today we're going to go over how to pick a great campsite so i'm here in the national forest
going to be doing some dispersed camping and believe it or not there are a lot of things
that i am considering when i'm choosing where i want to actually pitch my tent so i'm going
to go over all those things today and show you some good examples and some bad examples
now if you're camping at a campground maybe you've made a reservation somewhere there are typically
designated areas and campsites where you're pitching your tent it's still a good idea
to think through these things but when you're dispersed camping or even you know backpacking
and you're in the backcountry it's not as obvious where to pitch your tent and so these tips and
these things to think about are going to be really important now if you don't know what i'm
talking about when i say dispersed camping versus campgrounds definitely check this video out here
it goes into the differences and the pros and cons of each so my first tip or thing to think about is
you're going to want to use a site that has been previously used so i'm here in the national forest
and i pulled up to this spot and i can see very clearly there are at least four
spots that i can tell someone has pitched their tent the ground is maybe a little bit matted down
and there are a ton of rock ring fire pits so one there one there one i think over there and i think
one way back there so there are a lot of places where it's pretty clear that other people have
camped and that's kind of where i want to start my search instead of making new spots because there
are just plenty of already made spots one thing that i like to do actually at home is look at
satellite maps on my computer and a lot of times you can see areas that you could potentially camp
so in the satellite view you can kind of tell that someone has camp there this this area is
maybe matted down so use that to your advantage and help you kind of plan and figure out where you
might want to try to find some of these campsites and then in addition to that i have the gaia gps
app on my phone and i download maps for offline use for the areas that i'm going camping so this
allows me to again look at the satellite view on the go to help me adjust and find spots as needed
so that's just like a little tip and something that i like to think about before at home as
i'm planning my camping trips all right so we got our rock ring fire pit we have clear spots where
someone else has probably pitched a tent right here so the next thing i'm going to be looking
at is for flat and firm ground this seems fairly obvious but if you've ever pitched your tent on a
slight slope it might not look like a big deal but when you're actually laying there at night it is
super annoying i have done this and then at night i'm just sliding off my sleeping bag slowly
throughout the night and i gotta pull myself back up so i really want to look for ground
that is flat and i don't want to be pitching my tent on some wet squishy marshland right i
want the ground to be somewhat firm so just kind of looking quickly around this spot
right here is jumping out at me this is a really nice flat spot i'll even
sometimes get down like this and look for slopes now another example is over here
now here we have another area
but i can tell this has a pretty decent slope to it especially when i come down here i can clearly
see this is sloping down this way so maybe this is something that i want to try to avoid
next we need to talk about avoiding drainages or areas where a lot of water is going to pool so as
you can see if i came here on hot sunny day where everything was dry and i just pitched my tent here
and then it poured rain obviously my tent's going to be flooded and that's not good so when you
arrive you want to be thinking okay if it's going to pour rain where is that water going to pool and
where is that water going to drain so you don't want to put your tent in an area where that's kind
of depressed right all that water is going to pool there and then same with drainages where is that
water going to run you don't want to be pitching your tent in the way of those drainages this is
really important if you camp in the desert that rocky desert landscape does not absorb water well
and there's a lot of flash flood potential in the desert those washes really do receive a lot of
water it can go from nothing to a lot very very quickly so you want to make sure that your tent
and your campsite are not in those areas when i arrive again before i'm pitching the tent this is
something that i'm looking at i'm looking around at the mountains at a distance at the hillside
and asking myself where is that water going to go before the tent is pitched next we're going
to talk about the importance of not only looking down but also looking up and at what's around you
you want to look for any standing dead trees that could potentially fall on your campsite and on
your tent these are sometimes called widowmakers and you don't want to be sleeping peacefully
in your tent and a tree falling on you that's obviously no good this is something that i think
is often overlooked when you arrive you should assess everything around you on the ground above
looking at all the trees that are within a distance to where if they fell they would
hit your campsite this is really really important so here not pitching a tent i'm gonna walk around
and i'm gonna look up and around me for any trees that are standing but dead
another thing that i'm thinking about is protection from the weather so high winds
thunderstorms that can roll in behind me there is a beautiful meadow but that's an example of
somewhere that i would not want to be in a thunderstorm i don't know about you but
i don't get struck by lightning in general i want to avoid big open meadows and mountain
peaks and ridges and places that are more likely to get struck by lightning and in this particular
case instead i might choose to pitch my tent in a growth of small trees of uniform height in general
you want to avoid the tallest tree in the forest because that is the most likely one to get struck
by lightning just factoring in the weather and how you can use the area to kind of protect yourself
from high winds and thunderstorms and also avoid those areas that are high risk in thunderstorms
next you want to think about where you're pitching your tent relative to water so the general
guideline is you want to be at least 200 feet from water sources so streams and rivers and
lakes but at the same time if you're backpacking for example
uh you're probably going to want to be within walking distance to the water so relatively
close to it so that you can gather new water throughout your trip so thinking about maintaining
a good distance but also making sure that you have the resources available for your trip
so i've decided on my camp spot now it might seem like this is a lot of stuff but it really doesn't
take that long to do for this spot i stopped i looked around i walked around i looked on
the ground the ground is nice and firm and flat i looked up i don't see any standing dead trees or
big branches that could fall on this campsite it's actually up on a bit of a hill here so as rain
comes down it's going to go around this campsite and not pool here on my tent so i've thought about
all these things for me at this point it's all pretty much automatic and it really doesn't take
long to do one other thing i want to talk about is thinking about the sun and shade exposure on
your tent now you really can't always account for this and it's definitely not something
that should be at the expense of the other things that we already talked about so what i mean is if
i'm camping in the winter in the colder months i'm gonna want that sun to hit my tent first thing in
the morning to start to warm things up so i might position my tent or put it in a in a location
where it's going to get early morning sun now on the opposite end of that in the
hot summer months maybe i want to try to keep my tent in the shade longer especially in the morning
when the sun hits the tent it heats up so quickly in the summer so maybe i want to account for that
now in a place like this there are tons of trees so pretty much throughout the day as the sun is
moving across the sky there's going to be periods of sun and shade on this tent again i just want to
reiterate this is not something that you should factor in if it's going to be at the expense
of all of the other points that we've already talked about so that is a rundown of the things
that i'm thinking about and considering when i'm choosing where i want to pitch my tent
i have said this before and i will say it again and again all of this really can be boiled
down to situational awareness it is crucial when you arrive at an area that you want to
hit your tent stop listen get quiet look at the ground look above you look around you
walk around the campsite really take in the landscape listen to the trees listen to the wind
and then use that information to make better more informed decisions taking a moment to assess the
area before you actually set up your tent is a really really good habit to get into so i hope
this was helpful a lot of this stuff i have learned the hard way so if you like this video
make sure to give it a like and i would love to hear your stories in the comments below so comment
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