Re: Backpackers Etiquette.........
Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 6:04 pm
In the past I've written about this subject a number of times and could easily fill a small chapter in a book with experience, advice, and anecdotes. Your experience Packtofish is nothing new. I've seen it for decades. Personally I crosscountry into remote areas, often camp away from near water at viewpoints, and tend to find pristine spots away from obvious used camp zones. Those I backpack with have a tradition of spending considerable effort looking for the best camping location regardless of how tired we might be when we arrive. Time and time again that has occasionally given us amazing campspots only because we made the effort.
Groups of people often backpack several miles to a destination lake and then plop down right where a trail meets a large lake where one will find a little town of well used campspots. That is because after the effort and exertion of reaching the lake many backpackers are in no mood to hunt about for campsites. Thus rule #1 for those seeking solitude is to not take a campsite on a larger lake that is where a trail meets a lake.
Another hillarious aspect of that behavior is that people will hike miles and miles through absolutely vacant wilderness backcountry only to arrive at a larger lake where it seems for some reason all groups are tented every couple hundred feet or so along the shore while much of the rest of the lake has no one. And some will be so clueless as to later complain about how crowded it all was? Thus those groups did not bother to really look much. In fact there is a gregarious factor that I would speculate causes some people to subconsciously choose a camp spot near others. You see real wilderness actually scares many people. Now when a lake is small and is popular, it may be impossible to expect to find solitude unless one distances themselves from water. Of course many just cannot bear to be much more than a legal minimum from the amazing magnet of water. And sometimes even if a lake is somewhat larger, the terrain may not allow camping about it's shores because otherwise terrain may not provide any flat camp spots, shade, or shelter. But such situation like Ruby Lake up Rock Creek Canyon are infrequent. Another location about lakes that is the next most likely spot a town may set up especially at fishing lakes is where an inlet stream enters.
Your thread post mentions what happens if someone does move in close to ones camp spot? A couple years ago two of us backpacked into a small remote crosscountry lake at noon where no one was. We took the obvious nice view camp spot under whitebark pines and made camp. By afternoon three more parties had arrived and set up out of sight though within 200 feet of us. We knew the area we chose was the main camping area for the lake so such was to be expected. We looked about and found solitude in an unexpected area so after saying hello to our new neighbors, uprooted our gear and moved a couple hundred yards away.
What about a situation where a lake is large and there are vast areas where another group might set up camp but for whatever reason a group sets up camp right next to you? Well having to complain or ask a group to move a bit further away is certainly distasteful and sets up a bad vibe. Likewise would be uprooting one's gear then moving down the shore without saying anything. If it bothered me, I will likely say hello and then add were planning to move to such and such spot down the shore and then do so. Thus even though the new group has been told they are not the reason for the move, one can be sure they will regardless wonder. Enough so that the next time they choose such a campspot they may be more considerate.
Groups of people often backpack several miles to a destination lake and then plop down right where a trail meets a large lake where one will find a little town of well used campspots. That is because after the effort and exertion of reaching the lake many backpackers are in no mood to hunt about for campsites. Thus rule #1 for those seeking solitude is to not take a campsite on a larger lake that is where a trail meets a lake.
Another hillarious aspect of that behavior is that people will hike miles and miles through absolutely vacant wilderness backcountry only to arrive at a larger lake where it seems for some reason all groups are tented every couple hundred feet or so along the shore while much of the rest of the lake has no one. And some will be so clueless as to later complain about how crowded it all was? Thus those groups did not bother to really look much. In fact there is a gregarious factor that I would speculate causes some people to subconsciously choose a camp spot near others. You see real wilderness actually scares many people. Now when a lake is small and is popular, it may be impossible to expect to find solitude unless one distances themselves from water. Of course many just cannot bear to be much more than a legal minimum from the amazing magnet of water. And sometimes even if a lake is somewhat larger, the terrain may not allow camping about it's shores because otherwise terrain may not provide any flat camp spots, shade, or shelter. But such situation like Ruby Lake up Rock Creek Canyon are infrequent. Another location about lakes that is the next most likely spot a town may set up especially at fishing lakes is where an inlet stream enters.
Your thread post mentions what happens if someone does move in close to ones camp spot? A couple years ago two of us backpacked into a small remote crosscountry lake at noon where no one was. We took the obvious nice view camp spot under whitebark pines and made camp. By afternoon three more parties had arrived and set up out of sight though within 200 feet of us. We knew the area we chose was the main camping area for the lake so such was to be expected. We looked about and found solitude in an unexpected area so after saying hello to our new neighbors, uprooted our gear and moved a couple hundred yards away.
What about a situation where a lake is large and there are vast areas where another group might set up camp but for whatever reason a group sets up camp right next to you? Well having to complain or ask a group to move a bit further away is certainly distasteful and sets up a bad vibe. Likewise would be uprooting one's gear then moving down the shore without saying anything. If it bothered me, I will likely say hello and then add were planning to move to such and such spot down the shore and then do so. Thus even though the new group has been told they are not the reason for the move, one can be sure they will regardless wonder. Enough so that the next time they choose such a campspot they may be more considerate.
