Remember when camping meant . . .

[Grinnin]

Remember when camping meant a canvas tent.
In the rain we weren't supposed to touch the inside surface of the tent since that would cause it to leak there. And it sure was fun trying not to touch the insides of some of the pup tents available then. They all sagged in the rain. Wooden poles with steel ferrules, steel pegs, cotton, sisal, or hemp ropes.

Remember when sleeping bags were cotton and had their own "hood" that served as the wrapper to secure the rolled bag?
I have no idea where I saw pictures of the wrapper set up like a hood, but I can't imagine that ever working out very well. Certainly not in the Eastern or Midwestern U.S. Those sleeping bags seemed to gain some weight when wet.

Remember when good insulation under a sleeping bag was newspapers?
Perhaps this delusion was limited to my area, but for a weekend campout the Sunday-morning fire struggled with great gobs of moist newspapers. I am too young for the era of cutting fresh evergreen boughs to sleep on.

Remember when the types of raingear available were poncho or poncho or poncho? Perhaps this is just my limited view again.

And why is it that I mostly remember rain?

What do YOU remember about camping when . . .

[yeroc40]

The smell of white gas stoves and the lanterns with the uber fragile mantles that seemed to burn at about the same temperature as the sun.

[vwboomer]

I did a lot of backyard camping in a small canvas pup tent that my dad had. I don't recall it having a floor, but I could be wrong. Man that thing was small

Later on in years the family went camping a weekend or two a month during the summer. Great times. And yep, those Coleman lanterns were always in use. Stove too. In fact, just last summer the stove finally gave up and started on fire everywhere but the burner I don't know how old it was, but it had been around a lot of camping trips.


Lots of time spent fishing for dinner with dad.

[NICO]

Those Coleman lanterns got fucking HOT! You touched the top of one of those only once, then you knew your old man wasn't kidding.

[CousinLarry]

I hate camp posers!! The ones who bring a damn camper with electricity and water...

When my friends and I camp, we don't use shelter!! I just bring a cot and a sleeping bag.. If it looks like rain I'll bring a tarp to throw over me.

If I don't wake up with a deer licking my face, it's not camping!! hahahaa

[Claybuster]

I remember the hike-in/canoe-in sites in northern WI, hauling all our crap in. And yes, canvas army surplus tents, cheap nylon sleeping bags. Oh, and sand/dirt everywhere no matter how much you tried to keep bedding clean.

I finally gave in this year and bought a used enclosed trailer to haul bikes and rough camp out of. Kinda feel like a quitter:)

[Padriug]

When I was 11 or so, Dad loaded up the old Plymouth Volare station wagon with the fam and we drove/camped our way to Yellowstone and back from Milwaukee. Our tent was a 65lb canvas two room Coleman tent. No car seats, back seat folded down so we could lay on our sleeping bags while reading comics during the drive. Coleman stove, laterns, porta-pottie. Bathed in the Missouri and/or Mississippi, good times.

[Dave]

Don't you miss when people died regularly of consumption, TB, and polio? Didn't have indoor plumbing, or electricity?

Me neither.

I'll take my nice nylon tent that doesn't leak, doesn't weigh 300 lbs, sets up quickly, doesn't collapse, or smell like a wet dog.

And Jetboils rock.

[Heyload]

The last time I "camped", my poncho served to keep the rain off of me, served as my shelter, and served as my "backpack" when used with an improvised Alaskan sling.

No food other than what we could forage for, catch or snare. Any fire we had when allowed was started with basic materials that we scrounged.

Not to mention we got to practice escape and evasion while actively being hunted by the instructors, while also doing land navigation with a Silva compass.

And it rained...every....single....day....and....night.

Never got over 40 degrees.

Surprisingly it was kind of fun, in a serious way.

[CrashBar]

Mid 1960's, my folks are breaking camp in a rainstorm, they leave my little brother (4 or 5 at the time) in the 10x12 canvas tent while they load the car. He took out a bar of soap from the luggage and left it in the corner of the tent. It got packed up in the wet canvas tent when it was folded up....

Next time the tent was used in the rain, all these regularly spaced 2"x3" rectangles started leaking water like mad. The soap had wiped out whatever waterproofing it had come in contact with, and everypiece of canvas folded over it.

[ShadyRascal]

We had one of those heavy tents back in the 60's & 70's. Had those canvas sleeping bags with cotton inside, they were heavy and didn't keep you warm. Old pump up leaky coleman stoves and such.

That's why we never camped. That shit sat in the basement until carbon-dating dictated its disposal.

[Jamie]

Sleeping bags from Sky City or other discount store. Hot in the summer, cold in the winter.

[Grreatdog]

When I was a kid all of our camping equipment was purchased at the Greyhound bus station off of Marines. So USMC Vietnam era haversacks, canteens, web belts, sleeping bags and those monumentally lousy shelter halves were what we used. Almost all that military stuff was pure crap.

The only good kit by today's standards we ever got off those Marines were the combat knives and entrenching tools. Those old wooden handled e-tools might suck on a bike or in a backpack, but they are awesome for a land surveyors truck. I still carry the old style entrenching tool in my truck.

[hankgs]

The smell of duck canvas after being opened up after 9 months of storage, how good hamburger meat tastes eatting it outside and tasting 99% deet mixed with potato chip dust on your fingertips...

[Maggot12]

Originally Posted by yeroc40

The smell of white gas stoves and the lanterns with the uber fragile mantles that seemed to burn at about the same temperature as the sun.

I still use that gear and nearly every sporting/camping goods store still sells it....

The 200lb canvas tents... not so much