On Camping

May 2020

We’re going camping!

You’d think that, as someone who grew up in Denver with the Rocky Mountains at my back, I’d have experience in this area. But I’ve never actually been camping before.

It’s something that didn’t appeal to me much growing up. I fundamentally understood why people wanted to go on vacations where they could wander the cobblestoned streets of Europe, spot wildlife on safari in South Africa, or snorkel off the balcony of an overwater bungalow in the Maldives. But who were these people who voluntarily chose to spend their vacations sleeping with mosquitos and spiders in a tent on the hard ground just a couple hours’ drive from my house? Lunatics, that’s who.

As a kid, the mountains were something that had always just…been there. They blended seamlessly into the familiar skyline from my bedroom window, like a wall-hung painting that’s been in the house for so long you never stop to think about it. At times, something like a particularly colorful sunset or a first snow dusting the peaks in autumn would make me actually stop and think, wow, that’s pretty. But for the most part, I used the mountains as a compass for West and the occasional ski trip, and otherwise summarily took them for granted.

It wasn’t until I moved away for college that I really felt the draw of them. When I found myself homesick during the bleak Chicago winter, it was often the mountains that filled my thoughts. They had become an integral part of the concept of home for me. From then on, when I visited my parents in the summers I always made time for a hike or two, and skiing was a must when I came home for the holidays. Still, there was one mountain pursuit that certainly never crossed my mind, and that was camping. Not in a million years.

Enter 2020. A year that—by all accounts—feels like it’s lasted at least a million years already, even though it’s only Spring. Pigs are flying under a blue moon while a fat lady is singing. And during a global pandemic, when social distancing is the order of the day, it turns out that camping is really the only option on the menu.

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Before we can begin our camping adventure, we need the goods. I love an REI trip as much as any Colorado native, but, man, is that stuff expensive. Still untried, I can’t guarantee that I’ll ever want to go camping again after this so I really can’t justify buying brand new top-of-the-line equipment.

We borrow some tarps from my dad, a foldable dining set from some friends and a portable camp stove from a neighbor, and then hit the local army surplus store for a couple of sleeping bags and mattress pads. Pawel (who has been camping before) swears there’s nothing worse in the world than the process of deciphering instructions on how to pitch a tent with poles and stakes, so he buys a $40 pop-up tent from China on eBay. The bold white “Yong Tong” brand on the side of the forest green tent isn’t quite as legit as a North Face logo, but we decide to just make sure that side is facing a tree or something if there are other campers around. After a trip to the non-perishable aisle at Walmart, we’re nearly ready.

But first: a trial run.We decide to test out all of our new equipment at home, on the off chance that we’re stuck in the middle of nowhere only to discover that the shitty eBay tent doesn’t work properly. It’s the way this year is going, after all.

That’s how we find ourselves waking up on the morning of Pawel’s 32nd birthday in a tent on my parents’ rooftop deck in downtown Denver. As far as decent nights of sleep go, it was dismal: hot, stuffy, uncomfortable. All of the reasons why I’d avoided sleeping in a tent up until this point in my life—and we weren’t even in the wilderness with the insects and the elements and the lack of toilet facilities yet. But when the morning sunlight comes streaming through the cheap fabric of the tent, finally signaling an end to this unpleasant night of sleep, I look over at Pawel and feel a rush of gratitude. Who else would be game for spending their birthday sleeping in a tent on the rooftop of their in-laws’ house? I would have threatened divorce if he’d proposed it for mine.

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Now that we’ve purchased and tested the goods, we just need the destination. We decide we’ll head first to southwestern Colorado, and then make our way into southeastern Utah before circling back to Denver. But it’s still early on in the pandemic, and most all developed campgrounds are closed. Dispersed camping it is.

That’s how I learn about the national wonder that is BLM land. The Bureau of Land Management owns and manages approximately 245 million acres, or alternatively (if—like me—you struggle to visualize how vast a single acre even is), about one-tenth of the entirety of surface land in the United States. The vast majority of this area lies out West and in Alaska. It accounts for over a third of the total acreage in Colorado, and nearly two-thirds in Utah.

You can camp, for free, nearly anywhere in those millions of acres of federal land if you elect to forgo developed sites for dispersed, or primitive, camping. Unlike developed campgrounds, which typically charge a fee and have managed recreation facilities like restrooms, dispersed camping consists of just you, your camping gear, and the land. BLM rules state that dispersed campers are allowed to set up camp for up to 14 days consecutively during any 28 day period and, although you can technically camp anywhere unless marked otherwise, leave-no-trace best practices would counsel use of an existing site where evidence of a prior campfire can easily be seen.

That expanse of acreage means there's a lot of campsite options to choose from. The nearly limitless choice is exhilarating, yes, but also pretty overwhelming for a couple of people who struggle to even pick a parking space in an empty lot. Just imagine the amount time it takes us to choose a campsite. There’s a lot of “wow, this one looks nice but maybe there’s one with a better view” and “shoot, maybe we should go back to the one near those trees” and “just choose already, we’re losing the light” as we bump along dirt roads, racing the sunset.

I’m surprised at how quickly I adapt to living in a tent, sleeping on a perpetually deflating mattress, and undertaking the lovely endeavor of venturing into the woods with a shovel and wet wipes. The self-consciousness that lurks beneath the surface when living in society disappears along with paved roads, city lights, and other cars. The rush to dress after a brisk 30 second camp shower, consisting of Pawel pouring water from a gallon jug over my head as I frantically scrub myself, is due solely to the desire to be warm rather than a need not to be naked in public. We’re on public lands, but there’s no public to be seen. It’s just us and Yong Tong, under the pines and the full moon.

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A couple of nights into our trip, we’ve set up camp on a high plateau in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area in southern Utah, overlooking the twisting San Juan River. The orange sun sinks below the canyon rim in the distance, drenching the sky in those intricate and irreplicable hues of sunset.

Pawel tends to the fire as I tend to dinner on the camp stove. A $1 box of mac and cheese mixed together with a 49-cent can of chili and a couple of sliced up hot dogs honestly might be the most delicious (though undoubtedly least nutritious) meal I’ve ever made. The smoke of the campfire curls around the steam from our simmering dinner. Embers leap high with the breeze, fizzling out against a darkening sky just as the first stars begin to twinkle.

I take in the view of these little details and the sweeping vastness of the plateau all at once, and I feel more untethered and more content than I can ever remember feeling in recent memory. It’s a release from the real world—what is real? it feels less and less so—and a grounding in the natural one. And it feels like wildness and peace, like home and adventure, all rolled into one.

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In the years since that sunset, I’ve been privileged to have wandered the cobblestoned streets of Europe, spotted wildlife on safari in South Africa, and snorkeled off the balcony of an overwater bungalow in the Maldives. They have been amazing experiences, full of wonder in their own right. But sitting by the camp fire, watching night softly settle over the canyon in Utah, holds equal appeal to me now. I finally understand the draw.