Finding a Camp Site

I am Tim MacWelch of Earth Connection School of Wilderness Survival and Ancient Skills. This is our video series on how to go camping. For our first clip, we are going to talk about how to find a good campsite? Some important things that we are going to want to consider when picking a campsite in the woods, is first off anything above us that might fall down and cause any kind of damage or injury, so we are going to look up into the trees, make sure there are no dead branches or dead trees leaning towards our perspective campsite. So we look around, also we want to check and make sure there are no hornet's nest or any other type of pest or problem. So this looks fine right here.

Next, we are going to look around and observe the surroundings, we want to make sure that there is no big bear scratches on the trees which would indicate a marking post which they will probably return to, and this is something which you want to look for from coast to coast. We are also going to look for bee nests, big poison ivy patches and anything else that could cause trouble. Then finally we are going to look down at the ground. We'll check out the soil; make sure that we are on a fairly dry spot. We are going to make sure that there aren't any ants crawling around that would cause us a nuisance. We are going to make sure there is no little small holes about as big around as a pencil which could be ground-dwelling yellowjackets. There are bees that actually live in hives in the ground and they are very aggressive and very mean. So we want to make sure there is no little small holes that could be full of bees, any larger holes about the size of a quarter, could be a rodent, the mice are a bit of a nuisance, the snakes that would go after the mice are actually harmful. So, we want to avoid any kind of holes about the size of a quarter in our campsite. So, we looked around, the ground looks good, I think this will be a fine campsite.

Next we are going to talk about what we should have brought camping with us.