Backpacker Bible: Camp Well

I use a hammock, it's lite and comfortable and I can sleep with the stars.

Starbuck - I don't think there is a piece of backpacking equipment that everyone can agree upon. I love my neoair. Very comfortable, and I hear my friend's BA pad in the next tent more than I hear my own (he doesn't hear mine either). My neoair did develop a slow leak last year, but I patched it and it's as good as new.

I know a couple doing the Continental Divide Trail who purchased the neoairs. Between the rotten reliability and the terrible crackling noise while trying to sleep, they ditched them for rolled eggshell foam mats.

Did editors sleep on them or even handled them? I took one look at REI by taking down the hanging sample and laughed myself silly!

P.T. Barnum had it right.

Be very careful camping high. On a high Sierras backpack, we camped high and got caught in a thunderstorm. An exposed pad is not a safe place to be under those circumstances.

fond memories of my camping beginnings. 12 years old, me and my friends heading out, the farm lands of Frederick Maryland, when you didn't have to worry about who's land you were on. My pack consisted of my sleeping bag and food. We hardly everhad a tent with us.

Nice story but you will scare people off with the caveat at the end. I am a firm believer in camping under the stars - coyotes and all. I saw a wild stallion rear and neigh on the other side of the Rio one night camping under the stars near the Caballo Mts.

Big Agnes makes a winter version too that worked great for me in rainy nasty fall/winter weather on the mountain here in Santa Fe and was way lighter than my tent-mate's setup.

neoair got a hole in it and i awoke at 3am on the ground, blew it up and in the dark i found the hole by feeling the air on my cheek, placed a piece of tenacious tape on the hole with out any prepping (and w/out much confidence of it sealing) but to my pleasant surprise it held and is still holding several outings later! by the way it was cold and moist weather conditions

Frank 2/3/12.
I believe he was referring to shoveling the snow to level the tent platform, not the earth below. He is not a Marine digging in. smile

Try getting a bivy sack with a screen mesh cover at the head to keep out the bugs when sleeping out. There are bivy sacks for sale at many major outdoors stores that are nothing but mesh. They won't protect you if it rains but they also don't weight, cost as much or get as clammy as the more traditional bivy sacks.

My first time camping was off of I-94 in the badlands of north dakota, I got eaten alive that night, but learning my lesson meant getting a bivy sack, not abandoning the view of the night sky.

The author is missing the Leave no Trace ethic with leveling tent sites
Use a groundcloth and tarp and find not make the right level smooth spot to sleep along the trail.

The last time I slept outside the tent I ended up with a 10" long centipede in my sleeping bag.

The size of your pack is relative to the size of your fear - I hope someday to sleep outside, but as I lay in my warm bed on this stormy morning, I realize I have great fear to overcome. Thanks for the great report, it will push me in the right direction.