Blazing Your Own Trail

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In the illustrated panel above I have in detail enumerated my maximum kit for a prolonged cycle-camping journey. But I improve considerably on this amount (I mean by cutting it down, of course) for journeys of only a few days' length. Remember one more maxim. "The really successful lightweight camper is one whose pack shrinks every year and whose enjoyment increases in ratio with every vanished ounce." I don't know if Steward Edward White actually said that, but if he didn't, he jolly well ought to have.

Just two examples to point the lesson. For instance, the novice camper will wear rubber boots in the rain—the, experienced camper will wear an old pair of sneakers. To wash the dishes the novice will take a polythene bowl, a squashy plastic thing of detergent. a dishcloth and a pan-scourer, heat up a kettle of water on a gas stove, pour the water into the bowl and put the bowl on a wobbly folding table. The lightweight man, once he's served his meal (and he should know how to cook and eat well!) will have already put back on to the fire the biggest pan he's used in his cooking, and by the time he has eaten, the water with be hot enough. Rockgrown moss or sandy turf are excellent pan scourers and his table is the hot firestone. The novice will have used seven unnecessary pieces of equipment, taken longer, worried about where he's put everything and insulted the landscape with his town-made toys. And that's just washing up!

Myself, I am a medium-weight cycle-camper, yet for such camping as I enjoyed, crossing the volcanic deserts of Iceland a few years ago on a four-man cycle-camping expedition inclusive of winter-weight clothes, stoves (no wood for fires in Iceland!) fuel, cameras, food stores, etc., we each carried a maximum of 35 pounds—this we considered excessively heavy. Compared with the elderly man we met there who had all his gear in his pockets and a tiny angler's pouch, or the couple who could reduce their bicycles and camping equipment to the 40 pounds air travel limit each, we were ponderous, indeed.

So much for equipment—now how to use it. The worst time in the cyclecamper's day is when he has to decide where to pitch camp. There's always the possibility of somewhere better, just a bit further on. (For the sake of this article I'm ignoring organized camp sites.) Ideally, one should camp far away from roads and houses, on gently sloping ground, never in a hollow or too close to a stream (those are my priorities, anyway—when camping, I dislike the thought of cars, house-bound people and flooding!) Pitch your tent in the down-wind shelter of trees by all means, but never under trees—heavy drips after rain will soak your tent, and wood-ants and mosquitos will invade you.

Check your proposed bed-space for rocks or other protuberances. You're not going to need a sissy air mattress to lull you to sleep after 70-80 hilly miles—a few pine tree fronds and a spare sweater under the hips and shoulders should be the extent of anyone's cossetting. Pitch your tent with its door facing east, so that the morning sun will revive, warm and dry you. Local climatic conditions may force you to vary this rule. Ideally choose a site where your view is agreeable. Your fire should be sited down-wind of the tent, its immediate area cleared of dry brushwood or inflammable dead grass. A trench fire is best—about two feet six inches long, ten inches wide at the upwind end, four inches wide at the down-wind end. With the big sheath knife cut out the turf as deep as you can to these dimensions. Edge this trench with flat stones (not granite, it explodes) or green logs. Put the piece of turf somewhere handy for replacing when you strike camp. Your cooking pots will rest on the stone or log edges of the fireplace. A low bright fire is best to cook with, so collect dry wood-dead branches on trees are usually the driest. De-turf and excavate a nearby "grease-pit" for your kitchen waste. Cooking is a subject all of its own, and excellent meals may be prepared with the simplest equipment. With experience, appetizing and elaborate meals can be cooked in the bleakest conditions on a couple of half-pint kerosene pressure stoves. All my cooking equipment, mugs and plates, etc., are of aluminum; it's light, strong, easily cleaned and fire proof.

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