A Small Delaware Excursion
So I went on a little camping trip from Saturday morning to Sunday evening. I went with my neighbor buddy Kyle, another friend, Nicky, and Kyle’s mom’s fiance, Cliff.
We packed up 2 canoes and launched from the Martins Creek Boat Access Area at 9:00am. A short cruise later, we arrived at our camp site destination. It was a simple island, zero population naturally. We cleared out a site near the water, pitched the tents, built a fireplace (there were a TON of stones in the area), collected plenty of timber and generally set up for the day.
I did some fishing, wood carving, exploring, cooking, eating, reading and an incredible amount of swimming. Hell I even combined swimming and fishing at one point. Cliff spoiled us a bit with the food. I am certainly not complaining, but I was hoping to get a gauge of my potential for a longer camping trip.
Sleeping was quite pleasant and come the next morning I took my first outdoor crap ever (I’m not a sissy or anything, the opportunity just never arose before). I then later achieved what Kyle best described as a “Tabula Rasa” which was me bathing in the Delaware River (soap included). That was exhilarating; I couldn’t think of a better way to start a day.
After a hearty breakfast and some more fishing/swimming/fishswimming/swimfishing, we packed up and set a course for home. This was a 6 1/2 hour trip. We stopped to fish and float here and there. We took a break for a quick lunch at St. Anthony’s Nose (a particularly high and carved mountainside). It was around here I had my single catch of the trip: a pathetic 10-inch small-mouth bass.
There were about 6 sections of rapids on the trip. The first two that we hit didn’t work out too well. In the first set, we hit a rock and I got tossed out of the canoe and cut up my leg a bit. I’m swimming among huge rocks and grabbing up the loose items we lost. I get back to the canoe and start working the bailer and fucking Nicky is still sitting in his seat with his oar floating down river! Hahaha, I really enjoy this sort of wild adventure and sure I was just warming up to using the oar as a rudder (I was in the rear), but my paddling partner definitely proved to be incompetent. The second crash was more of a “wedging” but we took on WAY more water. After this it was smooth canoeing (and enjoyable overall anyway).
Ever since going up to these parts last year, I’ve had an idea for a “Phil to Phil” adventure. I’m going to work on the numbers of this weekend’s trip and get a rough estimate of the travel time. Since I’m not looking to kill myself, I figure 3 weeks is about right. But I’ll see. I also want to camp for a few nights here and there until next summer. I want to try decreasing supplies slightly to get a feel of the long-term. I figure there would have to be a lot of recycling involved for a long trip as well as fishing and trapping. I think packing that much food would be senseless. I do believe I have the ability to complete this adventure, but I certainly need more practice and knowledge first.
Anyone ever do a long-term camping trip? Anyone think they can do this one next summer?
Comments
I’ve gotten a lot better at being able to enjoy outdoor/wilderness activities over the past couple of years. Mostly from wanting my kids to have exposure to that stuff so they can decide for themselves if they like it or not rather than never being given the opportunity to find out simply because Daddy likes to stay inside and watch TV or play guitar. But I still don’t think I could do more than a weekend of camping and everything involved in it. Especially free flowing camping like you did rather than at an established camping area. I have a friend that canoed the evergladeds and camped on tent stands set above the water so that the alligators couldn’t get to them. Yeah. No way.
This is one of the reasons I love the show Survivorman because I just could not do that stuff myself.
J-Man, you are reminding me more and more of my good friend Chris McCandless. Are you doing all of this in preparation for an uncertain future? I mean, are you one of those guys who thinks our technological society is going to implode and that the only people that will survive are the ones that know how to live off the land?
I am definitely one of those people, but I’m not even close to rugged enough to do the long-term camping thing. I’m pretty sure I’d rather just die than live in a post-apocalyptic tribal society. I really would not look good in clothes made of rusty car parts, and there’s no way I’m eating any bugs.
Or do you just like camping?
we have all the fixins of a good campsite but just haven’t gotten around to it this summer yet. i think when my new schedule kicks in, we may do some late-summer/autumny camping.
This sounds so absurdly cool. I’m so friggin jealous. If you ever do anything remotely this cool again, please think of me. I don’t think I could go straight to the hunt, catch, and trap your own food camping as I have little experience in any of these categories, but I’d like to someday. Gotta start somewhere.
Also, I was totally going to echo your Into the Wild reference, Jay.
Kevin V. said:I have a friend that canoed the evergladeds and camped on tent stands set above the water so that the alligators couldn’t get to them.
Holy crap. See that’s what I like about the Philipsburg to Philadelphia plan. The Delaware River is a very tame area compared to most places. There is plenty of nearby civilization and the bears aren’t around except maybe up near the beginning.
Jay said:Or do you just like camping?
Being able to live off the land is something I would like to know, that’s for sure. But I don’t have a conspiracy theory of sorts to go along with. I just like a good challenge and a nature adventure is one of a kind in that regard. I hope to slowly improve my skills for a long-term session.
John e imparante l’italiano said:I don’t think I could go straight to the hunt, catch, and trap your own food camping as I have little experience in any of these categories, but I’d like to someday. Gotta start somewhere.
That’s precisely what I’m talking about here! Each trip should have less food packed and more hunter/gatherer techniques practiced.
Well, I still have yet to go hang-out camping with lots of food and beer this summer, so that’s priority 1. It must happen. I want to smoke ribs and not have it rain on them just as they finish this time.
But yeah, I’ve always figured, regardless of what sort of camping we do, so long as I’m able to make a fire in most conditions, we can probably bring a bag of rice and some vitamins to keep us going on a hunt/catch/trap trip if we suck. Which I’m sure we will. But I see no reason to go that drastic yet.
i would not go in the delaware river south of philadelphia without being paid a lot of money.
up by me it’s not bad, just.. rocky.
John said:Well, I still have yet to go hang-out camping with lots of food and beer this summer, so that’s priority 1. It must happen. I want to smoke ribs and not have it rain on them just as they finish this time.
i second this, john. and soon i’ll have weekends off! maybe a late summer trek? even into september when all the kiddies and families will be “back to school”?