and left sapper1 and john fenner to fight the night alone they lookd right at home under there tarps brewing up a tea
they are 2 hardcore campers, any way that was literally my first time camping in the winter and i bottled it oh by the way we was in the brecon beacons snow bloody every where any way i still love the camping and am heading out very soon been woodland camping alone a few times since which is a good feeling.

 

[born2roam]

Being constipated in La Moskitia (Honduras) for a couple of days due to the o so varying menu of rice and plantains with some fish....

Then after a couple of days not being able to "go to the bathroom"...in a dug out cano going up river... having to go not just once but FOUR times within an hour...

Luckily I had the wits to ask the local guide to ask wether there were leaves that were NOT suitable for the job before a path had to be hacked with the machete for every run ;-)

Grtz Johan

 

[wanderingblade]

Did they have banjos?
Happy trails...torc.

Happily no, just auto pistols and bad attitudes

 

[WoodenMoose]

You drove from South Yorkshire to camp in Northampton? Any particular reason why?

I have persistant, awkward and moronic friends ..