The Joy of Tenting Alone

I was four years old when I first slept in a tent. My dad dragged his old, bright-green two-man out of our basement, carefully unfolded it and spent about thirty minutes pushing enormous plastic stakes into the ground to hold it up. I doubt I helped beyond maybe holding a stake or two, but that night my father curled up next to me and read me a library book for a bedtime story. We were less than ten feet from my deck.

A few casual cows wandering next to a Colorado campsite
—note yellow tent (sadly not mine) in background.

I have since slept in various tents over the years. I struggled for hours to set up the yard-sale four-man, complete with mesh roof for stargazing, next to our house with my younger sister; I camped with my girl scout troop in Maine; and I discovered the joys of the ultra-light, two-man tent on my first overnight backpacking trip with my father. Last fall I tented or car camped nearly every weekend until November, dragging the ultra-light with me on all my climbing adventures. But I always shared my tent.

As a child, I would have been much too afraid of bears and other wild creatures to sleep outside alone, and by the time I was old enough to camp on my own without extreme fear I was always sharing my tent with friends or my dad on outdoor trips.

This week was different. I slept in the ultra-light, two-man tent at a campground somewhere roughly thirty minutes outside of Basalt, Colorado; and I slept in it alone.

Many things were the same; I put my crash pad down as a sleeping pad and left my smelly sneakers outside. However, I learned that it takes longer to set up one’s tent alone, though the process was still over in less than 15 minutes. I could now spread out my stuff as much as I wanted without worrying about someone else’s foot-room, and I could sleep diagonally on my crash pad without hitting anyone. I have never slept so well while camping; it was wonderful. 

If you are wondering, no I did not fear any creatures, though I did dispose of several spiders and red ants that tried to share my tent. At 4 a.m. on the second morning some type of animal decided to make a ruckus—I’m still not sure if it was a wild chicken, a coyote, a goose in distress or some other creature, as I didn’t see it and have heard all of those hypotheses from those camping around me—I was too sleepy to be afraid and tucked my pillow into my sleeping bag to shut out the noise. No, I was not alone in the wilderness; about thirty people from Rock and Ice’s photo camp were sleeping in tents and vans within a quarter-mile radius, but I did enjoy having my little tent all to myself.