The first story that comes to mind when considering camping safety tips involves projectile burning hot dogs and shards of rock being blasted at my body. How does such a thing even happen around an innocent campfire? With camping season now upon us, let’s talk safety first.
A handful of friends and I were camping and keen for a small fire to cook, boil water and share ridiculous stories. That’s what fires are for.
To contain the fire, we built a rock ring around the edges. The rocks were acquired from the nearby creek. Some were wet to touch, and some weren’t. However, each rock shared the same interior explosive ingredients — air and moisture pockets trapped inside the rock after decades or longer of being submerged in water.
Smooth river rocks are ticking time bombs when direct fire is applied to them, and my shirtless buddies and I were naive to this. Huddled around the fire with hot dogs to cook, the first rock loudly and violently exploded. The hot rock chunks and pieces of hot dog went flying over our shoulders and bounced off our bodies. We were startled, but simply laughed it off. And then another rock exploded. And another, and another yet.
This is when we learned that river rocks are not the most appropriate fire barrier choice. Miraculously, none of us were harmed, but this story gave great inspiration to other unexpected and looked-over aspects of camping safety.
On this same trip, we also learned something valuable about camping next to a stream. The lesson is how one should always walk upstream for a couple of minutes to see what’s flowing down to the campsite.
After a night of using the creek water to cool our drinks and cool ourselves for multiple swimming sessions, we discovered something grotesque just 20 metres upstream and around the bend of our campsite — gigantic, bloated beaver carcass bobbing in the water stuck on some logs. Upon visual confirmation of the carcass, I pictured my buddies and I boiling that water for perogies and dunking our heads under the surface to cool off. The joke heading out of the woods that day was “let’s see who texts who first about visiting the washroom for the next 24 hours.”
Miraculously, none of us fell ill, but it was an important lesson nonetheless. If camping in more populated areas, one may also want to look for drainage or sewage outflow pipes upstream, too.
Also, make sure you’re truly aware of how close you are to some things and not others.
For example, one time I was back-country camping and thought I was deep from the road or any private property. Upon hiking out in the morning and reviewing my location on Google Earth the next day, I realized I was awkwardly close to someone’s backyard. I was one ridge away from someone’s personal space and privacy, and I even had a small fire. I’m sure most people wouldn’t appreciate a random camper that close to their backyard, so be sure to do your research.
On another occasion, I thought I was “in the middle of nowhere” and woke up to people walking on a hiking trail that I didn’t know existed directly across the creek I was camping on.
My final suggestion for selecting a campsite is to “look up before setup.” We’re on the lookout for “widow makers,” which are essentially dangling tree limbs that are hanging by a thread and could fall at any time. The morbid term for these types of loose branches comes from the many widows made during the logging days when working men were killed by such branches. I’ve nearly been hit by a couple myself, and I will never forget the horrifying sound they made when these humongous pieces of wood came smashing to the ground.
All that being said, should you be scared to go camping this season? Absolutely not. Statistically, we face greater risks every day of our lives driving on highways and the things we do at work. The natural world is beautiful and fairly easy to work with if you’re prepared, open-minded to the unexpected, and have a few safety tips like the ones I’ve given you in this article.
This post was originally published on this site be sure to check out more of their content.
