On Sept 25-26, the UVic Wilderness Skills Club held their bi-annual camping trip. The goal of these camping trips is to learn how to make functional shelters out of natural materials that can keep a person warm and dry at night and make fire using only sticks while providing an opportunity for the group to have fun in the woods and get to know each other better. The trip is a unique experience in putting wilderness survival skills into practice that students would be hard pressed to find anywhere else.
On all but one of these counts, the camping trip was a success, just not in the way anyone expected. The trip started off wonderfully and innocuously. The sun was shining on the Saturday and the temperature was warm. Everyone was in great spirits, with a couple of people even wanting to sleep under the stars. The group improved upon the three pre-existing shelters and built a new one. There was not enough materials to build enough shelters for all eleven people so a tent was brought to fit the last couple people in. In hindsight, the group was very grateful for the tent. On Saturday evening, however, the shelters looked great, and everyone was keen to sleep in them. Mike Divell, a first time participant in the trip commented that “neat was the feeling that these shelters really fit in to nature - on first glance they didn't even register as something built by man. Very cool.” Since April Barry, co-president of the club, and I had slept in shelters before, we volunteered to sleep in the tent so as to allow everyone else to have the experience of sleeping in the shelters. The fire making was very smooth. Said Divell, “Watching fire started from almost nothing was very impressive and memorable... I'd never seen it work before.”
Just after dark, it started to rain and everyone scampered to their shelters. At first the shelters were very warm and dry. Cherie Lavoie, who was in a shelter with two other people said she was “surprised at how warm it was in the shelter, I didn't even need my long johns!” Then the rain got heavier... and heavier. During the building of the shelters I had stressed that the inside of the shelters should be lined with debris so that they would be more comfortable and so that if it rained, water would run underneath everyone so they would get wet. But by the time the group had gotten to this point, they had all been working for quite some time, and it was only a half-hearted attempt to do a good job at this. I also didn't push them hard to make sure it was good as I didn't completely realize the importance of this insulation. As the rain kept falling murmurs could be heard over the cacophony of the clouds dumping on the tent. April and I felt really bad; here we were, the leaders of the club, laying in our mostly dry tent, while everyone else was presumably drowning in their shelters. By 2:00am I decided I had to do something or there would be a revolt. So I got out of the tent and told everyone else to pile in. All but two people gratefully got out of their shelters and got into what was at this point a very leaky tent. The two guys that stayed in their shelter decided they were at least warm where they were, if not dry, so they would tough out the night in the shelter. We got as much dry clothes on people as possible, and managed to fit nine of us in a four person tent. It was like human jenga. There were layers of people. Body parts were all over the place. Nobody knew who's legs they were on top of and who's feet were on top of them. We all became quite close that night, not only physically, but we all bonded quite well. There was much laughter, and little sleep, except, incredibly, from the two guys out in their shelter snoring away.
After about an hour and a half, everyone had settled in as much as they could and was trying to get some sleep. Suddenly there was a loud crack and a corner of the tent collapsed. Some were worried that a tree had fallen on us, but everyone seemed to be okay. It turned out a tent pole had snapped due to the pressure of so many people being in the tent. I was able to fix it somewhat, and the tent stayed standing, though somewhat more leaky. Less than a half-hour later, a tree then proceeded to fall on our tent. It was even loud enough to wake up the snoring guys in their shelter. Nobody was hurt, but it did crumple the same corner some more and gave everybody a mini heart attack. By the time morning came, and everyone had shifted several times to avoid laying in the moat that had formed around the edge of the tent, we were all quite happy to be alive. We were even happier that, as it got light, the rain stopped. The two guys in the shelter crawled out slightly more pruny than they had been when the night started, but otherwise no worse for wear. They were even able to get a fire going even though everything was thoroughly soaked. Despite the ordeal of the night everyone was in high spirits, though understandably quite tired.
In the end it turned out to be an unforgettable experience. We survived. We all bonded in a way that only such extreme conditions could facilitate. We learned valuable lessons about what it takes to build a shelter in the woods that will actually protect you from the elements. Divell summed up his thoughts on it with this comment, “Of course the rain is unforgettable too. The feeling of 'wow we built some awesome shelters' quickly turning into 'ooops. needed more work'”. The following week our workshops focused around building shelters, and the people that went on the camping trip definitely had a few tips for those who had never done it before. As for me, I need to find a new tent.
No comments:
Post a Comment