CHAPTER 1

MODERN CAMPING

One balmy summer night several years ago, while camping off the coast of DownEast Maine, I sat on a log and twirled a hot dog over a crackling fire. Myhusband and two children joined me in this time-honored ritual.

I wondered: Can a vacation get any better than this? We had just spent a weekhiking, kayaking, mountain biking, swimming, and lazily pitching stones overcool, clear waters. Now it was time to go home. "Where shall we camp next year?"I asked brightly.

"In a hotel," retorted my son. He popped a marshmallow into his mouth andglanced at his sister. She nodded in agreement. They had obviously discussed thematter.

How could such a shocking idea emanate from the lips of my own flesh and blood?Our annual pilgrimage to the great outdoors was a family tradition, our way ofwashing off the dreck of civilization.

As the number-one camping enthusiast in the family, I couldn't help but take thehotel suggestion personally. Had the kids gone soft? Did my children have issueswith Mother Nature or—heaven forbid—their own mother?

"A hotel sounds great to me," chimed my husband. As he spoke, I noted he wasleaning perilously forward on one of our dilapidated camping chairs. The plasticwebbing had shredded away from the rickety frame. Collapse was imminent.

At his feet sat Quincy, our Labrador/golden retriever—a foundling from thestreets of New Haven. The mutt of my dreams was fixing me with baleful eyes.What's going on? I asked myself. Dogs love camping.

"We're just fed up," my husband volunteered. "We come back to our campsite atnight, and we're forced to reckon with this lousy equipment. It's time for achange."

As the evening wore on, the campfire stories revolved around our battles withthe elements, and with our gear. "Remember when our tent blew away in thehurricane?" marveled our daughter.

"It was only a tropical storm," I corrected her.

"Well, my sleeping bag felt like a wet sandwich," groused our son. "And when Iwashed it at home and took it out of the machine, all the insulation had clumpedto the bottom."

With a heavy heart I scanned the scene. Our threadbare tent was suspended fromwobbly poles. Inside it stood four cots with their middles sagging, each cottopped by a thin pad. The gauntlet was thrown. I had to come up with a solutionfast. Otherwise, camping en famille was history. And I regarded this piece ofour lives as too valuable to toss away.

Love of the outdoors was bred into my bones. The offspring of a huntin' fishin'father, I grew up camping high in the Allegheny Mountains of westernPennsylvania. As a student in Paris, I backpacked through Europe on a fewdollars a day, sleeping in haylofts, hostels, and the outbuildings of chateaus.Returning to the States, I pitched my tent at music festivals, politicalrallies, and on coastal beaches.

But it wasn't just for my own sake that I wanted to safeguard our family'scamping experience. The values of camping were something I wanted to pass on tomy children. I wanted to instill in them the sense of unpredictable adventurethat comes when you exit the beaten path. And camping was a way to help them seethe country's natural resources up close and convey the importance of preservingthem for future generations.

But their complaints had merit. Like many families, we had purchased our gearwilly-nilly at big-box retailers. We hadn't given much thought to quality ordurability. So it was not surprising that our equipment had not held up well.

The next morning as we wended down Maine's Route 1 and I puzzled over ourmeltdown, I had what I call "my epiphany." If we could avail ourselves of thelatest technological innovations in camping equipment, we could make our outdoorexperiences almost hassle-free. As if by divine intervention, we approached asign for L.L. Bean: gear nirvana. "Pull over!" I barked at my husband.

Anyone who ventures into one of America's great gear emporiums is immediatelystruck by how camping has taken on a bright new look. The venerable old brownboots and drab-looking tents in subdued hues have been replaced by cheerfulcolors.

Much of the new gear is user-friendly, compact, durable, and downright stylish.It gives nature lovers the freedom to enjoy the outdoors without being hamstrungby cumbersome, weighty equipment.

These gear headquarters are vacation destinations in themselves. Companies rentspace in their cathedral-size rooms for conferences, and couples have even beenmarried in these stores (guests are surrounded by gift ideas). Much of thestores' popularity has to do with a resurgence in outdoor pursuits. Camping isthe number-one outdoor vacation activity. According to a recreation executivereport, one-third of the adults in the United States has gone on a campingvacation in the last five years. Since 9/11, camping activities have risen 30percent.

Increasingly, Americans are choosing to bring home amenities to their campsites."We still have diehards, folks who want to rough it and take the minimalistapproach," says Jim Reid, an executive at Coleman, "but the much, much strongertrend is families who want to maximize convenience and comfort."

Returning home from Maine, I donated any salvageable gear we owned to Goodwill;the rest I tossed in the dump. Then I set about mastering camping in the twenty-first century. During the process, I enlisted the help of experts in outdoorequipment, field-tested products and sought honest opinions from other campers.

I soon realized that outdoor enthusiasts want the straight scoop. You're hungryfor accurate information about gear—particularly new merchandise that'slightweight, portable, and practical. You may be put off by the mind-bogglinglingo of technical gear and wonder whether some of this gear is reserved for theoutdoor elite. You want specific tips on how to cut through the feature-intensive confusion and simplify your needs. Most of all, you don't want to beburdened with advertising hype and hearsay.

What's the best way to tackle this book? You can read it straight through, oryou can zero in on your particular interests. The chapters cover gear,activities, and modes of camping. Let's be clear, however: This is not a primeron the basics of camping, nor is it a handbook on the fundamentals of particularoutdoor activities, such as "How to Backpack" or "How to Kayak and Canoe."Numerous books have already tackled these subjects. What's more, this book isn'twritten for campers who are interested in strenuous or highly technical pursuitssuch as through-hiking, mountaineering, whitewater paddling, or transcontinentalbike touring....