Me vs. Wild

Top 3 less than pleasant camping experiences for me:

Garner State Park: Late arrival campers set up at the site next to mine around 10:00 pm and commenced to whack away at the live ashe junipers in their site with a canoe paddle(!) attempting to start a campfire, succeeding in making only a smoky cloud of allergy triggering smoke. That of course drifted directly across my camp.

Garner State Park (sigh... again) Drama in the camp next to me... a couple yelling, screaming and fighting complete with a car peeling out in the middle of the night to leave only to come charging back a few minutes later. Somehow, keys soon after became lost and a search ensued with headlights and flashlights turning the campground into a light show to rival a hollywood premiere.

HCSNA: After pushing myself all day for just a little bit extra of trail mileage, I set up camp in the backcountry backpack area and went off to source water for dinner. Upon arriving back to my camp, a sizeable group of youths (very crude and impolite at that) on some sort of "inner city get out and camp" getaway set up right on top of me. So much as to be using my fire ring even! My telling them "this isn't going to work for me guys." set up for a night of crude comments and general rudeness in my direction. Speaking to the counselors/guides was useless.

Ahh.. much better to get that out... glad this thread came along!

Fortunately, these are uncommon occurances... 3 bad times out of maybe 50-60 trips... not bad.

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"All those who wander are not lost."