# Wilderness Weekend Camp Out/ Practice



## Homestead Gal (Nov 25, 2008)

We hosted a Wilderness Weekend camp out on our homestead 2 weeks ago. I was amazed how much stuff people will bring to go "rough camping." Most folks didn't unpack half of what they brought!

The goal for the weekend was for each family to bring the things they thought they would need in a bug out situation. We all learned a LOT, especially from our guest speaker John Dupus. He came out for OK. to teach us about foraging and basic survival skills. Here are some observations of what I learned so far:

Me sleeping on the ground = a sleepless night with back pain the next day.
Solution: Hammock!:2thumb:

You can lead folks to a water purifier but you can can't make them fill it up (so they have more drinking water.):gaah:

Putting the Porta John 100 yards from the camp site encourages everyone walking by it to use it...every time they walk past it.

Beer is its own survival food group.:beercheer:

It's acceptable to eat off a plate your dog tongue washed. It is not acceptable to eat foraged food you haven't washed BEFORE you put it on the before mentioned plate. :scratch

When in doubt about how to react...don't.:dunno:

The stuff you packed you didn't need...what you needed you didn't pack.

You cannot go rough camping without electronic GPS...and a solar charger.

You can take the camper out of the woods but, 
_it requires tweezers to get the woods out of the camper._

Nuf said!


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## d_saum (Jan 17, 2012)

Awesome exercise! I wish I knew like minded people around here to do the same thing! The only thing I disagree with is.... I don't think it's acceptable to eat off a plate that my dog has cleaned with her tongue! LOL... I know I know.. but yeah, I just can't do it.


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## Homestead Gal (Nov 25, 2008)

It was fun as well as TIRING! It takes a lot of time to forage for food. Now I know why my horses and goats spend all day with their noses in the grass...

...the doggy washed plate thing...I couldn't do it either. I've seen some of the places my dog's tongue has been...ewwwww.


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## bahramthered (Mar 10, 2012)

Homestead Gal said:


> ...the doggy washed plate thing...I couldn't do it either. I've seen some of the places my dog's tongue has been...ewwwww.


The first time your dog frenches you accidentally while your sleeping is gross. Around 4 or 5 you start getting over doggy drool or figure out how to get up before slurrpy needs outside trips.

Heck most medical and veterinary experts would rather have fido take a chunk out of them over a human (non zombie).

Your event sounds cool. Wish there was a local one.


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## Ration-AL (Apr 18, 2012)

awesome, everyone needs to do this, sounds like you guys were starting to get to the root of it, the truth is like what everyone keeps saying "practice" , unless you actually get out there with your packs and gear you don't really know what you need,what you don't,how to pack it, where to pack it in you bag, and the million of other things that only come with the experience of trial and error and doing it this way is much better then trial by fire!

this sounds like my style of get together, hang out around the fire learning a thing or two and practicing with our toys, seems like someone should have brought a compass though and had a go over on one of those, maybe hide the toilet and then give them coordinates to find,that might have cut down on usage a bit ...lol 

i'm heading out the next two weekends to go play in the woods, i'm going to play with a few snares and build a keyhole fire and see how that works for me,never tried that method of cooking before and going to give it a shot!


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## timmie (Jan 14, 2012)

planning a three day camping trip first week of july. our children are going with us .it will be interesting to see how they do. back to basics


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Souinds like you all had a good time. Exercises like this are extremely beneficial. We're out for the week too. We just put the wood stove in our home-built camper. We used a U-Haul truck and converted it to a camper. We live on a very rough road and like to camp in primitive places so we needed something tougher than a conventional camper or motorhome. We also wanted something small enough to get into out-of-the-way spots.


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## NaeKid (Oct 17, 2008)

mosquitomountainman said:


> Souinds like you all had a good time. Exercises like this are extremely beneficial. We're out for the week too. We just put the wood stove in our home-built camper. We used a U-Haul truck and converted it to a camper. We live on a very rough road and like to camp in primitive places so we needed something tougher than a conventional camper or motorhome. We also wanted something small enough to get into out-of-the-way spots.


Nice looking setup there ... any chance of convincing you to describe your U-Haul-camper-conversion over in the vehicle's section? :wave:


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## Turtle (Dec 10, 2009)

Very cool! I am doing a camping trip like that at the end of July (not far from Harrisonburg, actually). My best friend lives in Roanoke, and he has just recently come around to the idea of prepping.


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## Homestead Gal (Nov 25, 2008)

Turtle said:


> Very cool! I am doing a camping trip like that at the end of July (not far from Harrisonburg, actually). My best friend lives in Roanoke, and he has just recently come around to the idea of prepping.


There is some great places to camp in the mountain around Roanoke. We are about 25 min. north of Harrisonburg.

We did our camp out on the back side of our property close to the river. We are secluded but not remote. Our local post office and country store are only a mile from us. The way our property is situated, most folks have no idea the land area we have as it is not all that visible from the road.

I'd encourage all to just go camp somewhere and get used to your equipment. Most national parks have plenty of places for rough camping. Find a friend who has some property and ask to go camp there.

IMHO: The only difference between weekend campers and preppers is preppers know they may have to camp indefinitely AND are ready to do so. Weekend campers have a more recreational mind set, in that camping is recreation AND you can always go back home.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

NaeKid said:


> Nice looking setup there ... any chance of convincing you to describe your U-Haul-camper-conversion over in the vehicle's section? :wave:


It's still kind of a work in process. We make a little more progress each year. I'll try to put something together when we get back. It's kind of a nice rig for our type of camping.


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## mosquitomountainman (Jan 25, 2010)

Homestead Gal said:


> ...I'd encourage all to just go camp somewhere and get used to your equipment. ...


I think you had a great idea there. We're trying to get some in our state together and maybe we can talk them into something similar.


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## hiwall (Jun 15, 2012)

I used to rough camp but the last couple years I switched to a small motor home. I'm to old to sleep on the ground! I go on amazingly rough roads with it(it seldom sees a paved road).


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