The camping discussion from the other day left me with mixed feelings—on the one hand, sad, because so many people haven’t learned to experience and love the outdoors in that way, but relieved, on the other hand, because that means fewer crowds. But since I do love camping, and I love to share it with others, I thought I’d share some experiences here. Quit now if you really don’t care—you’ve had fair warning this will be long.

Having fun camping is about being prepared, eating well, sleeping well, and then seeing every part of it, even the unexpected, as an adventure. If you don’t have the stuff to enjoy your experience, if you eat hot dogs and canned chili (or worse, ramen), if you sleep on the ground, and if you complain about everything that goes wrong, camping will truly suck. I totally get why people hate it, and some people always will. This isn’t going to be a how-to, but instead a why-to. If you want a how-to, I can add some of my experience later.

Teppanyaki-style dinner cooked in Zion. Check out the backdrop:



Steak and chicken fajitas:


There is nothing quite like waking up in the outdoors as the sun is rising, and a mist rests on the lake just a few yards from your tent. Or hearing the chattering of squirrels or the song of birds in the trees above you as you’re in a sleeping bag. Well, I could do without whippoorwills, though, and I was really glad when an owl finally got one near our camp.

Backpacking campsite, high Uintas. Notice the lake right near us:



I love getting out of the tent early, and walking with my children on an adventure through the woods, seeing dew on a huge spider web, or finding animal tracks in the mud near us that happened sometime during the night. I love sitting by the campfire after dark, getting warm and dozy in my camp chair, with my wife or children around me, maybe roasting marshmallows or even just staring into the coals. Last week in Zion, I even enjoyed my 8-year-old’s emergency trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night: I went with him begrudgingly at first, but man, the stars were amazing.

Speaking of stars, two weeks ago I was primitive-camping with my wife near Goblin Valley along the Little Wildhorse road. The stars there were incredible—if you have never been someplace like that, you have never seen the beauty of the Milky Way. We drove into the park, and I laid on one of the goblins as my wife tried to take photos (she’s still learning to do night exposures with her camera). Before it got dark, we could see pronghorn antelope off in the desert in front of us, and we watched the last rays of sunlight paint brilliant colors on the peaks of the land features to the east. All this while sitting in our camp chairs, and eating tenderloin filets and green beans cooked over a camp grill.



I’ve been camping in crowded campgrounds, primitive camping, backpacking, camping in the rain, cold or otherwise adverse conditions, and sometimes things can just flat out go wrong. But, if you look at everything as an adventure, a time to learn and teach your kids, it can be really enjoyable.

When we camp in campgrounds, for example, we like the opportunity to talk to and get to know people from all over. For some reason, in a campground setting, you can do that more easily than other places. This kind of started when we made way too much food one time many years ago, then we asked if other campers who were arriving late would like to share with us (we are pretty good camp cooks, so this helps). We’ve shared food with a motorcycle camper, who was just about to open a can of something and eat it cold. After a few minutes, we realized he’d gone to the same high school as my wife, and graduated the same year. We shared food with two men from back east, and it turned out one was a high-up in the Smithsonian, and gave us his card so we could get a special tour from him. We shared dutch-oven pineapple upside down cake with two gay man, and after awhile one of my innocent children asked, “So, are you guys roommates, or what?” “Something like that,” was the smiling response. We shared a dutch-oven meal last year with a foreign couple in Zion. They were amazed with what we could cook while camping (“You made this HERE? While camping???”). They later told us he was a manager of the Odysseo Cavalia horse show, and she was one of the acrobats, and they offered to have our whole family come to see it for free.

Last year in Yellowstone, we got to know the very large family next to us (9 kids, from CA, not LDS). We had hot chocolate with them, our kids played games while in camp, and we just had a great time getting to know them.


While camping, you have some interesting adventures. We had an elk walk right through our campsite in Yellowstone last year, close enough that it could have licked my daughter.


Rain and weather can be a bummer, but you can also have a good time with it. 3 years ago, we were camping in a campground just outside the park on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We arrived while it was raining, but it quit and we started setting up camp. We quickly got a fire going, but then the rain came up again. My 16-year-old son and I made it our goal to keep our fire going. Wearing ponchos, we built a make-shift structure over it, and kept that fire blazing while the rest of the family looked on from underneath a canopy. It poured too. When the rain stopped, ours was the only campfire in the whole campground that evening. After the rain, we sat in our camp chairs, and watched the retreating storm, which provided a pretty amazing lightning show.

Daughter staying warm during breakfast:


If you read this far, I’m amazed. I know I won’t convince some of you that camping isn’t a miserable experience. But, for those on the border, give it a try. Ask questions from people who know how to do it right. Or, maybe tag along with them sometime if they don’t mind. Right now we have about 5 families in my ward that have each asked if they could go along with us some time to learn the ropes. Last year at our Fathers and Sons outing, a ward member asked if I could teach him dutch oven cooking—we made BBQ chicken, green beans with bacon, baked cheesy alfredo pasta, and blueberry pie, all in dutch ovens. If you ask around, you can find people who can help you have a great experience. And when you learn how, that’s when it becomes something great to share with your kids.