We stopped by this covered bridge to take a picture or two.

A couple of miles later, we crossed into the State Forest.

We had a big mountain to climb to get to our campsite, but it was starting to get dark. We wanted enough daylight to gather a big pile of firewood, since the forecast was for cold, cold, and more cold. I wasn’t sure we’d make it to the site before dark, so we started to look for any good site we could find.

We couldn’t find anything suitable on the north side of the mountain, so we climbed (haha, we walked) over the mountain, and rode down to our site, just as the sun started to go down.

When we got to the site, we discovered that the forest spirits had blessed us with a big pile of firewood, left by some previous campers. The only downside was that the wood was soaking wet from the recent monsoons and freak snow storm.

It took a long time and an Esbit tablet, but we got a fire going.

Good thing, too. It was miserably cold. The forecast was calling for 26 degrees, but I call bullshit. I didn’t have a thermometer, but it was cold. Cold enough for stream to come off your pee. And that’s cold.

I experimented with cooking and making hot cocoa with an alcohol stove. Alcohol kind of sucks in the cold, but I eventually had a hot dinner and a big hot mug of hot chocolate. I later figured out that you need to keep the alcohol in your pocket so it stays warm.

We had the traditional bullshitting session around the campfire until it was so cold we couldn’t stand it anymore, and so we went to bed.

With the early bedtime and daylight savings time nonsense, I was awake by 4:30 the next morning. I got up and made a pot of coffee. After I finished my coffee, I got cold again, and got back in my bivy. I laid in my bivy, looking at the stars for about an hour. I saw 4 shooting stars, and thought that it was pretty nice not to be in a tent, even though my bivy and Thermarest were glazed over with a nice heavy coating of frost.

Sloth got out of his tent to go pee, and said it was cold. He went back to bed, and declared that he wasn’t coming out until the sun was out to warm thing up. I stayed in my bivy and kept on looking at the stars until the stars went away and the sky turned blue.

I decided to go have some breakfast, but my cliff bar was frozen solid. So, I made a second pot of coffee, and dunked it in the coffee to thaw it out. This actually turned out to taste wonderful, and I think I’ll keep dunking my cliff bars in coffee even when they’re not frozen from here on out.

At long last, the sun came up over the mountain, and actually started to warm things up. Sloth got out of bed to make some oatmeal, while I wandered off into the woods to dig a cat hole (this is a wild campsite without facilities).

We broke camp, loaded the bikes, and were on our way and rolling down the mountain. It was a nice long descent. I was flying down a gravelly road on over-inflated 35mm tires, and I think my brains almost got rattled out of my head.

When we made it to the bottom of the mountain, I looked down at my handlebar-mounted GPS to see how fast we were going.

CALAMITY!

GPS was no longer there! Must have rattled loose on the way down the mountain.
My legs were already beyond fried at this point, and there was no way in hell I was riding back up the mountain to look for it. I honestly would have been lucky to make it back to the car (which was less than 10 miles away). So, I had to radio for a rescue.

Klinutus and Evil sister came and picked us up, found the lost GPS, and shuttled us and our bikes back to the starting line.

Instead of the 20 miles we had planned for day two, we rode about 7, and then ate gigantic cheeseburgers.

As we exited the cheeseburger establishment, we saw a young lady eyeballing our bikes. She said her dad was a frame builder in Philly, and that she liked touring bikes because most people ride hybrids.

Sloth and I are reasonably convinced that this mystery woman’s father is Bilenky, but neither of us had the presence of mind to ask, and didn’t want to come across as strange frame builder groupies. She was impressed to learn that we camped out, and told us the official temp was around 24 degrees that night.

I think this makes the coldest night I’ve ever slept without a tent or mummy bag.

For those of you curious about gear:
I was under a JRB Mt. Rogers quilt on a Therm-a-rest neoair, inside a cabelas XPG bivy.

I was very comfortable with this setup, except for my head, because my hat kept falling off.

This was a fun trip, and we’re even considering doing a second one this year; possibly in the Tuscarora State Forest.

Update:
The Sloth has written up a more entertaining account of our adventure on his site.

The first (and last) thing to do before heading out for a camping trip is to check the weather forecast. Weather forecasts are worthless more than 24 hours beforehand, so check it right before you get packed. If there is a slight chance of drizzle, you can probably get by with just a bivy. If there is a chance of some rain, you need a tarp. If it might pour cats and dogs, or there’s a chance of thunderstorms, you want either a big tarp, or a tent.

Picking your spot:

First things first, though. As long as you’re not staying in a campground, you have some flexibility in where to lay down. If it rains, you might get wet, so pick a good spot. Look around for a spot that’s flat and level (or nearly so). If you lay down on a slope, you might slide off your sleeping pad, and that sucks.

You also want a spot that’s a few inches higher than the surrounding area. If it rains hard, you don’t want to sleep in a spot where water is likely to pool up.

Pine Trees:

If heavy rain is not in the forecast, and if you only brought a bivy, you can sleep under the lowest branches of a big pine tree. All the pine needles above you will catch the big drops if it starts to drizzle. You might not stay 100% dry, but a good pine tree will keep a lot of rain away. Pine trees also smell nice. Additionally, they usually drop tons of soft fluffy pine needles on the ground, which are nice to sleep on. Make sure to look up in the tree to make sure there are no big, dead branches that might fall on you in the middle of the night.

Here is a diagram depicting the correct place to sleep when using a big pine tree to lessen the rain.

Bivy Sacks:
A bivy is basically a waterproof bag that you sleep in. Put your sleeping bag or quilt inside it, and crawl in. Over the years, I have carried a Cabela’s one, a Hilleberg one, and one that I made myself. A bivy will keep the rain off you, but the ventilation is bad, and you might get sweaty.

Here is a picture of a bunch of my jackass friends sleeping in bivy sacks.

Tarps:
A tarp is just a rectangle of waterproof fabric. You set it up with two (or more) sticks, some string, and at least 6 stakes. They can be a little tricky to setup, until you’ve done it a time or two. They keep you dry in everything but wind-driven sideways rain. You can set them up under a tree to filter out some of the heavier rain – like this.

When I don’t expect it to rain, I carry a 58″x 104″ tarp which doubles as a rain poncho. This particular model weighs 8oz, and is made in Williamsport, PA. It rocks, and you should get one. You’re going to want a rain jacket of some sort anyways. You might was well bring one that doubles as a shelter.

This is the poncho setup as a shelter.

Here it is in super-hero cape mode:

If there’s a reasonably good chance of rain, I carry an 8′x10′ tarp. Weighs 14 oz, still made in Williamsport.

One of the best things about a tarp is that you can see out all around the perimeter. In the middle of the night, you might hear woodland creatures scurrying about. In a tent, you will be convinced that there is a family of grizzly bears coming to eat you. In a tarp, you can quickly look around and see that it’s just a chipmunk, and go back to sleep.

Tents:
When all hell is expected to break loose, a tent may be in order (although an 8×10 tarp is pretty weatherproof). Tents are expensive, heavy, and usually more trouble than they’re worth. They do keep the bugs out, though. Tents give you the feeling of “going inside” at the end of the day. I feel that this somewhat defeats the purpose of going camping in the first place, but some people get a sense of security sleeping “in” something. Tents are also nice in a crowded campground, because you can change your clothes without offending the sensibilities of the church ladies in the neighboring camp site.

Here’s a matrix of my thinking on the pros and cons of various shelter strategies:

So, there you have it. You now know how to sleep in the woods without getting wet. Up next, how to stay warm.

Running off half-cocked to the sporting goods store is a sure recipe for unhappy camping. So, I thought I’d write a series of blog entries explaining how to go camping for complete novices.

First off, let’s define what camping is, and what the point of it is. Camping is when you go outside and sleep over. The point of camping is to escape from your house. Your house is full of all sorts of bullshit that you’re better off without, at least for a short time. There is television, phone calls, bills to pay, leaky faucets that need fixing, Facebook, etc. The point of camping is to say “fuck all this bullshit” and get the hell away.

This is an important thing to remember when you’re deciding what to bring with you on your camping trip. The more stuff you bring, the less you’re getting away from.

You can’t get away from it all if you bring it all with you.

Bring as little as you need to be safe and comfortable for the conditions you are likely to encounter. The more time you spend setting up and tearing down your campsite, the less time you have to actually be camping.

_{Do not buy a camper. This is worse than not camping at all. Now you’ve got a whole other house full of bullshit to worry about.}

I think it’s best to imagine a mythic, idyllic camping trip that requires absolutely no gear at all, and work your way up; only bringing the gear necessary to mitigate problems that are likely to arise when the real world differs from camping paradise.

The Idyllic, Mythical Camping Experience:

1. It never rains.
2. There are no mosquitoes.
3. The ground is as soft and comfortable as a feather bed.
4. The overnight temperature is warm enough to sleep naked with no blankets.
5. The forest is full of fruit trees and wild berries, so you never have to cook or do dishes. Bears will not try to eat your dinner.
6. You never have to go poop.
7. You are a Zen master — totally content to sit and commune with nature. You never get bored.

The Real-World Camping Experience:

1. It sometimes rains.
2. Sometimes there are mosquitoes.
3. Sometimes the ground is hard, cold, and/or lumpy.
4. Sometimes it gets cold at night.
5. You’re probably going to get hungry, and hungry forest creatures might try to steal your dinner.
6. You will have to go to the bathroom.
7. You might get bored.

In the Idyllic camp-out, you simply walk naked and empty-handed into the wilderness, sleep on the ground, and walk home when you’re done. You need no equipment at all. In the real world you will probably need one or two pieces of gear.

Not to worry, though. The problems presented by the real world require surprisingly little equipment to mitigate. My kit for an overnight trip in the woods weighs about 20 pounds, and fits in a small backpack. I can carry essentially the same kit in my bicycle panniers, or in the bilge of my kayak.

I’ll go over what you need and when you’ll need it as we go along.

Next up: What if it rains?

On one of the two trips, it rained. It poured. Like Apocalyptic, build-an-ark rain. Everything inside was dry as a bone. The ventilation is awesome. I had no condensation problems sleeping inside during the monsoon.

I think I need to retract, or least, modify my earlier statement about its roominess, though. I don’t think it’s really big enough to share with another dude without it feeling gay. Maybe if you laid head to feet, it might be ok. If there was a blizzard outside, or you were something appropriately manly, like climbing Everest or hunting Grizzly Bears, then it might not be gay.

It’s probably the ideal size to share with a lady, however. Though I’ve not as yet had any volunteers to test this theory.

Now that I’ve set it up a few times, I can get it pitched in about 5 minutes. The poles are a little bit confusing at first, because there are funny hubs holding them together, and it’s easy to try to put them in backwards.

I think I’m going to order the footprint for it next payday. You are supposedly able to set the thing up with just the footprint and the fly. Then you can crawl inside and set the actual tent part up without getting it wet. This sounds like one of those things that works in theory, but won’t work in practice. We’ll see.

At any rate, this tent rocks. Throw a Therm-a-Rest NeoAir in it, and it’s as comfortable as my bed at home. The NeoAir, btw, ranks right up there with indoor plumbing as one of the greatest inventions in the history of the world, but that’s a story for another day.

Here she is with no rain fly. Other than the floor, the whole thing is mesh, so on a nice night, you can see the stars without getting eaten by bugs. The door is cool, too. It’s only attached at the very top of the teardrop shape, so it doesn’t flop onto the floor when you’re getting in and out. There’s a pocket in the roof to stick the door into if you want to keep it open.

There’s a door on each side so you can get up to go pee in the middle of the night without having to crawl over your tent mate.

Here’s an overhead view from my deck, showing my sloppy pitch of the rain fly.

The moment of truth. I was able to get into it and lie down without my head or feet touching the ends. With a big fluffy winter sleeping bag, I might touch. It was too warm to try it today. Unlike most other tents sold as “2 person” tents, I think I could actually share this with somebody and not end up wanting to kill them in the middle of the night.

There are vents in the top of the rain fly to let out condensation, farts, etc. You can open and close them from the inside, so you don’t have to go out in the rain. That’s pretty nice.

There are little orange tie-out points all along the perimeter. I suppose you could tie it out really well if you were expecting a blizzard or something. I doubt I’d ever use them. The vestibules are fairly small. You could probably fit your shoes and a few odds and ends in them with no problem.

This is first tent I’ve ever owned that wasn’t some piece of shit from Wal-Mart, so I’m probably a little bit more excited about this than a sane person would be. I’m looking over my maps for bike-camping opportunities. I’ll hopefully get a chance to field-test it soon!

It’s less ideal on bicycling trips, unless you bring along some sort of poles to set it up. On my last S24O, we stayed at a crowded State Park campground. I didn’t have very much luck finding good sticks to set it up with, and I ended up having the whole thing crash on me in the wee hours of the morning, dumping water all over me. I also had mosquitoes buzzing around my head all night.

Less than ideal.

The tarp is also less than ideal you want to change out of your bike shorts without provoking lust in every woman in the campground. You don’t get much privacy under a tarp. Not an issue on a backpacking trip to the middle of nowhere, but not so good in a campground.

So, I decided I needed a lightweight tent for biking trips in civilized areas during bug season. The problem is that I’m 6’5″ and most tents are too short, and either my feet stick out, or I have to sleep in a fetal position. Not fun.

After some Internet research, I discovered that the REI half-dome and quarter-dome series tents are available in a “plus” size, that’s 10 inches longer than a standard tent.

So, the question came down to half-dome or quarter-dome. The half dome is $100 cheaper than the quarter-dome, but weighs a pound more, and comes in unsightly “apricot” color.

_{The REI half-dome T2 plus}

The Quarter-dome weighs a pound less, costs a hundred bucks more, and comes in a nice green / gray color.


_{REI Quarter-Dome T2 Plus}

This was a tough call to make based on only Internet pictures, so I drove all 104 miles to the REI in Conshohoken to see them both.

I was able to hold one in each hand, and the half-dome felt noticeably heavier. A pound doesn’t make that much of a difference on a bike, but there’s always the off-chance I might carry this thing on a hike where weight really does matter. So, I sprang for the quarter-dome. (Plus, I really disliked the half-dome’s colors.)

I got it home, disassembled it, and weighed all the parts on the gf’s baking scale.

I think I can live with a sub – 5 pound tent that I can actually fit into. It was after dark by the time I got home, so no pictures of the real deal yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to set it up ad snap some sometime tomorrow morning.

Now I need to find time for an s240 to see how it works in the real world.

I grew up a few miles from where we were riding, so I was already pretty familiar with the area. We planned a 20-ish mile loop Saturday, and a shorter loop for Sunday, with R. B. Winter State Park as our base camp.

We got kind of a late start on Saturday. It was probably around 1:00 before we started up the first climb out of the park.

It was about a 3 mile climb to the top of the first mountain. Even with my 17 inch low gear, I ended up walking some of it. At the top of the climb, there was a gorgeous view of the mountains all dressed up for fall.

I forgot to bring my camera, and I shot these with my cell phone, so that’s why they kind of suck.

After catching our breath at this overlook, we had about 5 miles of mostly downhill riding through the Spruce Run valley. A wild turkey ran across the road in front of us, but that was the only notable wildlife sighting.

Then we had to slog our way up Running Gap, where I stopped to refill a water bottle out of the stream. No filtration needed. It’s nice that there’s at least one place on Earth where you can drink the water straight from the stream.

After the long ride walk through the gap, it was a long, mostly gradual uphill back to the park.

About a mile from the end, we stopped off at another overlook to take some pictures.

We rolled into the campsite just before dark, where Klinutus and my evil sister were waiting for us. They brought us some cupcakes, of which we were in dire need.

After we finished off the cupcakes, we decided that our freeze dried camping food didn’t seem very appetizing, so we drove into town and got a pizza.

By the time we got back to camp, it had gotten really cold out, and we had no firewood. So, I lit my candle lantern, so we’d at least have some light, and we sat around the picnic table and drank coffee and talked a load of bollocks until late in the evening.

The next morning it was freezing cold. Sloth emerged from his tent and discovered he had forgotten to bring anything for breakfast.

Calamity!

So, we packed up our stuff and drove into town for the manly farmer’s breakfast buffet at Ard’s farm market.

The breakfast at Ard’s is delightful, but it’s composed almost entirely of grease. With a gut full of grease, we decided to bag the 15 mile loop we had planned for the day, and drove back to Harrisburg with all due haste, before gastro-intestinal misfortune could strike us unawares.

So, only 20 miles for the weekend, but they were good, hard miles. Probably worth at least 50 rail trail miles.

Sloth has a few more pictures on his Picasa.

(For those of you reading this on the OpenStreetMap Blog aggregator, I traced the whole thing, and added the campground we stayed in to the map.)

You see, Klinutus asked my evil sister to marry him a while back. As it turns out, my evil sister has highly questionable taste in men, and so she said yes.

Since there’s going to be a wedding, there has to be a bachelor party.

My evil sister forbade employment of the traditional bachelor party accouterments, like strippers and whatnot, so we had to make other arrangements.

It was decided that we would undertake an overnight whitewater canoe / camping adventure instead. So, we loaded up our canoes, tents, moonshine, etc. and headed to the north end of the Pine Creek Gorge.

I was still hopeful that someone had secretly arranged for strippers to meet us someplace along the water, so I wore my sexiest outfit.

I was traveling light, since I was in a kayak, but the other six fellows had canoes loaded to the gunwales with camping gear and booze. I sat patiently waiting for them to get everything loaded before we hit the water.

By my estimate, about half of the participants were already thoroughly intoxicated by the time we got underway. The first rapid swamped two of the three canoes.

As the day went on, the paddlers got drunker, and more canoes filled with water. At one point, Klinutus even had to throw a rescue line to retrieve a reveler from a watery tomb.

At long last, we arrived at our campsite for the evening. I was feeling quite smug by this point, because I had managed not to fall out of my boat all day. I waited by the shore for the others to unload their canoes. Then, I popped my skirt, and got out of my kayak, only to find myself swimming in water well over my head. Evidently I was not as close to shore as I thought.

Soggy and cold, we made camp, rigging our tarps with canoe paddles.

We stayed at the Hoffman camping area, which was quite lovely, as it’s only accessible by canoe or bicycle. It’s a nice open field, and we had the whole thing to ourselves.

There’s very little light pollution in this part of the state, and it was a clear night in an open field, so the stars were out in full force. Everyone seemed to enjoy the view.

That is, when they weren’t busy tending to the campfire.

There was much deep and insightful conversation about various and sundry topics around the campfire before everyone went to bed.

The following morning, it took people an astoundingly long time to get back underway. We didn’t launch the boats until almost 11:00.

The water wasn’t nearly as choppy in this section, and we were able to float along and enjoy the scenery for another 10 miles until we got to the take-out.

It was quite a lovely time, even without strippers. Amazingly, nobody drowned, and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves.

There are a bazillion more pictures here and here, if you want to see more.

Around this time I remembered that I had forgotten my tarp poles. Not really a big deal, I assumed I could find a few sticks in the campsite to set up my tarp with.

So, we rode down the YHRT, stopping at Serenity Station for some lunch.

After lunch, we had a few more miles of rail trail before turning off into the real world. I was a little nervous about this part, because I was the one who mapped out the route to the campground, and I did so without any real knowledge of the area. I just looked up the topography view on gmaps, and tried to steer us around any big hills, while simultaneously keeping us off busy roads. Luckily, I was pretty successful. We had a few hills, but nothing horrible. Traffic was also pretty minimal until we got close to the campsite.

A few miles before the campsite, we had some weather. It rained on us for maybe the last 2 miles of the ride, but once we got to our site in the “Timberdoodle Roughin’ It Area” of the campground, it had mostly stopped.

We decided to pitch our shelters before making dinner, in case it started back up again.

As I had forgotten my tarp poles, I had to make a little expedition into the woods to look for some sticks. The only sticks I could find were a little on the thin side, and a wee bit rotten, but they only had to hold a few pounds of tension, so I guessed they would serve.

After dinner, sloth poured a small vial of olive oil into his little cook pot. He lit up a second Esbit tablet when I asked him what he was up to. “popcorn!” He said. He was going to try to make popcorn over an Esbit tablet. It was the wackiest thing I had heard all day, and I was not optimistic about the odds of successful popcorn popping.

I was wrong. It did work, and the popcorn was pretty good. Luckily, Doc snapped a photo of the popcorn with the still-burning Esbit stove to document this achievement, as nobody would have believed it otherwise.

After dinner, we had some festive beverages, and a bit of conversation before turning in for the night.

About an hour after bedtime, it started raining. Hard. It rained pretty much all night long, which was kind of nice, because it chased the bugs away, and I was having some insect issues in my open tarp.

Just before dawn, I had to get up the answer the call of nature. I noticed that my tarp was much closer to my face than it was when I went to sleep. Nylon stretches when it gets wet, so the whole tarp had lost a good bit of tension and there was water pooling in some of the low spots.

As I was walking back from my trip to the potty, I briefly considered tightening things back up, but I figured we would be getting up for breakfast soon anyhow. Then, calamity struck! I tripped over one of the guylines, and one of my rotten little sticks snapped in two! The whole tarp came crashing down, dumping water all over my camping gear.

I therefore decided it was time to get up. I got my breakfast sorted out, and my camping compatriots were stirring soon thereafter. We were underway in a stiff drizzle by 8:00 or so.

We returned to Serenity Station for a second breakfast, and made the final push up the rail trail towards York.

At around the 50 mile mark, I was feeling pretty tired and lightheaded. Then I beheld a truly amazing spectacle. A penguin had waddled out onto the trail maybe 100 feet in front of us. This was very disconcerting, because penguins are not indigenous to this part of Pennsylvania. I asked my companions what manner of animal that was up ahead. They reported that it was a cat. It still looked like a penguin to me, but in a few seconds, it changed direction, and then I could see that it was, in fact, feline. A black and white feline, but a feline to be sure. I don’t know if I was just really tired, or if maybe Serenity Station puts hallucinogens in their breakfast omelets.

At any rate, we were soon back in downtown York, covering a total distance of 55 miles for the weekend.

Despite the rain, the tarp failure, and the hallucinatory penguins, it was a lovely time. I can’t wait to do it again.

When I arrived at the Sloth residence, it seemed to have turned into a bike shop of sorts.

Turns out he was putting a bike together so some of his neighbors could come along. Once all the bikes were packed and ready, we headed out through New Cumberland, and into the hills.

Oh, the hills. They were steep, and evil and ugly. And I walked up more than a few. After several miles of misery, we came upon a small country store, and got some gator-aid. I also bought some oatmeal-cream pies, because Kent Peterson is my nutritional role model, whether he likes it or not.

At any rate, the hills smoothed out (slightly), and we ran into Doc near the entrance to the camping area. This is Doc’s Trucker, all loaded up.

Our campsite was nice and scenic, but there really weren’t very many good places to put tents. State Park campgrounds are notorious for their hard, compacted ground. I only brought a RidgeRest to sleep on, and it wasn’t very comfy on the hard ground.

I was testing out some new gear on this trip. I had a Jacks-R-Better Stealth Quilt. It’s a cool piece of kit, because you can use it as a sleeping bag, and as a Serape to keep you warm while you futz around in the campsite. Dual-use items save pannier space and weight. It got down to around 37°F That night, but I was mostly warm, even though the stealth is supposed to be a summer-weight quilt.

I wore the stealth as a serape in the morning, while making breakfast and whatnot, and it was very cozy, if somewhat unfashionable.

At any rate, after a somewhat sleepless night on the hard ground, we rode back the way we came. Pausing several times to catch our breaths on the tops of hills.

At the end of the ride, we found that all the exertion had given us a hankering for burritos, so we made our way out to Neato Burrito to recharge our batteries.

All in all, it was a fun trip. I think I’m going to get one of those fancy new Therm-a-rest NeoAir mattresses for next time. My hips and shoulders were sore the next day from sleeping on the hard ground. Guess I’m getting old.

Doc and Sloth have both written up trip reports, so go and read them for some more insightful commentary on our adventure. Sloth is already hatching plans and schemes for another S24O sometime next month.