Camping

[glatt]

I went bicycle camping over the weekend.

The Scout troop was having a "wilderness survival" merit badge camping trip nearby, and it was the perfect opportunity to do something my son and I have always wanted to do, which is carry all your crap on your bike to go camping.

The site is Marsden Tract group campsite, and it's right next to an old canal tow path in Great Falls National Historic Park. The canal is level, with occasional small hills where there are locks, so that part of the ride promised to be easy. It's 12 miles from our house.

One of my son's best friends is a neighbor and also in the troop, so he agreed to join us on the ride.

Since it was wilderness survival themed, the boys planned to build shelters and sleep in them. Each boy packed a hammock though as backup. They each travelled very lightly.

I travelled more heavily. Two water bottles in holders on my frame. I have a rear rack on my bike that I bought specifically for this little trip, and I had a couple small bags lashed to that: A small tent. A dry bag containing my sleeping bag, pad, and some clothes. And my backpacking folding chair. Small improvised panniers had things like a mess kit, flashlights, toiletries, and a tiny camp stove and pot that I never used. I also had a daypack on my back containing basically just a huge expedition crew sized first aid kit. And the pack gave me a place to lash my trekking poles that I need to set up my tent.

Here's the thing. I don't ride bikes much at all. A handful of times a year. You use different muscles when you ride, and those muscles were not in shape. Getting from my house to the canal tow path was all on maybe 5 miles of surface streets in Arlington. Lots of steep hills to traverse before the easy towpath. But I did it. Only had to force the boys to stop and rest at the top of one hill. I had to catch my breath. Google maps thought it should take 1:15 for an average cyclist to do that 12 mile ride. It took us with all our extra weight and my out of shape condition 1:25 to get there. Pretty good, I thought.

The ride back was worse, because I had taken a 2 hour midnight to 2am shift to sit by the fire. The idea was that any of the 20 or so boys who were "sleeping" in the shelters they built might get scared or need help and want to come huddle by the fire for a bit. Took a while for me to fall asleep again after being up for so long in the middle of the night. So I was pretty tired. Plus it was more uphill to get home. Sea level to 300 feet elevation, plus all the ups and downs in between. Anyway it took 1:35 getting home instead of the 1:15 Google predicted.

I really enjoyed it though. Bike camping is cool. I rode from my house to this beautiful location that felt like it was in the middle of nowhere. It helped a lot that I met up with the full troop that had purchased food so I didn't have to carry that.

Couple pictures from the trip:
The canal, about 50 yards away from our site, which was tucked back in the woods. You get a lot of people on this path on a weekend afternoon, but I can tell you there is not a soul there at 2am except me peeing into the canal and a million fireflies.

A deer in the canal.


One of the wilderness survival things we were trying to teach the boys was signaling. This is them practicing with mirrors. Some were really good at it, and some terrible.


We made each boy try until they got the hang of it.