>>2391587First time camping with two friends last Friday. We went down a logging road 1-2 hours past the furthest town near us in northern Ontario. We initially tried to find a trail but gave up as it was all super dry brush on the forest floor with nowhere safe to have a fire. We ended up just camping right off the mud road in a nice clearing atop a hill.
We hadn't planned for any bad weather though and after driving up the dry mud road and setting up camp we realized that if it rained even a bit, we probably wouldn't be able to drive back out.
The tent I brought hadn't been used in 5+ years and I didn't test it beforehand. It was missing half the poles and we couldn't get it up, so I shared my friend's small tent with him and my brother slept in a hammock he brought, which fell midway through the night lol. Sleeping in the tent was not very comfortable at all as I didn't bring a matt to put under my sleeping bag. Every little sound at night kept me up, scared that it might be a bear or moose running through. I slept about 3 hours.
I brought way, way too much gear and not enough food. Forgot utensils, didn't bring enough firewood (gathered plenty though), my phone was fully charged but turned off and wouldn't turn back on until we left the site (weird), I didn't cover my neck or bring sun screen so it is now completely burnt. We also didn't bring enough water, and forgot mugs for the instant coffee. All in all it was a lot of fun but we made a lot of rookie mistakes that we won't make next time. We got lucky that it didn't rain, I feel like if it did we would still be out there waiting for the mud to dry out.
