Leave Your Smelly Socks Outside the Tent

(If possible)

The thought crawled into my head as I hunkered down to spend a night isolated from the rest of the world. It was my second time solo camping–just outside the Grand Canyon this time– and I had already leaned something new.

Don’t leave your socks in the tent. It’s not a good time, trust me. You don’t want to be smelling that, no matter how big the tent.

Socks off inside the tent, it’s odd what the brain skips to after a long day. around 8 hours of driving, back from visiting a friend in New Mexico, and this was the first night of two on the road, camping in remote areas, and attempting to appreciate the beauty around me.

And perhaps I should have. I camped out at Ten-X Campground, a nice reserve campground outside the park because the actual park campground was full. Middle of June. Nice and busy time in the park.

So, instead of sitting in my tent, waiting for the stars to come out, and reading a book, I shoved my head deep into my sleeping bag, and went to sleep. Thankfully no stinking socks were festering in there. They were safely outside, in the open air. Free to stink up whatever unwitting animal came my way.

The upside of camping, as I like to see it, is that you gain a kind of natural sleep cycle after really only one night. Waking with the sun on the first morning always tends to be a little rough on the brain, but the next night camping, falling asleep as the sun sets, and then waking up as it rises, has a really nice and natural feeling to it. No alarm clock needed.

Additionally, invest in a tent that has everything with it. It doesn’t have to be the best or the lightest (especially if you are just car camping like I was), but having everything together and knowing that there are no missing pieces is a peace of mind that I really do love having.

This is coming from someone whose family would seemingly never have all the right pieces together and we always would end up cobbling a tent set together with either the wrong rain fly, or poles that were from god knows where but still somehow fit, and every time it was a mess.

So get a tent, keep track of all the pieces, and take good care of it. It pays off when you’re at the campsite and you know that everything will work as it should.

I hope sometime down the line I will write on my time at the Grand Canyon but, as this is just focused on the camping of the trip, I’m going to skip over that in favor of looking forward in time, to that evening, almost 600 miles west, at the foothills of Mt. Whitney.

I had aimed on plonking myself down in a place called Alabama Hills, inspired by a great youtube video that I had seen a while back, but searching for an empty spot there proved to be nothing but a headache, and so I traversed a little further down the road to a proper campsite called Tuttle Creek Campground.

Except, I was not quite at the campground. In wanting to forgo a crowded time and keep to the wide wild expanses of the west, I decided to camp at a little pullout a couple hundred feet from the actual campground. Was it truly a camping spot? I’m not sure, but by the time that I was done with it, it sure looked like one.

Camping right on the edge of the veritable Tuttle Creek, I decided to wait that night for the sun to set. A clear sky and miles from any major city meant that I was in for some really nice star gazing–or at least I hoped so.

It seemed to pay off though, and as I snapped away, playing with my cameras settings and hoping that the battery did not die on me, I was realizing that I was having a very enjoyable time. I was alone, with nothing but goldfish and some starburst for my dinner, but I was loving it. The wide expanse before me, the soft sound of the creek to my right, and the mountain range behind me, made me feel like I was the only one in the area.

Camping has a way of realigning everything. It never makes me feel small, but it makes me feel more at peace with the world. Being in that natural beauty pauses my brain on whatever warpath towards anxiety about the world it was on, and just feels like one long and drawn out deep breath.

And, with stars this amazing, how can you not feel that way?

In true camping style though, that night and into the next morning I learned one more thing about camping:

Always be aware of the wind.

It was brutal that night, with the rain cover of my tent slapping away at the side and keeping me up just about all night. Something to keep in mind in the future: find wind breaks, wether that be a tree, bush, car, gulley, whatever, use it! Appreciate still nights, and always prepare for some mean wind.

That or bring some ear plugs…

That was the last day of my camping trip, and although three days on the road had taken their toll on me, I would be lying if I said that I didn’t already want to do it again.

A learning experience, in many ways. And in other ways, a nice time to forget the usual worries of the world and be focused on where I was going to set up camp, or where I was going to get dinner. Some may argue that I was a little unprepared, but I felt like all I needed was my tent, sleeping bag, sleeping pad, reservations, and the rest would sort itself out.

And it did. And I had a great time.

And I can’t wait to do it again, next time, whenever that may be, all the more prepared for what’s to come.