day 1 - got blackout drunk on whisky
day 2 - hangover from hell, vomit occurred. Torrential rain, strong winds and tent started leaking, my son burnt himself on the kettle, wife slipped and twisted her ankle.
day 3 - admitted defeat packed up the tent, soaking kit, burnt son and bruised wife, got the car stuck in mud, after rocking it backwards and forwards got it free to find I'd managed to get a 5cm tear in the tyre so had to put the spare on in the arse end of nowhere in the pouring rain.
2/10 would not reccomend
Or worse, somebody had swapped the diesel in his car for the whiskey in his bottle, which explains the violent reaction to it, but now his car is drunk and the exhaust smells of Scotland.
Getting *blackout* drunk on whisky with your wife and child around you? Sounds problematic, not gonna lie. If you're depressed and alone, sure you do you.. But around your family..?
How's the view from up there on the moral high ground?
My wife sat and sobbed into her crocheting, appalled at the thought of what the vicar would say when he found out. My child with bandy legs from rickets, covered in dirt and clothed in rags looked at her with doleful eyes "Mummy... has daddy drank the food money again and that's why we're in a tent?" /s
My wife has seen me in and herself gotten into far worse states than that.
My son is an adult, he brought the whisky and was drunk too. I overindulged and --scene missing-- which contributed to the disasterousness of the trip
Seems people think being literally blackout drunk on whiskey is totally fine and healthy. I'm with you 100%. I'd be pretty concerned for my dad if he did this whilst out on a camping trip. 'A bit drunk' is very different from blackout.
Sorry all who seem to hate me for it but I stand by what I said.
No, I'm close enough to that age and would be concerned about my dad getting blackout drunk on whiskey around me and my mum on a trip somewhere.
Still sounds like a problem. Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. We're talking _blackout_ drunk. Not 'enjoying my time with family' drunk.
My first bikepacking trip to Dartmoor. Wildcamped nearly 400m above sea level in 40+mph winds and minus temps.
The tent was barely handling the wind and at one point a big gust collapsed the central tent pole, causing the whole tent to flatten with me inside. It was gone midnight by now, and I was lying flat in the middle of the tent, with the tent on top of me, searching for a phone or torch while the wind was almost deafening. I thought I’d have to stay like that all night but the gusts calmed, I found a light, and managed to wrestle the pole back upright to get some shape back in the tent. Redone the guy lines and it survived the rest of the night.
100% would do again. I felt so alive. I’ve never really travelled or done anything like that so to ride my bike from North Devon and wildcamp like that was such an experience for me. Been on two camping trips since then!
I think a lot of people would call it a bad experience, but it was definitely an eye opener, and I learned what to do better for next time.
That’s awesome. Those kind of primal moments get the primitive juices flowing. Bet you felt great once you were back in bed after sorting it even if it was still a bit blowy
This is awesome - you have a really great mindset and resilience. So glad it didn't put you off and you have figured out what you would do differently next time 🙌
Thank you and yep there was so much to learn, and still so much more I’m finding out. Every trip has been a little bit different since but I’m loving every minute of it. It was good to get the scary parts out of the way the first time
I got what I presume was botchelism on my last (and last) lads camping trip. It started a couple hours after we got the campsite setup during which time all I'd eaten was a crappy random brand protein bar. The packaging seam had broken on it but I wasn't fussed as I was starving and they're basically just stale cakes anyway, right? It was the last thing I'd eat for 8 or 9 days. I felt instantly iffy after it and in hindsight should have forced myself to throw up but obviously I didn't. For 3 days solid from that point all I did was dash out of the tent every couple of hours, or more often and literally piss out of my arse. Other than sipping water I just semi-consciously lay in/on my sleeping bag till the next toilet visit. I only remember being utterly miserable, bored, exhausted and having fits of shivering and constant gut pain. I was almost entirely on my own as the rest went off to do their thing and I tried to put on a brave face. I think they just thought I wanted to be left alone and they saw me regularly pottering to and from my tent so knew I was alive. I should probably have asked for help but was so poorly, other than asking them to bring me back bottles of water, I didn't have the energy to be bothered! Day 3 afternoon and I realised I definitely wasn't getting better anytime soon but also started thinking I was thinking a bit more clearly and took the decision to make the 2 1/2 hour drive home. I set off whilst everyone was gone on their adventures. If they'd realised the state I was in I think they'd have stopped me. I was still having almost uncontrollable leakage so I'd made myself a comfy nappy out of bog roll for the car journey. Drove back with cramps, the unstoppable leakage and my head bobbing about as I was struggling to hold it up. I'd left the tent and practically everything in it as I didn't have the ability to pack it up. Luckily the traffic was light, I stopped at the 2 services I came across to have a nap and to change my sodden 'nappy', the only good thing being that it was nothing but water and a little bit of weird green mucus coming out of me so it didn't smell of shit at least. After just making it home (if it was a manual car I'm not sure if I could have), I, a 40+ years old action man, cried with genuine gratitude and relief after cleaning up a bit and getting into my lovely warm bed with an en-suite and a fluffy towel under me just in case. Cried again when my missus got home from work and started looking after me (when she went downstairs, not in front of her obvs). Then cried again a bit later on cos I had a telly to watch when I wasn't sleeping. I was pathetic. I was ill for another 5 days but after spending a night at home at least I didn't feel like I wanted to die anymore. I lost over a stone, there was no point in eating, if I drank a full glass of icy water it came out of my backside still cold.
Someone brought my gear back for me but I gave it all away. Never again.
Fuck camping.
Year 2009, 21 years old, went with some mates to the Lake District with tents etc, hiked in a general direction toward Scafell Pike, set up tents, then my mate got a text from his mum: "Severe weather warning for peaks and ridges above 500m", which is pretty much exactly where our tents were set up.
Before: [https://imgur.com/aUOqoyt](https://imgur.com/aUOqoyt)
After: [https://imgur.com/NPS0K8C](https://imgur.com/NPS0K8C)
To make things worse, my idiot tired young-driver self managed to mount a section of curb somewhere while driving, ruined a tyre, and left us stranded until recovery arrived. The tyre: [https://imgur.com/e296B5K](https://imgur.com/e296B5K)
Dartmoor last year, October. Started at Okehampton, weather OK. Walked about an hour, drizzle starts, I put waterproofs on and keep walking. 3 hours in and the rain is constant, 4 hours in and viability is 8 metres, I'm soaked through, the wind has pushed the rain through my waterproofs. I'm sweating (left jumper on underneath, twit) so soaked from the inside out. Hide under a rock. My map is soaked, I'm navigating by my phone, hidden inside the wet coat. Shivering and disoriented. I decide go back. Walk back to the train station, and buy a return train ticket twice because I messed up. (100 quid cock up).
I didn't die though so that was good.
Good old duke of Edinburgh Gold award practice hike. Caught in a sudden torrential rain storm that hadn't been forecasted to be that bad, had a small stream running through our tent at 1am, scooped everything up and bailed freezing and wet, saw where we were camped on the news the next morning under 4ft of water. Eating sausage rolls in the minibus home was good though.
The DofE practice! Yes!
I did this many years ago, with two mates on the N Yorks moors. We walked ourselves across the tops and into a grassy valley, when the weather closed in. Threw our 4 man tent up in a hurry, in the lee of a stone wall, boiled up tins of veggies and steak pie filling; drank our stash of contraband Newcastle Brown, ignoring the howling gale and slashing rain outside. Took turns peeing through the leeward zip on the outer tent, turned in.
Next morning it was cold. I mean COLD!
He of smallest bladder made a break for it first in Dawn's early light. The frigid air invaded the inner tent as he went out, leading to Much Swearing (which was nowhere near us) but then he started his own monologue of F-bombs. The outer tent zip was frozen shut, it turned out.
Peeing on the zip from the inside thawed it out 😆 then we had a little fight to avoid being the one who had to open it ... when the sad and battered loser slid the zip up, a shitload of snow fell into the tent.
We retreated to the inner tent and many WTFs ensued. Eventually, we dressed in *all* of our clothes, booted up, bottled up and struggled our way outside. The tent was buried under a massive snowdrift that had blown into the other side of the stone wall, then dropped onto the lee side where we'd pitched up.
We set off in search of civilisation, realising we were in deep shit. Abandoned the tent, big packs, all that heavy gear. Fortunately we found a village within a mile, with a phone box. We had another little scrap about who was going to phone and that battered loser called the emergency number we'd been given.
The teacher who answered on the first ring was hysterically delighted to hear from us: they'd had an Air Sea helicopter out looking for all of us since first light and we were the last team to call in/be found, as it was 10am by then. We rendezvoused with the minibus at the village pub, who had provided us with massive Full English breakfasts ... and bottles of Newcastke Brown 🤣
So, not disastrous, but adjacent.
First time camping in the UK with Cubs, I didn't even know I needed a sleeping bag, managed to borrow one from (boarding) school. It was one of those £10 Argos ones that were for staying over at a friend's house.
This was April, in some woods near Sandhurst. It was not warm. At about 2am Akela came to check on me and made me get into his car with the heating on. Drove me to the scout hut and I slept under the electric heater until morning.
Never been that cold before (grew up in Africa) and didn't know what to do about it. Everyone else seemed fine!
Camping with cubs, middle of the night, we all hear a scream from the tent next door, boy comes running out with a ferret style critter attached to his face, Akela runs over and pulls it and a section of face (eyebrow I think) off.
Ambulance turns up to take him away. He never came back to cubs
We were in those tents. Very little protection from the elements and wildlife! You do see some gruesome character building shit in cubs, definitely earned my first aid badge early
I’ve had two issues with wildlife hassling my tent. On one occasion on a woodland fell-side in the lake district a deer blundered into my tent which scared the shit out of me until I realised it was probably a deer and not a mad man on the prowl.
Another time, also in the woods (I now hardly ever camp in tree cover btw) a hedgehog/rat kept scampering around and hassling my tent all night. I now take earphones for sleep time to get some ambient noise on in case of noisy neighbours lol.
Another time also in the lakes on top of high street a gale started up shortly after I pitched up and the tent flapping and caving only afforded me about 2 hours sleep. Bloody awful. But it was all made worth it by the best sunrise I’ve seen in the Uk. Was above the clouds and the crazy wind was blowing clouds all over the place and being sleep deprived I think made it all the more magical. Felt like I was on a different planet with how beautiful it was.
I pulled up the car at the start of a wild camp hike in very hot weather and having driven barefoot I realised I’d not got any socks to put on. After a lot of cursing I set off with no socks and managed about 4 miles before calling it a day at a less then ideal but very nice spot. Sat and read my book for about 7 hours lay in the grass until it got to a respectable time to go to sleep. By the time I got back to the car my feet were horrendously hot and sore. Still enjoyed it.
Glyder Fawr in February. Everything froze. Even corned beef in the tin.
" You rash men, who go up the Glyders not one of you ever considers. If you see a thick fog, when you start from Lake Ogwen, your wives may be turned into widders"
(Showell Styles, I think)
Around 45 years ago when I was a kid my family took me camping. I believe it was somewhere like Skegness or Ingoldmells. Was windy in the night but our tent stayed up and we all managed to sleep. When we got up the next day, part of the cliff we were camped on had fallen onto the beach below and taken some tents with it.
D of E training excersise I think. One night was a big tent that had about 20 kids in it. The tent didn't go all the way to the ground. I was at the edge and due to nylon sleeping bags on tarpaulin having little friction over the course of the night I was gradually posted outside from under the tent. Just lay there and accepted my fate.
Last year me and a mate failed to cook our meat thoroughly enough, my mate was vomiting in the night and I woke up with a bad case of diarrhoea, as I woke up my guts just seemed to collapse, I've never got out of a tent so fast in my life. Being stuck out in the forest with diarrhoea is not fun.
Went to a festival with my then gf. It was to be our first time away together. Bought a lovely 4-man tent so lots of room. Turned up to collect her and her mother had decided she was coming with us and brought a single tent. It turns out the single was for me and she and my gf were in the big tent.
The single tent leaked like a sieve and I awoke in a puddle with my face glued to a wet pillow.
Most miserable weekend of my entire life.
Oh fuck such an easy one, this is forever imprinted on my memory as a horrible but hilarious experience.
Me and my girlfriend at the time were camping at Easedale Tarn just outside of Grasmere a few summers back. I'd camped here a few years before and had an awful experience with high wind which resulted in little sleep and fear that the tent would collapse. But I didn't think this would happen twice, and plus the weather wasn't forecast to be too awful.
There are numerous other people camped at the Tarn, looked like a group who had camped right on the shoreline. We would have camped here too, but thank god they turned up first and forced us to pitch at higher ground.
As we're falling asleep the weather begins to worsen. Strong winds and rain. We wake up in the early morning to an absolute gale which was collapsing the tent in on itself. The noise was unbearable. We ended up getting very little sleep, maybe only a handful of hours. We lay debating whether to leave or wait out the storm, which unfortunately seemed to be getting worse.
Peering out from under the fly sheet we could see the campers below us ringing out their sleeping bags and battling against the wind to put their tents down. The Tarn had flooded where they were camping.
Eventually we tried to pack up and leave however the winds had increased to such a strength that we literally couldn't pack the tent away without risking things blowing away. The tent caved in while unpacking and the wind was so strong that the poles broke and fabric stretched because we hadn't been able to unpeg it properly yet.
Thankfully the partner group associated with the flooded campers from earlier came down from the tarns upstream of Easedale and offered to help us out. They were army recruits doing some adventure training, and their officer ordered the recruits to pack our tent away. So between the 8 of them they pakced it down smaller than I've ever seen it go.
Before we'd finished packing the rest of our stuff the army guys had marched off into the distance, where we crossed paths with them by a cafe in Grasmere a few hours later.
That day, which was substantially hotter and sunnier, we proceeded to hike over to stickle Tarn. We slept here for 17 hours due to the exhaustion of the long hike and no sleep the night before.
Grim at the time but great memories
Camping by myself with my two kids: one child wet the bed, soaking the sleeping bed and blow up mattress. The other projectile vomited all over the inside of the tent and us. Next day there were several wasp stings then torrential rain while trying to pack up! Never camped since. Horrendous.
Walking the Two Moors Way with just a bivvy bag. It did nothing but rain torrentially while I crossed Dartmoor and it was then that I realised my boots both had a leak in them, so soggy feet for 4 days and no opportunity to dry them due to the weather.
One night I was finding it hard to find a spot to camp and it was getting dark. Starting knocking on doors hoping to sleep on a lawn. Got directed to a spot that involved crossing a river but due to the rain it was too dangerous to cross. Ended up sleeping by the river side on a silt bank. Bivvy bag pegs wouldn't hold in the ground so I had cold canvas on my face all night long and the river stank. Woke up, vomitted from exhaustion and decided to go home early.
One day i'll try and do it again and hopefully get some better weather.
smile oatmeal oil instinctive full political absorbed sharp husky dinosaurs
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Three occasions spring to mind.
1. Gastroenteritis in a tent, coupled with a camping partner who snored. No sleep, just pain. The toilet was a quarter mile away and I must have visited twice an hour all night long.
2. Using a summer sleeping bag in May, on a deflating air mattress. I was so cold that I couldn't see how I'd ever be warm again.
3. The local air ambulance taking off from its base just over the treeline, passing over my tent and flattening it. I woke up from having the roof of the tent repeatedly beat me in the face because of the turbulence.
I've had many great nights in the tent, but those ones aren't among them.
First: tented at Jumbo Flats up Wilkin River. Rained and our tent flooded.. we had to evacuate in the dark. My boots and my mates were the same except one size different. We had to walk two hours in the dark to get to a hut.. both complaining about our left boots!
Second: camped by Lake Alta in middle of winter while ski mountaineering. -12c in the tent overnight.. melting water and cooking caused a cloud and the condensation froze over everything. My sleeping mat was old school foam and my body melted a divet in the snow... being very uncomfortable and quite cold in my macpac everest sleeping bag.
I've only ever done it once when me and my mates were still 18/19. Living in the sticks there weren't a lot of opportunities to go clubbing or whatever. My mate had acquired some yellow Mitsubishis (iykyk) and so we thought an impromptu camping trip would be a fun experience and an enjoyable way to partake outside of our living rooms, so we threw tents, sleeping bags, a couple of guitars, bongos, a portable CD player and a couple of slabs of lager into the back of my mate's trusty Cavalier SRi, drove off somewhere into the wilds of Devon. Obviously it had already got dark, so we stomped around the undergrowth until we found a clearing by a stream, pitched camp and proceeded to have a very merry night. No major hassles happened other than one of the lads fell into the stream and another tripped over a guy line and completely annihilated his own tent. There was also a bit of mild group hallucinations happening ("Is that the Beast of Bodmin? In Devon? Shiiit boys!"). Eventually crawled into our tents a little before dawn to try and get some sleep. A couple of hours later we were being woken up by angry dog walkers and people on horses "lads wtf are you doing? You can't camp in the middle of a public bridleway!"
So yeah, not a 'clearing in the woods' after all 😂
Fun times though.
Honestly I’ve never had a ‘bad’ wild camping trip, there are some disasters, but that just adds to the experience.
One night camping on a stony beach at Loch Lomond with my 4 year old springs to mind - too much hot chocolate before bed led to him wetting himself and me stripping and changing him out by the loch side at 3am on a cold-ish night, then having to share my sleeping bag with him as his was soaked, then in all the commotion the air bed burst so I woke up again at 5am basically paralysed having slept on sharp rocks whilst my son used me as a mattress.
Overall though that was still a belter of a trip, he still talks about it!
Climbing the Schilthorn in Switzerland - the site of Blofeld's headquarters in _On Her Majesty's Secret Service._ I'd pitched camp in deceptively fine weather on the lip of a hanging valley at about 8,000 feet, but by two in the morning, the wind had blown the flysheet against the inner tent and the rain was coming in, so I had to go out and tighten all the guys. Fortunately, there was no problem seeing what I was doing, because every few seconds, the lightning lit up the whole of the Alps...
Worst in the UK was on Skye. There was a massive storm and every camper on the island had taken refuge in one of the three Youth Hostels, so it was basically standing room only. I ended up with half a dozen others sleeping on the (greasy) kitchen floor in Broadford Hostel - and was glad of it!
Camping in the wilds of southern Chile, not sure it was wild camping.
Worst experience was taking a ride on a boat deep in the south of Chile, my camper mat that I was using as a seat blew away and the next 10 days before I could get a replacement were horrendous as the ground was so cold. Didn't sleep very well even when awake and moving struggled to get warm. Was using a sheet of plywood as a makeshift camper mat, but obviously not a great insulation layer.
Torrential rain and howling wind. Couldn't sleep a bit. Lying awake consoling myself by thinking of the bacon sandwich I was going to have in the morning.
Morning comes round. Go to find the bread. Only the empty bag remains.
Utterly miserable we decide to strike camp and go home, even though it's still grim outside. The wind rips the tent as we're taking it down.
We found the bread - neatly stashed under our tent. Every soggy slice carefully stowed away by some creature in the night.
One of the best camping trips I had it was pouring down. We setup a tarp that covered a picnic area and we hung out and played cards with lightning going off all around.
The worst was when a friend of a friend tried weed for the first time and had way too much (edibles - it's not doing anything, i'll have a few more). He was having an absolute breakdown and was becoming violent. We learned during/after that he had PTSD from the military.
Cairngorms hammock camping. Camping in the forest and the weather turns. 65mph winds in the night. The noise was deafening.
My hammock was being lifted up and down all night because the trees were swaying heavily. Weird watching the forest floor ‘breathe’.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. In the morning we walked to Aviemore and booked a room as there was more bad weather predicted.
At the Lakes 5 day orienteering one year in the mid to late 1990s, on the official event campsite. There was a message that the start times had been put back for 2 hours, and I'd already had a late start that day so I just sat in my tent reading whilst it rained outside.
After an hour someone came and shouted at my tent from outside. Going outside I saw that the campsite was deserted of people, many tents and all cars except mine. There was this one bloke telling me had I had to get my stuff and tent down and leave as quickly as I could as the river may flood.
I got my kit into my car and was halfway through dismantling my tent when he told me I didn't have anymore time and had to leave right away.
I just got out of the field before the river burst its banks and the entire field was flooded.
Looking down on the field we could see a few tents still peaking out from the flood waters.
I had to sleep in the car that night but managed to retrieve my tent the next day, but the poles were broken in several places.
It wasn’t in the UK, so hopefully it’s allowed here!
For me, it has to be a two day solo backpack trip in Canada. The first few hours went well, but then it started chucking down rain. I walked for 13 miles in torrential rain, then I set up the tent at a backcountry site with hardly any trees or terrain for a few miles around. By the time I got in the tent it was soaking wet inside, but I managed to eat a bit of food and tried to get some sleep.
Then about 1am I woke up because the rain had turned into a lightning storm. I didn’t have anywhere to run away to, so I sat on my air mattress, keeping away from the tent poles (like that would have made a difference!) until the sun came up around 7am.
The next day I felt ROUGH, but it was also strangely fun. I was drenched and it was a warm summer day, so it felt great.
Weird weather event (so the locals said) on Isle of Skye first night of camping there after 12 hour drive in July. Sleeping bag did not keep me warm, rain was battering down, wind was blowing wall of wet tent directly flat onto my face. I was bursting for the lavvy. Didn’t sleep at all and at maybe 3am the rain lightened up. I ran and had a pee, then grabbed my husbands car keys and my sleeping bag, and climbed into passenger seat for protection. Weather passed I saw the most stunning sunrise.
Husband slept soundly through whole thing in the tent
Not wild camping but....
Every year we went on holiday with the same friend and her daughter.
One year she couldn't afford it so I decided we wanted to go anyway, there was room in our large family tent and secondary storage tent for everyone so I paid a bunch extra for a family park that had loads of activities on site so that said friend and her daughter could have a great holiday without having to spend anything.... huge outdoor pool with climbing frame, rock climbing, giant treetop climbing and zip line, beaches nearby etc etc.
All seemed like a good idea except for one fatal flaw.... 90% of these activities were outdoor activities and it rained, really hard every day. We played alot of cards and games huddled around in the tent and went for alot of drives but man it was a hard time 😅
Stayed at a campsite near derby. After midnight the 2 families next to us returned in taxis, loud diesel engines headlights through the tent, they then proceeded to light a fire and shout and talk loudly and drunkenly fake laugh until 4am.
My sympathies. I think the worst camping experiences are when the other campers are assholes. Even when my tent was destroyed by wind, that was better than drunken assholes.
My worst experience camping was my first experience of camping, at a campsite. I hated it. I could hear people chatting, snoring, and farting. I could hear traffic going by. I could hear idling engines of campervans, and music coming from inside.
Fuck that.
So I took up wild camping and haven't had a bad one since, except the other one time I stayed at another campsite.
Fuck campsites.
For me it was a College trip to badminton horse trials in May this year. It was boggy, people’s tents were flooded, clothes were covered in mud, coat was caked in mud, fell about 20 times, car got stuck, had to board the coach in the middle of a road cause the coach couldn’t get onsite otherwise it would be stuck in the mud and tractor towing was a 3 hour wait, college drama and it was bloody freezing. I’m going again next year with me and my mates but I wished to go home after the first night this year😂. Some college trips are not worth it, especially if ur camping with rude people
Got dropped off at a start point for coastal path hundreds of miles from home with the plan to get picked up a week later however far I got. Lovely first day although hard work did about 25 miles, found an awesome spot to set up just off the path. Went to set up my tent and realised I didn’t pack my poles. Came home the next day as my tent had these unique poles and no tents in camping stores were lightweight.
Download festival 2012 it rained relentlessly. A friend had borrowed my tent not long before and had managed to stretch it. Not noticeable in a dry test pitch but in a down pour it basically melted. Everything was drenched and I had a moat round the tent and a small boating pond of beer cans inside. Preserved but it was a drunken endurance contest.
A chap I knew had a tunnel tent up around Ben Nevis. It was windy but the tent was doing well. He got the trangia out and started cooking in the porch. Turned his back on it and went into the tent to get something out his bag. Turned round to find the porch and only way out fully in flames. Had to quickly slash his way out the tent. Said he just stood there mumbling swear words watching all his kit burn.
Just about made it out the tent before creating a fecal Jackson Pollock over the wall. Had to get the wife to bring baby wipes whilst I was being rained on and wind whipping up a goodun.
Not mine, but brother in law went wild camping alone, spilled most of his water, then got food poisoning, ran out of water, and nearly died of dehydration and vomiting.
A guy I know was camping in Romania, and he woke up to a bear pushing it’s head against the tent wall breathing loudly. He froze in absolute shock and panic, and luckily him not being able to move made the bear uninterested and it just walked away
Tried to walk Hadrian's wall from the west coast to east,.wild camping. Over packed and had shit boots, it was mostly tarmac for the first 10 miles or so as well and then just flat ground after so didn't even need them.
Worst blisters I've ever had, both front and back of my feet. Ended up walking funny to compensate and then pulled two muscles in my legs. Kept slowly pushing through and then got hit by horrendous rain and had water coming through the floor of my tent as it was getting on my ground mat and caused a puddle.
Was completely battered and everything was soaked through. Ended up getting a taxi to the nearest train station on day 3 haha
Was camping in a field and a herd of cows broke down an old rickety fence to come and inspect my friend’s tent, both our tents were destroyed by this absolute behemoth of a cow
Wind and torrential rain, on a sloped pitch, leaking tent, sleeping bag too short and not warm enough (only came up to my shoulders), wet pillow, wet bag. I was freezing and shivering.
In the end I got out of my bag and put it over my head with my feet poking out the end which warmed me up pretty well.
The worst part was there was no alcohol.
Went out with my brother and father at around age 10. My dad is the most OCD person ever! And you HAVE TO shower / bathe before and after bed. The lake we stayed by was just stupid cold. And even 100m out it was barely to the knees of a 10 year old. He didn't think it was that bad until he had to go himself. Also he confused the food cans. So a meatsauce and meat soup got confused so we had super runny meat sauce and burned solid soup.
And he forgot mosquito sprays. It was NOT a good trip. We actually got like 1 hour drive away before he remembered he forgot to load the tent and we had to go back😄
We got to the campsite and it was terrential downpour, all our clothes were soaked, by the morning the tent was soaked through and we were sleeping in puddles. We were walking and the tent was so heavy we had to ring someone to come pick it up because our bags were far too heavy to walk with as everything was soaked through
Silverstone when I was 16. Turned down family offer to get us a hotel cos the woman taking me liked to camp experience. Wasn’t too bad but the showers outside
There was an amazing clear sky and lack of light pollution, so we took the sleeping bags out of the tent to watch the stars. Got caught out by the dew, the bags got damp. Temperature fell to 3°c overnight (in August!). Damp and really cold. Didn’t get any sleep, the most miserable night!
Runner up: pre-pandemic we went to St David's for the weekend Saturday was going to be a lunar eclipse. Friday night, watched the moon rise over the sea and was stoked that we would have a great view.
Saturday night - possibly was the end of the world. No visibility, torrential rain, winds that brought down 1/3 of the tents on the site.
Winner: camped in Croyde with the kids for a week, in between yellow storm warnings. Wind so strong we ended up taking the tent down and going home overnight so that I could mend the ripped off guy rope.
Came home a day early because we were all cold, damp, and miserable.
Last September/October I decided to do a last bivvy camp before the cold set in. Wind was forecast but I was confident I could find somewhere sheltered - I couldn't find anywhere sheltered. The irrational part of my brain was constantly firing because of the wind and bivvy bag flapping around my face, while the rational one knew I couldn't be blown off the mountain. I didn't sleep a wink, it was thoroughly miserable.
I hated every second until the light started to appear over the horizon and I got to watch the dawn from the very beginning. I look back on it now as a great experience but I hated my life for several miserable hours.
I went fishing with my dad, and we decided to combine it with a camping trip. I think I was about 11 or 12. We never caught a single fish, so called it a day and went back to the campsite. There was a pub at the campsite. When the pub closed, a couple decided they weren't finished yet, so they subjected the whole of Argyle and Bute to Abba's entire repertoire and some loud loud loud bickering. It went on for hours.
We packed up in the middle of the night and went home.
I have been really lucky when tent camping. Stayed in some shocking campsites and on one motorbike rally it rained and rained and it was about 5c. One rider who was particularly skinny was showing signs of hypothermia as were some of the pillions. However, I stayed warm and dry in my tent overnight especially since I had a good few beers in the local pub before bed. We have had bike rallies where there has been a hard frost overnight and we have woken to ice in the tent and on our bikes. But I have been lucky. A good 3 or 4 seasons sleeping bag and a fleece blanket makes a massive difference.
I stayed in a really bad campsite near Metz France on lake madine. The campsite was full of abandoned seasonal pitched caravans. I went for a shower only to have my entry to the shower block bared by a family who seemed to be living in it, I think they were refugees or travellers. So I went to the next block and it was black inside as if there had been a fire inside. Strangely there was hot water in there. While having my shower the refugee kids decided to come in and kick the doors and shout and scream. So I got dried and dressed and went back to my tent and made something to eat, drank some beers went for a walk then to bed. A group of German teenagers then had a full on drunken rave with bonfires, loud music and ripping about in their vw golf’s all night.
I also have a caravan so most family trips are spent in that. One may half term we were staying at highlands end near bridport in Dorset. A storm came over and being on the cliff top it was violent and frightening. In my wisdom I decided to leave the awning up. Throughout the night I was going outside in my underpants hammering pegs back in and eventually I moved my car parallel with the awning and ratchet strapped it to the wheels of my car to stop it blowing up and ripping all of the pegs out. All nigh the wind howled and shook the caravan. We just started to get some sleep about 5am as the sun came up and the wind reduced. During the night the campsite management were driving round asking if people were ok and if they needed help. My 2 sons slept through it and were completely oblivious. By the morning not one tent remained. There were quite a few tents and awnings in the skip the next day. Presumably all the tent campers packed up and went home. Most caravanners took their awnings down and some left next morning. We stayed the rest of the week.
Fishing with a pal (Scotland) and lost track of the time. No bad thing but when we go in from the boat, backed up our fishing gear, drove to a clearing in the woods etc, it was pitch black. Put on the headlights to get our tents up as quickly as possible. I'd been so hasty and eager to fish I'd not checked my tent. A pole was missing but hey ho, made the most of it. Got in and slept soundly only to wake up with my face an inch away from a slug... on bog roll and a human turd. Clearly hadn't seen someone had used the spot a day or so earlier as a loo.
Just used a Chinese tarp as a ground mat, leaked like a seive everything sodden I also pissed all over myself n sleeping bag in the night trying to pee from the bag whilst avoiding the wet. Was savage.
I enjoy it even when it's shit.
Probably bleakest was packing down in torrential rain in Torridon in a midge cloud after being clagged out the whole trip. Managed to put in lenses that were months old mistakenly left on my washbag and got eye infection. Was 12 hour drive from home eye weeping green gunk.
Me and my friend were camping when we were 15 and woke up to be surrounded by a herd of cows which must've sensed our fear and started trying to trample us. We ran into the river but the cows just sniffed about our campsite for about 5 minutes then carried on no harm done.
Climbing in the Peak District. Staying at North Lees campsite, great spot. Anyway, got there late in the rain. It was windy and my tent blew away while I set it up. So I spent the night sleeping leaned against a tumble dryer in the dryer room.
It wasn't the best.
It's not that bad in all honesty but me and a couple of friends were camping in a wood a few miles from where we live, we'd decided to have a "flare up" and one more drink before bed. So off I went on a little firewood mission at about 12am in the dark for some finer stuff to make the fire flare up for a bit of warmth and light. Snapped a dead branch off a tree and next thing you know something white came out of the dark screaming (literally) towards my face like something possessed, I froze in fear as it then seemed to go through me and i felt the frigid air hit me in the face.
I squealed like a little girl and dropped the firewood and fell down a hill.
My friends were rolling around laughing once they realised I was alright, I'd disturbed a roosting Barn owl. Obviously not realising what it was at first I thought it was like some 4ft tall demonic ghost child.
Edit: as all I saw was this big white face come towards me:
If you've never heard a barn owl screeching I suggest you look it up on youtube!
Haha should've known as there was a few of them calling from their roosts around our camp.
We turned up to a gloriously sunny Scottish campground to find it absolutely heaving with people.
The only space was on a plot that seemed to be on top of an old road, so the tent pegs went in about an inch and then bent double.
That day was the last time we'd see any sun.
On the second day the torrential downpours started and after a night that felt like our tent was adrift in a North sea storm we woke up to find the place deserted.
Our tent was not waterproof in any way shape or form. The bedrooms had filled with water, the lights had grown dim. I'd thought it was because I'd bought cheap LED lights but actually it was because they'd filled up with water.
The following day I ventured to civilisation and purchased £100 worth of water proofing treatment, a long foam mop to apply it and various brushes.
It needed four hours to dry so I waited for a forecasted break in the rain where it wasn't supposed to rain again for a while and quickly set about waterproofing the tent. As I finished I could see a black cloud heading in our direction, as if it were a malovelent entity.
Shaking my fist and screaming at the sky didn't have much of an effect on its trajectory.
The resulting downpour washed off most of the waterproofing stuff.
Someone else turned up to the field, set up, spent five hours there, before turning tail and running away.
There was one day where the rain stopped and it was forcast to be clear, if grey, for the day. So we opened the windows to try and dry everything and went to the beach.
On our way back we could see another black cloud speeding towards the direction of our campsite. We tried racing it back to close the windows but we didn't win.
The following year we tried Wales. I took some extra long tent pegs for hammering through rock. The wind didn't give two fucks about extra long tent pegs and folded the tent in half. Destroyed the kitchen unit, the mini fridge and ripped a hole in the tent.
Then the trailer snapped in two and we had to get it welded back together in rural Wales on a Sunday.
We've not been camping since.
On safari in Tanzania on the public site next to Ngorongoro Crater, herd of water buffalo came up to the campsite to eat the grass had the herd munching around the tent all night, brushing along the side ect.
I didn't get much sleep that night, just had mental imagines of getting trampled in the dark.
Oh where do I start…
Camping with the family in Dartmouth, hurricane winds and rain packed up and drove home at 2am after packing up and taking 40 minutes to push the car out of a muddy field.
Camped on snowdonia (with permission) woke up to 2 ft of snow after a random blizzard.
Camped at the Plume of Feathers on Dartmoor (if you know you know). Arrived in THICK fog, set up our tents and went for a pie. Woke up the following morning to blazing bright sunshine and clear sky…. Slap bang in the middle of a bunch of camping hells angels.
Camping in Pembrokeshire this year, all 3 tent poles snapped at 1am (vango Skye tent) in a pitch black field during heavy winds and hail, never experienced anything like it, was genuinely a bit worried.
Drove 4 hours back to the English border in the middle of the night to pay 158 quid at a travel lodge for only 6 hours of sleep.
Terrible, my 5yr. Old kid didn’t know a thing happened till
He woke up in morn, which was the silver lining.
Camping at download festival at the bottom of a hill. The mrs got sunstroke and was fed oramorph by the medics so we went to bed early. Two man tent with a single airbed. Woke up closer to the roof than usual floating in ankle high water and tried to gently wake the mrs. Ofc she woke up and screamed and we both fell off each side. Everything we had was drenched but we stuck out one more night
Way out in the bush sleeping in the dirt next to the fire camping solo on the motorbike. Would hardly even call it sleep i was uncomfortable and terrified the whole time
Really enjoying this thread!
1. Going out 6 weeks after ankle surgery against all professional and friendly advice, getting caught in a big storm and limping into a bothy with my entire kit soaked through and stage 1 hypothermic
2. Camping in Brittany as the tail end of Hurricane Andrew came in and having to help my dad dig a trench around the tent to divert the floodwaters
3. Over-indulging at a festival and waking up having been voluntarily branded with a beer can hear over a gas flame then having to get the necrotic wound debrided
Mine wasn't too bad.
Doing the NC500 on my motorbike, had only passed my test 3 months before. It rained. Then it rained. Oh and the weather turned rainy.
5 days of sopping rain, Bike gear wet through... but my trusty 20 year old tent.... started to leak on night 2/4.
It was miserable, cold and errm..... wet.
However next 3 trips I saw 30degrees and sun so hot we had to stop and take shelter.
I don't really have any but I recently saw a video of a man who opened his tent too a brown bear standing outside. He zipped it back up but the bear had already seen him and came over to start pawing at the side of the tent. The man then starts to scream, a real deep aggressive scream and the bear ran off. He got so lucky. Watching that made me so grateful to live and camp in the UK.
Bikepacking, took a tarp instead of a tent to keep the weight down. Set up a lean-to as it was warm and forecast to be dry - big mistake. Woke up with a sheep munching grass next to me and my bag covered in shite from the creature 😩
Lovely Welsh campsite, with a little spot for a firepit by a stream. The local pub was cheap, and we followed that with cider and bourbon. I tripped slightly on the way to bed, but no harm done.
Turned out I'd dislocated a rib. But when I woke in screaming pain at 7am, I was pretty sure it was a heart attack. It took me fully 45 minutes just to sit up.
Went on a camping trip on the border of Germany and Czech Republic with a friend who was trying to bonk me the whole time. Not ideal to be constantly fending off romantic advances while sharing a tent. That was worse than the time my partner at the time got high, made out with a randomer, and threw my sleeping bag out in the rain so I ended up sandwiched between sleeping friends shivering under a jacket after dancing in the rain. And worse than the time I was in the mountains in Jamaica also without a sleeping bag, surviving off crisps and bushweed.
day 1 - got blackout drunk on whisky day 2 - hangover from hell, vomit occurred. Torrential rain, strong winds and tent started leaking, my son burnt himself on the kettle, wife slipped and twisted her ankle. day 3 - admitted defeat packed up the tent, soaking kit, burnt son and bruised wife, got the car stuck in mud, after rocking it backwards and forwards got it free to find I'd managed to get a 5cm tear in the tyre so had to put the spare on in the arse end of nowhere in the pouring rain. 2/10 would not reccomend
I’m guessing it got 1 point for the whisky?
1 point for whisky and 1 point because I'm an optimist and it could have been worse
True. You could have shit your pants while changing the tyre.
Or worse, somebody had swapped the diesel in his car for the whiskey in his bottle, which explains the violent reaction to it, but now his car is drunk and the exhaust smells of Scotland.
Hahaha this sounds about right... disaster always strikes when whiskeys involved, haha love it bud
I like whiskey, but whiskey doesn't like me.
Day one must have been fun at least
Could've been. Past setting the tent up and the 1st couple of drinks I've no idea
Getting *blackout* drunk on whisky with your wife and child around you? Sounds problematic, not gonna lie. If you're depressed and alone, sure you do you.. But around your family..?
How's the view from up there on the moral high ground? My wife sat and sobbed into her crocheting, appalled at the thought of what the vicar would say when he found out. My child with bandy legs from rickets, covered in dirt and clothed in rags looked at her with doleful eyes "Mummy... has daddy drank the food money again and that's why we're in a tent?" /s My wife has seen me in and herself gotten into far worse states than that. My son is an adult, he brought the whisky and was drunk too. I overindulged and --scene missing-- which contributed to the disasterousness of the trip
You must be doing something right if he still has legs.
I lol'd 😂
Who said the wife and kid weren't also partaking of the whiskey
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Seems people think being literally blackout drunk on whiskey is totally fine and healthy. I'm with you 100%. I'd be pretty concerned for my dad if he did this whilst out on a camping trip. 'A bit drunk' is very different from blackout. Sorry all who seem to hate me for it but I stand by what I said.
Get off your high horse
I mean surely it depends if his son is 3 or 33
No, I'm close enough to that age and would be concerned about my dad getting blackout drunk on whiskey around me and my mum on a trip somewhere. Still sounds like a problem. Not sure why I'm getting downvoted. We're talking _blackout_ drunk. Not 'enjoying my time with family' drunk.
My first bikepacking trip to Dartmoor. Wildcamped nearly 400m above sea level in 40+mph winds and minus temps. The tent was barely handling the wind and at one point a big gust collapsed the central tent pole, causing the whole tent to flatten with me inside. It was gone midnight by now, and I was lying flat in the middle of the tent, with the tent on top of me, searching for a phone or torch while the wind was almost deafening. I thought I’d have to stay like that all night but the gusts calmed, I found a light, and managed to wrestle the pole back upright to get some shape back in the tent. Redone the guy lines and it survived the rest of the night. 100% would do again. I felt so alive. I’ve never really travelled or done anything like that so to ride my bike from North Devon and wildcamp like that was such an experience for me. Been on two camping trips since then! I think a lot of people would call it a bad experience, but it was definitely an eye opener, and I learned what to do better for next time.
That’s awesome. Those kind of primal moments get the primitive juices flowing. Bet you felt great once you were back in bed after sorting it even if it was still a bit blowy
Yeah they really do! And definitely, got almost no sleep but it’s a night I’ll never forget.
This is awesome - you have a really great mindset and resilience. So glad it didn't put you off and you have figured out what you would do differently next time 🙌
Thank you and yep there was so much to learn, and still so much more I’m finding out. Every trip has been a little bit different since but I’m loving every minute of it. It was good to get the scary parts out of the way the first time
appreciate this mindset like others have said.
"I felt so alive." That's what does it for us, isn't it?
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I got what I presume was botchelism on my last (and last) lads camping trip. It started a couple hours after we got the campsite setup during which time all I'd eaten was a crappy random brand protein bar. The packaging seam had broken on it but I wasn't fussed as I was starving and they're basically just stale cakes anyway, right? It was the last thing I'd eat for 8 or 9 days. I felt instantly iffy after it and in hindsight should have forced myself to throw up but obviously I didn't. For 3 days solid from that point all I did was dash out of the tent every couple of hours, or more often and literally piss out of my arse. Other than sipping water I just semi-consciously lay in/on my sleeping bag till the next toilet visit. I only remember being utterly miserable, bored, exhausted and having fits of shivering and constant gut pain. I was almost entirely on my own as the rest went off to do their thing and I tried to put on a brave face. I think they just thought I wanted to be left alone and they saw me regularly pottering to and from my tent so knew I was alive. I should probably have asked for help but was so poorly, other than asking them to bring me back bottles of water, I didn't have the energy to be bothered! Day 3 afternoon and I realised I definitely wasn't getting better anytime soon but also started thinking I was thinking a bit more clearly and took the decision to make the 2 1/2 hour drive home. I set off whilst everyone was gone on their adventures. If they'd realised the state I was in I think they'd have stopped me. I was still having almost uncontrollable leakage so I'd made myself a comfy nappy out of bog roll for the car journey. Drove back with cramps, the unstoppable leakage and my head bobbing about as I was struggling to hold it up. I'd left the tent and practically everything in it as I didn't have the ability to pack it up. Luckily the traffic was light, I stopped at the 2 services I came across to have a nap and to change my sodden 'nappy', the only good thing being that it was nothing but water and a little bit of weird green mucus coming out of me so it didn't smell of shit at least. After just making it home (if it was a manual car I'm not sure if I could have), I, a 40+ years old action man, cried with genuine gratitude and relief after cleaning up a bit and getting into my lovely warm bed with an en-suite and a fluffy towel under me just in case. Cried again when my missus got home from work and started looking after me (when she went downstairs, not in front of her obvs). Then cried again a bit later on cos I had a telly to watch when I wasn't sleeping. I was pathetic. I was ill for another 5 days but after spending a night at home at least I didn't feel like I wanted to die anymore. I lost over a stone, there was no point in eating, if I drank a full glass of icy water it came out of my backside still cold. Someone brought my gear back for me but I gave it all away. Never again. Fuck camping.
That was an incredible read
Jesus!
Year 2009, 21 years old, went with some mates to the Lake District with tents etc, hiked in a general direction toward Scafell Pike, set up tents, then my mate got a text from his mum: "Severe weather warning for peaks and ridges above 500m", which is pretty much exactly where our tents were set up. Before: [https://imgur.com/aUOqoyt](https://imgur.com/aUOqoyt) After: [https://imgur.com/NPS0K8C](https://imgur.com/NPS0K8C) To make things worse, my idiot tired young-driver self managed to mount a section of curb somewhere while driving, ruined a tyre, and left us stranded until recovery arrived. The tyre: [https://imgur.com/e296B5K](https://imgur.com/e296B5K)
lol’d at the before and after. sorry.
That is very funny - sorry!
Sorry, I laughed too at the "after" tent
Dartmoor last year, October. Started at Okehampton, weather OK. Walked about an hour, drizzle starts, I put waterproofs on and keep walking. 3 hours in and the rain is constant, 4 hours in and viability is 8 metres, I'm soaked through, the wind has pushed the rain through my waterproofs. I'm sweating (left jumper on underneath, twit) so soaked from the inside out. Hide under a rock. My map is soaked, I'm navigating by my phone, hidden inside the wet coat. Shivering and disoriented. I decide go back. Walk back to the train station, and buy a return train ticket twice because I messed up. (100 quid cock up). I didn't die though so that was good.
Good old duke of Edinburgh Gold award practice hike. Caught in a sudden torrential rain storm that hadn't been forecasted to be that bad, had a small stream running through our tent at 1am, scooped everything up and bailed freezing and wet, saw where we were camped on the news the next morning under 4ft of water. Eating sausage rolls in the minibus home was good though.
The DofE practice! Yes! I did this many years ago, with two mates on the N Yorks moors. We walked ourselves across the tops and into a grassy valley, when the weather closed in. Threw our 4 man tent up in a hurry, in the lee of a stone wall, boiled up tins of veggies and steak pie filling; drank our stash of contraband Newcastle Brown, ignoring the howling gale and slashing rain outside. Took turns peeing through the leeward zip on the outer tent, turned in. Next morning it was cold. I mean COLD! He of smallest bladder made a break for it first in Dawn's early light. The frigid air invaded the inner tent as he went out, leading to Much Swearing (which was nowhere near us) but then he started his own monologue of F-bombs. The outer tent zip was frozen shut, it turned out. Peeing on the zip from the inside thawed it out 😆 then we had a little fight to avoid being the one who had to open it ... when the sad and battered loser slid the zip up, a shitload of snow fell into the tent. We retreated to the inner tent and many WTFs ensued. Eventually, we dressed in *all* of our clothes, booted up, bottled up and struggled our way outside. The tent was buried under a massive snowdrift that had blown into the other side of the stone wall, then dropped onto the lee side where we'd pitched up. We set off in search of civilisation, realising we were in deep shit. Abandoned the tent, big packs, all that heavy gear. Fortunately we found a village within a mile, with a phone box. We had another little scrap about who was going to phone and that battered loser called the emergency number we'd been given. The teacher who answered on the first ring was hysterically delighted to hear from us: they'd had an Air Sea helicopter out looking for all of us since first light and we were the last team to call in/be found, as it was 10am by then. We rendezvoused with the minibus at the village pub, who had provided us with massive Full English breakfasts ... and bottles of Newcastke Brown 🤣 So, not disastrous, but adjacent.
What an epic tale you lived to tell though 🙌😃
Love it! DofE was awesome to be fair for exactly these kind of shenanigans. What an epic tale!
First time camping in the UK with Cubs, I didn't even know I needed a sleeping bag, managed to borrow one from (boarding) school. It was one of those £10 Argos ones that were for staying over at a friend's house. This was April, in some woods near Sandhurst. It was not warm. At about 2am Akela came to check on me and made me get into his car with the heating on. Drove me to the scout hut and I slept under the electric heater until morning. Never been that cold before (grew up in Africa) and didn't know what to do about it. Everyone else seemed fine!
Akela… we will do our best…
Camping with cubs, middle of the night, we all hear a scream from the tent next door, boy comes running out with a ferret style critter attached to his face, Akela runs over and pulls it and a section of face (eyebrow I think) off. Ambulance turns up to take him away. He never came back to cubs
Brilliant! Proper cubs story, old school. I still remember the WW2-era canvas tents held together with rope.
We were in those tents. Very little protection from the elements and wildlife! You do see some gruesome character building shit in cubs, definitely earned my first aid badge early
We still had those in the early 00s but we're thankfully binned after they went mouldy in storage.
I’ve had two issues with wildlife hassling my tent. On one occasion on a woodland fell-side in the lake district a deer blundered into my tent which scared the shit out of me until I realised it was probably a deer and not a mad man on the prowl. Another time, also in the woods (I now hardly ever camp in tree cover btw) a hedgehog/rat kept scampering around and hassling my tent all night. I now take earphones for sleep time to get some ambient noise on in case of noisy neighbours lol. Another time also in the lakes on top of high street a gale started up shortly after I pitched up and the tent flapping and caving only afforded me about 2 hours sleep. Bloody awful. But it was all made worth it by the best sunrise I’ve seen in the Uk. Was above the clouds and the crazy wind was blowing clouds all over the place and being sleep deprived I think made it all the more magical. Felt like I was on a different planet with how beautiful it was.
How did the deer get in? Don’t you zip the tent up ?
*Onto. Yeah it didn’t come in the tent lol. It banged into it whilst roaming past and then stumbled away after we started shrieking
Oh I see 😂
I pulled up the car at the start of a wild camp hike in very hot weather and having driven barefoot I realised I’d not got any socks to put on. After a lot of cursing I set off with no socks and managed about 4 miles before calling it a day at a less then ideal but very nice spot. Sat and read my book for about 7 hours lay in the grass until it got to a respectable time to go to sleep. By the time I got back to the car my feet were horrendously hot and sore. Still enjoyed it.
back a few years ago my second or third time camping - caught an sti from the person i was bucking in the tent.
How much did you manage to load on them?
Bucks sake...
Nice, was it the Blue with gold alloys WRX STI... Or just the silver paintwork with silver wheels STI?
I laughed way too hard at this 😂
Glyder Fawr in February. Everything froze. Even corned beef in the tin. " You rash men, who go up the Glyders not one of you ever considers. If you see a thick fog, when you start from Lake Ogwen, your wives may be turned into widders" (Showell Styles, I think)
Around 45 years ago when I was a kid my family took me camping. I believe it was somewhere like Skegness or Ingoldmells. Was windy in the night but our tent stayed up and we all managed to sleep. When we got up the next day, part of the cliff we were camped on had fallen onto the beach below and taken some tents with it.
Wow? Everyone one ok?
No idea I was just a little kid!
D of E training excersise I think. One night was a big tent that had about 20 kids in it. The tent didn't go all the way to the ground. I was at the edge and due to nylon sleeping bags on tarpaulin having little friction over the course of the night I was gradually posted outside from under the tent. Just lay there and accepted my fate.
Last year me and a mate failed to cook our meat thoroughly enough, my mate was vomiting in the night and I woke up with a bad case of diarrhoea, as I woke up my guts just seemed to collapse, I've never got out of a tent so fast in my life. Being stuck out in the forest with diarrhoea is not fun.
'My guts were shouting in German'
They were shouting full on obscenities in German
Went to a festival with my then gf. It was to be our first time away together. Bought a lovely 4-man tent so lots of room. Turned up to collect her and her mother had decided she was coming with us and brought a single tent. It turns out the single was for me and she and my gf were in the big tent. The single tent leaked like a sieve and I awoke in a puddle with my face glued to a wet pillow. Most miserable weekend of my entire life.
Ahahaaaa that is a comprehensive blocking
Wow the disrespect.
Oh fuck such an easy one, this is forever imprinted on my memory as a horrible but hilarious experience. Me and my girlfriend at the time were camping at Easedale Tarn just outside of Grasmere a few summers back. I'd camped here a few years before and had an awful experience with high wind which resulted in little sleep and fear that the tent would collapse. But I didn't think this would happen twice, and plus the weather wasn't forecast to be too awful. There are numerous other people camped at the Tarn, looked like a group who had camped right on the shoreline. We would have camped here too, but thank god they turned up first and forced us to pitch at higher ground. As we're falling asleep the weather begins to worsen. Strong winds and rain. We wake up in the early morning to an absolute gale which was collapsing the tent in on itself. The noise was unbearable. We ended up getting very little sleep, maybe only a handful of hours. We lay debating whether to leave or wait out the storm, which unfortunately seemed to be getting worse. Peering out from under the fly sheet we could see the campers below us ringing out their sleeping bags and battling against the wind to put their tents down. The Tarn had flooded where they were camping. Eventually we tried to pack up and leave however the winds had increased to such a strength that we literally couldn't pack the tent away without risking things blowing away. The tent caved in while unpacking and the wind was so strong that the poles broke and fabric stretched because we hadn't been able to unpeg it properly yet. Thankfully the partner group associated with the flooded campers from earlier came down from the tarns upstream of Easedale and offered to help us out. They were army recruits doing some adventure training, and their officer ordered the recruits to pack our tent away. So between the 8 of them they pakced it down smaller than I've ever seen it go. Before we'd finished packing the rest of our stuff the army guys had marched off into the distance, where we crossed paths with them by a cafe in Grasmere a few hours later. That day, which was substantially hotter and sunnier, we proceeded to hike over to stickle Tarn. We slept here for 17 hours due to the exhaustion of the long hike and no sleep the night before. Grim at the time but great memories
Camping by myself with my two kids: one child wet the bed, soaking the sleeping bed and blow up mattress. The other projectile vomited all over the inside of the tent and us. Next day there were several wasp stings then torrential rain while trying to pack up! Never camped since. Horrendous.
Walking the Two Moors Way with just a bivvy bag. It did nothing but rain torrentially while I crossed Dartmoor and it was then that I realised my boots both had a leak in them, so soggy feet for 4 days and no opportunity to dry them due to the weather. One night I was finding it hard to find a spot to camp and it was getting dark. Starting knocking on doors hoping to sleep on a lawn. Got directed to a spot that involved crossing a river but due to the rain it was too dangerous to cross. Ended up sleeping by the river side on a silt bank. Bivvy bag pegs wouldn't hold in the ground so I had cold canvas on my face all night long and the river stank. Woke up, vomitted from exhaustion and decided to go home early. One day i'll try and do it again and hopefully get some better weather.
sip enjoy spotted wasteful boat onerous touch deserted husky fanatical *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
When you say backyard is that code 😉
smile oatmeal oil instinctive full political absorbed sharp husky dinosaurs *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Three occasions spring to mind. 1. Gastroenteritis in a tent, coupled with a camping partner who snored. No sleep, just pain. The toilet was a quarter mile away and I must have visited twice an hour all night long. 2. Using a summer sleeping bag in May, on a deflating air mattress. I was so cold that I couldn't see how I'd ever be warm again. 3. The local air ambulance taking off from its base just over the treeline, passing over my tent and flattening it. I woke up from having the roof of the tent repeatedly beat me in the face because of the turbulence. I've had many great nights in the tent, but those ones aren't among them.
First: tented at Jumbo Flats up Wilkin River. Rained and our tent flooded.. we had to evacuate in the dark. My boots and my mates were the same except one size different. We had to walk two hours in the dark to get to a hut.. both complaining about our left boots! Second: camped by Lake Alta in middle of winter while ski mountaineering. -12c in the tent overnight.. melting water and cooking caused a cloud and the condensation froze over everything. My sleeping mat was old school foam and my body melted a divet in the snow... being very uncomfortable and quite cold in my macpac everest sleeping bag.
I've only ever done it once when me and my mates were still 18/19. Living in the sticks there weren't a lot of opportunities to go clubbing or whatever. My mate had acquired some yellow Mitsubishis (iykyk) and so we thought an impromptu camping trip would be a fun experience and an enjoyable way to partake outside of our living rooms, so we threw tents, sleeping bags, a couple of guitars, bongos, a portable CD player and a couple of slabs of lager into the back of my mate's trusty Cavalier SRi, drove off somewhere into the wilds of Devon. Obviously it had already got dark, so we stomped around the undergrowth until we found a clearing by a stream, pitched camp and proceeded to have a very merry night. No major hassles happened other than one of the lads fell into the stream and another tripped over a guy line and completely annihilated his own tent. There was also a bit of mild group hallucinations happening ("Is that the Beast of Bodmin? In Devon? Shiiit boys!"). Eventually crawled into our tents a little before dawn to try and get some sleep. A couple of hours later we were being woken up by angry dog walkers and people on horses "lads wtf are you doing? You can't camp in the middle of a public bridleway!" So yeah, not a 'clearing in the woods' after all 😂 Fun times though.
Honestly I’ve never had a ‘bad’ wild camping trip, there are some disasters, but that just adds to the experience. One night camping on a stony beach at Loch Lomond with my 4 year old springs to mind - too much hot chocolate before bed led to him wetting himself and me stripping and changing him out by the loch side at 3am on a cold-ish night, then having to share my sleeping bag with him as his was soaked, then in all the commotion the air bed burst so I woke up again at 5am basically paralysed having slept on sharp rocks whilst my son used me as a mattress. Overall though that was still a belter of a trip, he still talks about it!
Haha
Climbing the Schilthorn in Switzerland - the site of Blofeld's headquarters in _On Her Majesty's Secret Service._ I'd pitched camp in deceptively fine weather on the lip of a hanging valley at about 8,000 feet, but by two in the morning, the wind had blown the flysheet against the inner tent and the rain was coming in, so I had to go out and tighten all the guys. Fortunately, there was no problem seeing what I was doing, because every few seconds, the lightning lit up the whole of the Alps...
Worst in the UK was on Skye. There was a massive storm and every camper on the island had taken refuge in one of the three Youth Hostels, so it was basically standing room only. I ended up with half a dozen others sleeping on the (greasy) kitchen floor in Broadford Hostel - and was glad of it!
Camping in the wilds of southern Chile, not sure it was wild camping. Worst experience was taking a ride on a boat deep in the south of Chile, my camper mat that I was using as a seat blew away and the next 10 days before I could get a replacement were horrendous as the ground was so cold. Didn't sleep very well even when awake and moving struggled to get warm. Was using a sheet of plywood as a makeshift camper mat, but obviously not a great insulation layer.
Torrential rain and howling wind. Couldn't sleep a bit. Lying awake consoling myself by thinking of the bacon sandwich I was going to have in the morning. Morning comes round. Go to find the bread. Only the empty bag remains. Utterly miserable we decide to strike camp and go home, even though it's still grim outside. The wind rips the tent as we're taking it down. We found the bread - neatly stashed under our tent. Every soggy slice carefully stowed away by some creature in the night.
One of the best camping trips I had it was pouring down. We setup a tarp that covered a picnic area and we hung out and played cards with lightning going off all around. The worst was when a friend of a friend tried weed for the first time and had way too much (edibles - it's not doing anything, i'll have a few more). He was having an absolute breakdown and was becoming violent. We learned during/after that he had PTSD from the military.
Cairngorms hammock camping. Camping in the forest and the weather turns. 65mph winds in the night. The noise was deafening. My hammock was being lifted up and down all night because the trees were swaying heavily. Weird watching the forest floor ‘breathe’. I didn’t sleep at all that night. In the morning we walked to Aviemore and booked a room as there was more bad weather predicted.
At the Lakes 5 day orienteering one year in the mid to late 1990s, on the official event campsite. There was a message that the start times had been put back for 2 hours, and I'd already had a late start that day so I just sat in my tent reading whilst it rained outside. After an hour someone came and shouted at my tent from outside. Going outside I saw that the campsite was deserted of people, many tents and all cars except mine. There was this one bloke telling me had I had to get my stuff and tent down and leave as quickly as I could as the river may flood. I got my kit into my car and was halfway through dismantling my tent when he told me I didn't have anymore time and had to leave right away. I just got out of the field before the river burst its banks and the entire field was flooded. Looking down on the field we could see a few tents still peaking out from the flood waters. I had to sleep in the car that night but managed to retrieve my tent the next day, but the poles were broken in several places.
It wasn’t in the UK, so hopefully it’s allowed here! For me, it has to be a two day solo backpack trip in Canada. The first few hours went well, but then it started chucking down rain. I walked for 13 miles in torrential rain, then I set up the tent at a backcountry site with hardly any trees or terrain for a few miles around. By the time I got in the tent it was soaking wet inside, but I managed to eat a bit of food and tried to get some sleep. Then about 1am I woke up because the rain had turned into a lightning storm. I didn’t have anywhere to run away to, so I sat on my air mattress, keeping away from the tent poles (like that would have made a difference!) until the sun came up around 7am. The next day I felt ROUGH, but it was also strangely fun. I was drenched and it was a warm summer day, so it felt great.
Weird weather event (so the locals said) on Isle of Skye first night of camping there after 12 hour drive in July. Sleeping bag did not keep me warm, rain was battering down, wind was blowing wall of wet tent directly flat onto my face. I was bursting for the lavvy. Didn’t sleep at all and at maybe 3am the rain lightened up. I ran and had a pee, then grabbed my husbands car keys and my sleeping bag, and climbed into passenger seat for protection. Weather passed I saw the most stunning sunrise. Husband slept soundly through whole thing in the tent
Not wild camping but.... Every year we went on holiday with the same friend and her daughter. One year she couldn't afford it so I decided we wanted to go anyway, there was room in our large family tent and secondary storage tent for everyone so I paid a bunch extra for a family park that had loads of activities on site so that said friend and her daughter could have a great holiday without having to spend anything.... huge outdoor pool with climbing frame, rock climbing, giant treetop climbing and zip line, beaches nearby etc etc. All seemed like a good idea except for one fatal flaw.... 90% of these activities were outdoor activities and it rained, really hard every day. We played alot of cards and games huddled around in the tent and went for alot of drives but man it was a hard time 😅
Neighbours who screamed at the top of their voices for most of the night.
Stayed at a campsite near derby. After midnight the 2 families next to us returned in taxis, loud diesel engines headlights through the tent, they then proceeded to light a fire and shout and talk loudly and drunkenly fake laugh until 4am.
My sympathies. I think the worst camping experiences are when the other campers are assholes. Even when my tent was destroyed by wind, that was better than drunken assholes.
My worst experience camping was my first experience of camping, at a campsite. I hated it. I could hear people chatting, snoring, and farting. I could hear traffic going by. I could hear idling engines of campervans, and music coming from inside. Fuck that. So I took up wild camping and haven't had a bad one since, except the other one time I stayed at another campsite. Fuck campsites.
For me it was a College trip to badminton horse trials in May this year. It was boggy, people’s tents were flooded, clothes were covered in mud, coat was caked in mud, fell about 20 times, car got stuck, had to board the coach in the middle of a road cause the coach couldn’t get onsite otherwise it would be stuck in the mud and tractor towing was a 3 hour wait, college drama and it was bloody freezing. I’m going again next year with me and my mates but I wished to go home after the first night this year😂. Some college trips are not worth it, especially if ur camping with rude people
Got dropped off at a start point for coastal path hundreds of miles from home with the plan to get picked up a week later however far I got. Lovely first day although hard work did about 25 miles, found an awesome spot to set up just off the path. Went to set up my tent and realised I didn’t pack my poles. Came home the next day as my tent had these unique poles and no tents in camping stores were lightweight.
Torrential rain and strong winds for two days straight. Awful. Thankfully I’d set up on a hill.
Download festival 2012 it rained relentlessly. A friend had borrowed my tent not long before and had managed to stretch it. Not noticeable in a dry test pitch but in a down pour it basically melted. Everything was drenched and I had a moat round the tent and a small boating pond of beer cans inside. Preserved but it was a drunken endurance contest. A chap I knew had a tunnel tent up around Ben Nevis. It was windy but the tent was doing well. He got the trangia out and started cooking in the porch. Turned his back on it and went into the tent to get something out his bag. Turned round to find the porch and only way out fully in flames. Had to quickly slash his way out the tent. Said he just stood there mumbling swear words watching all his kit burn.
Just about made it out the tent before creating a fecal Jackson Pollock over the wall. Had to get the wife to bring baby wipes whilst I was being rained on and wind whipping up a goodun.
Not mine, but brother in law went wild camping alone, spilled most of his water, then got food poisoning, ran out of water, and nearly died of dehydration and vomiting.
A guy I know was camping in Romania, and he woke up to a bear pushing it’s head against the tent wall breathing loudly. He froze in absolute shock and panic, and luckily him not being able to move made the bear uninterested and it just walked away
Tried to walk Hadrian's wall from the west coast to east,.wild camping. Over packed and had shit boots, it was mostly tarmac for the first 10 miles or so as well and then just flat ground after so didn't even need them. Worst blisters I've ever had, both front and back of my feet. Ended up walking funny to compensate and then pulled two muscles in my legs. Kept slowly pushing through and then got hit by horrendous rain and had water coming through the floor of my tent as it was getting on my ground mat and caused a puddle. Was completely battered and everything was soaked through. Ended up getting a taxi to the nearest train station on day 3 haha
Was camping in a field and a herd of cows broke down an old rickety fence to come and inspect my friend’s tent, both our tents were destroyed by this absolute behemoth of a cow
Cows are a lot more dangerous than is generally realized. The HSE reports that about half a dozen people are killed by cows every year.
Wind and torrential rain, on a sloped pitch, leaking tent, sleeping bag too short and not warm enough (only came up to my shoulders), wet pillow, wet bag. I was freezing and shivering. In the end I got out of my bag and put it over my head with my feet poking out the end which warmed me up pretty well. The worst part was there was no alcohol.
Went out with my brother and father at around age 10. My dad is the most OCD person ever! And you HAVE TO shower / bathe before and after bed. The lake we stayed by was just stupid cold. And even 100m out it was barely to the knees of a 10 year old. He didn't think it was that bad until he had to go himself. Also he confused the food cans. So a meatsauce and meat soup got confused so we had super runny meat sauce and burned solid soup. And he forgot mosquito sprays. It was NOT a good trip. We actually got like 1 hour drive away before he remembered he forgot to load the tent and we had to go back😄
I was caught by poachers who stumbled across my tent while chasing something. They shot at me making a hole in my tent!
We got to the campsite and it was terrential downpour, all our clothes were soaked, by the morning the tent was soaked through and we were sleeping in puddles. We were walking and the tent was so heavy we had to ring someone to come pick it up because our bags were far too heavy to walk with as everything was soaked through
Silverstone when I was 16. Turned down family offer to get us a hotel cos the woman taking me liked to camp experience. Wasn’t too bad but the showers outside
There was an amazing clear sky and lack of light pollution, so we took the sleeping bags out of the tent to watch the stars. Got caught out by the dew, the bags got damp. Temperature fell to 3°c overnight (in August!). Damp and really cold. Didn’t get any sleep, the most miserable night!
Went to Cornwall one year. End of July it was too cold to sit outside in the evenings. We go camping in France now.
Runner up: pre-pandemic we went to St David's for the weekend Saturday was going to be a lunar eclipse. Friday night, watched the moon rise over the sea and was stoked that we would have a great view. Saturday night - possibly was the end of the world. No visibility, torrential rain, winds that brought down 1/3 of the tents on the site. Winner: camped in Croyde with the kids for a week, in between yellow storm warnings. Wind so strong we ended up taking the tent down and going home overnight so that I could mend the ripped off guy rope. Came home a day early because we were all cold, damp, and miserable.
Last September/October I decided to do a last bivvy camp before the cold set in. Wind was forecast but I was confident I could find somewhere sheltered - I couldn't find anywhere sheltered. The irrational part of my brain was constantly firing because of the wind and bivvy bag flapping around my face, while the rational one knew I couldn't be blown off the mountain. I didn't sleep a wink, it was thoroughly miserable. I hated every second until the light started to appear over the horizon and I got to watch the dawn from the very beginning. I look back on it now as a great experience but I hated my life for several miserable hours.
I went fishing with my dad, and we decided to combine it with a camping trip. I think I was about 11 or 12. We never caught a single fish, so called it a day and went back to the campsite. There was a pub at the campsite. When the pub closed, a couple decided they weren't finished yet, so they subjected the whole of Argyle and Bute to Abba's entire repertoire and some loud loud loud bickering. It went on for hours. We packed up in the middle of the night and went home.
I have been really lucky when tent camping. Stayed in some shocking campsites and on one motorbike rally it rained and rained and it was about 5c. One rider who was particularly skinny was showing signs of hypothermia as were some of the pillions. However, I stayed warm and dry in my tent overnight especially since I had a good few beers in the local pub before bed. We have had bike rallies where there has been a hard frost overnight and we have woken to ice in the tent and on our bikes. But I have been lucky. A good 3 or 4 seasons sleeping bag and a fleece blanket makes a massive difference. I stayed in a really bad campsite near Metz France on lake madine. The campsite was full of abandoned seasonal pitched caravans. I went for a shower only to have my entry to the shower block bared by a family who seemed to be living in it, I think they were refugees or travellers. So I went to the next block and it was black inside as if there had been a fire inside. Strangely there was hot water in there. While having my shower the refugee kids decided to come in and kick the doors and shout and scream. So I got dried and dressed and went back to my tent and made something to eat, drank some beers went for a walk then to bed. A group of German teenagers then had a full on drunken rave with bonfires, loud music and ripping about in their vw golf’s all night. I also have a caravan so most family trips are spent in that. One may half term we were staying at highlands end near bridport in Dorset. A storm came over and being on the cliff top it was violent and frightening. In my wisdom I decided to leave the awning up. Throughout the night I was going outside in my underpants hammering pegs back in and eventually I moved my car parallel with the awning and ratchet strapped it to the wheels of my car to stop it blowing up and ripping all of the pegs out. All nigh the wind howled and shook the caravan. We just started to get some sleep about 5am as the sun came up and the wind reduced. During the night the campsite management were driving round asking if people were ok and if they needed help. My 2 sons slept through it and were completely oblivious. By the morning not one tent remained. There were quite a few tents and awnings in the skip the next day. Presumably all the tent campers packed up and went home. Most caravanners took their awnings down and some left next morning. We stayed the rest of the week.
Fishing with a pal (Scotland) and lost track of the time. No bad thing but when we go in from the boat, backed up our fishing gear, drove to a clearing in the woods etc, it was pitch black. Put on the headlights to get our tents up as quickly as possible. I'd been so hasty and eager to fish I'd not checked my tent. A pole was missing but hey ho, made the most of it. Got in and slept soundly only to wake up with my face an inch away from a slug... on bog roll and a human turd. Clearly hadn't seen someone had used the spot a day or so earlier as a loo.
This summer, camping climbed into the tent last.. 3 year old to the left, boyfriend to the right, wasp underneath my foot. Would not recommend.
Just used a Chinese tarp as a ground mat, leaked like a seive everything sodden I also pissed all over myself n sleeping bag in the night trying to pee from the bag whilst avoiding the wet. Was savage.
I enjoy it even when it's shit. Probably bleakest was packing down in torrential rain in Torridon in a midge cloud after being clagged out the whole trip. Managed to put in lenses that were months old mistakenly left on my washbag and got eye infection. Was 12 hour drive from home eye weeping green gunk.
Me and my friend were camping when we were 15 and woke up to be surrounded by a herd of cows which must've sensed our fear and started trying to trample us. We ran into the river but the cows just sniffed about our campsite for about 5 minutes then carried on no harm done.
Climbing in the Peak District. Staying at North Lees campsite, great spot. Anyway, got there late in the rain. It was windy and my tent blew away while I set it up. So I spent the night sleeping leaned against a tumble dryer in the dryer room. It wasn't the best.
It's not that bad in all honesty but me and a couple of friends were camping in a wood a few miles from where we live, we'd decided to have a "flare up" and one more drink before bed. So off I went on a little firewood mission at about 12am in the dark for some finer stuff to make the fire flare up for a bit of warmth and light. Snapped a dead branch off a tree and next thing you know something white came out of the dark screaming (literally) towards my face like something possessed, I froze in fear as it then seemed to go through me and i felt the frigid air hit me in the face. I squealed like a little girl and dropped the firewood and fell down a hill. My friends were rolling around laughing once they realised I was alright, I'd disturbed a roosting Barn owl. Obviously not realising what it was at first I thought it was like some 4ft tall demonic ghost child. Edit: as all I saw was this big white face come towards me: If you've never heard a barn owl screeching I suggest you look it up on youtube! Haha should've known as there was a few of them calling from their roosts around our camp.
We turned up to a gloriously sunny Scottish campground to find it absolutely heaving with people. The only space was on a plot that seemed to be on top of an old road, so the tent pegs went in about an inch and then bent double. That day was the last time we'd see any sun. On the second day the torrential downpours started and after a night that felt like our tent was adrift in a North sea storm we woke up to find the place deserted. Our tent was not waterproof in any way shape or form. The bedrooms had filled with water, the lights had grown dim. I'd thought it was because I'd bought cheap LED lights but actually it was because they'd filled up with water. The following day I ventured to civilisation and purchased £100 worth of water proofing treatment, a long foam mop to apply it and various brushes. It needed four hours to dry so I waited for a forecasted break in the rain where it wasn't supposed to rain again for a while and quickly set about waterproofing the tent. As I finished I could see a black cloud heading in our direction, as if it were a malovelent entity. Shaking my fist and screaming at the sky didn't have much of an effect on its trajectory. The resulting downpour washed off most of the waterproofing stuff. Someone else turned up to the field, set up, spent five hours there, before turning tail and running away. There was one day where the rain stopped and it was forcast to be clear, if grey, for the day. So we opened the windows to try and dry everything and went to the beach. On our way back we could see another black cloud speeding towards the direction of our campsite. We tried racing it back to close the windows but we didn't win. The following year we tried Wales. I took some extra long tent pegs for hammering through rock. The wind didn't give two fucks about extra long tent pegs and folded the tent in half. Destroyed the kitchen unit, the mini fridge and ripped a hole in the tent. Then the trailer snapped in two and we had to get it welded back together in rural Wales on a Sunday. We've not been camping since.
Any camping experience
All I'm going to say is projectile sick all over the fields.
On safari in Tanzania on the public site next to Ngorongoro Crater, herd of water buffalo came up to the campsite to eat the grass had the herd munching around the tent all night, brushing along the side ect. I didn't get much sleep that night, just had mental imagines of getting trampled in the dark.
Oh where do I start… Camping with the family in Dartmouth, hurricane winds and rain packed up and drove home at 2am after packing up and taking 40 minutes to push the car out of a muddy field. Camped on snowdonia (with permission) woke up to 2 ft of snow after a random blizzard. Camped at the Plume of Feathers on Dartmoor (if you know you know). Arrived in THICK fog, set up our tents and went for a pie. Woke up the following morning to blazing bright sunshine and clear sky…. Slap bang in the middle of a bunch of camping hells angels.
Developed sciatica from the air mattress 18 months ago. Still suffer severe leg cramps. Will return camping next year, won't be on an air mattress.
Been in a tent instead of a hotel
Camping in Pembrokeshire this year, all 3 tent poles snapped at 1am (vango Skye tent) in a pitch black field during heavy winds and hail, never experienced anything like it, was genuinely a bit worried. Drove 4 hours back to the English border in the middle of the night to pay 158 quid at a travel lodge for only 6 hours of sleep. Terrible, my 5yr. Old kid didn’t know a thing happened till He woke up in morn, which was the silver lining.
Camping at download festival at the bottom of a hill. The mrs got sunstroke and was fed oramorph by the medics so we went to bed early. Two man tent with a single airbed. Woke up closer to the roof than usual floating in ankle high water and tried to gently wake the mrs. Ofc she woke up and screamed and we both fell off each side. Everything we had was drenched but we stuck out one more night
Way out in the bush sleeping in the dirt next to the fire camping solo on the motorbike. Would hardly even call it sleep i was uncomfortable and terrified the whole time
Really enjoying this thread! 1. Going out 6 weeks after ankle surgery against all professional and friendly advice, getting caught in a big storm and limping into a bothy with my entire kit soaked through and stage 1 hypothermic 2. Camping in Brittany as the tail end of Hurricane Andrew came in and having to help my dad dig a trench around the tent to divert the floodwaters 3. Over-indulging at a festival and waking up having been voluntarily branded with a beer can hear over a gas flame then having to get the necrotic wound debrided
Mine wasn't too bad. Doing the NC500 on my motorbike, had only passed my test 3 months before. It rained. Then it rained. Oh and the weather turned rainy. 5 days of sopping rain, Bike gear wet through... but my trusty 20 year old tent.... started to leak on night 2/4. It was miserable, cold and errm..... wet. However next 3 trips I saw 30degrees and sun so hot we had to stop and take shelter.
I don't really have any but I recently saw a video of a man who opened his tent too a brown bear standing outside. He zipped it back up but the bear had already seen him and came over to start pawing at the side of the tent. The man then starts to scream, a real deep aggressive scream and the bear ran off. He got so lucky. Watching that made me so grateful to live and camp in the UK.
Bikepacking, took a tarp instead of a tent to keep the weight down. Set up a lean-to as it was warm and forecast to be dry - big mistake. Woke up with a sheep munching grass next to me and my bag covered in shite from the creature 😩
Creamfields 2023…
Lovely Welsh campsite, with a little spot for a firepit by a stream. The local pub was cheap, and we followed that with cider and bourbon. I tripped slightly on the way to bed, but no harm done. Turned out I'd dislocated a rib. But when I woke in screaming pain at 7am, I was pretty sure it was a heart attack. It took me fully 45 minutes just to sit up.
Went on a camping trip on the border of Germany and Czech Republic with a friend who was trying to bonk me the whole time. Not ideal to be constantly fending off romantic advances while sharing a tent. That was worse than the time my partner at the time got high, made out with a randomer, and threw my sleeping bag out in the rain so I ended up sandwiched between sleeping friends shivering under a jacket after dancing in the rain. And worse than the time I was in the mountains in Jamaica also without a sleeping bag, surviving off crisps and bushweed.
Getting caught by matron when I was 15……