Camping Bear Style - part 1

Camping - Bear Style

Ah Late Summer, when a young bear's thoughts turn to eating as much food as possible.  I mean really really stuffing your face to pack on the pounds before Winter gets here and I'm stuck in a cave somewhere trying to sleep.... but I digress.

I have discovered that although the stuffing your face part is great! Hibernation is not for me.  I go out of my way to stay awake by remaining super-saturated with coffee.  I also love to ski.  Other than polar bears, that's rare!

Like any bear, I like to eat.  I have found that the best way to eat is to follow my bear wrangler around.  If he's not around, than I resort to Plan "B" which is setting up a tent.  I like to use a fairly roomy tent in the hopes that humans will say "Hey Look at this big tent out here in the campground.  Let's use it and dump all our food here next to this lovely tent and go to the lake thereby leaving all this yummy food unattended."

Here I am posing with the tent gear before I head up to the park to set up the tent, and hopefully attract some campers:



When I got to the campground, another bear had beat me to the punch of setting up an all-you-can-eat buffet.  I would have to make the tent especially convincing if I was to get any camper food!



Well, it was still worth a try.

Setting Up the Tent

When setting up a tent I usually go for a pretty level campground with lots of trees and things that campers like.  For this trip I was pretty hungry so I chose the 4 person tent to set up.  It was hard work but it was worth it!  Setting up the tent poles is too complicated to explain here but let's just say that it's my least favourite part.

Once you have the poles set up you attach the tent to the poles using plastic clippy things.



Because this is a big tent, some of the clippy things were really high off the ground like this:

Holy Crap that's high up!

Once the clippy things are all in place, you have to attach the water-proof thingy that goes over the tent.  I do this because I learned that humans do not like sleeping in wet tents.  Once you have secured the big blue thingy to the top of the tent (again tricky, but no bears were harmed in the making of this post!), it's pretty much ready.

Here I am upside down checking that the blue thingy is attached before the next step.



With the blue thingy attached, I can use the cords on it to get back down to the ground.  Abseiling or rapelling I think is the term although I am neither repellent nor do I have abs.



Now the Final Step!

Securing the Tent 

Now for the real work (well other than the tent poles) and that is securing the tent to the ground.  Many people do this in case it gets windy or to keep the tent from moving around, but in my case it's so that people don't walk away with my tent!

I use cheapy aluminum pegs, and if the ground is good, they can usually just go in by pushing really hard with your paw or hand like so:





Once that is all taken care of, I just wait for people to move into this lovely tent, complete with stuffed bear occupant, and wait for the food to start arriving:

Taking down the tent
  
I saved the best for last!  Once you are done using the tent it has to come down (that and the stupid park wardens were on to me!).  I have found that after removing the blue thingy and undoing all of the clippy things that hold it up to the tent poles, the funnest way to take down a tent is to just JUMP into the middle of it! 





Of course if you are an especially big bear this isn't recommended because it's like the exploding chip bag all over again but in my case I am small enough to get away with it and it was fun!


-END PART 1-