Hey, Camp Lovers!
The adventure continues with more amazing camp stories from our ‘Share Your Camp Story’ Contest! We’re thrilled to spotlight each entry on our blog, celebrating the unique experiences of campers everywhere. Today, we’re sharing a fantastic tale from Marshal H., who wrote in to tell us about an unforgettable camping experience many years back. Let’s travel back in time 45 years for today’s camp story right now…
“It was the summer of 1979 and friends and I decided to go camping.
I forget the occasion, usually some event correlating with a church outing in the great state of Utah in the Northern Rocky Mountains.
We drive to the campsite in a state park. It was me, my friend Brett, his brother Tuck, and my brother Darren.
We pitched the tents early and went for a hike up to a promontory fall. The day was lovely – green and hazy from the continued days of heat that preceded them. But we all knew that it was the apex of the summer season and wanted to get our last camp in before the end of a wonderful summer season.
The waterfall we hiked to was there. Some years it was thin in its flow. This year there was adequate water to take a cool dip and enjoy the contrast of cool to cold against a warm summer day.
We talked of girls and motor bikes, projects coming up with school. What sports we planned on participating in. We were fierce and unencumbered with the future.
Later we gathered dry wood for making a fire to cook our transported fare for dinner.
Brett made the fire while Tuck and my brother prepared the night’s dinner, which consisted of hot dogs, potato salad, and smores. The obligatory campfire dessert.
The fire roared, the daylight waned and the full moon shown bright on our evening meal.
After all had been eaten and the aluminum camp dishes washed and put away, we came to the talking and storytelling.
I personally always liked a good scary story, as I had heard many of them from my father while sitting around the family outdoor fire pit in my youth.
I tried to think up a really good and scary story and challenged all of us to come up with the most scary story.
Each one tried.
My brother revamped the story my Dad would tell of the Windengo, a man possessed in Alaska which was an offshoot story of Edgar Allan Poe’s Goldbug, and changed enough to make it his own.
Brett threw up a tried and quick story of a rehashed Freddy Kreuger theme that was a bit too sophomoric to hold anyone’s suspense.
Tucker couldn’t, or wouldn’t, come up with a story. I don’t know if he was scared of being scared or if he just didn’t have the chops to have one original thought on the subject. It irritated me. His lack of compliance to the rules so much that the game of it disintegrated into common talk of the day and the deeper and more philosophical thoughts on religion, time, space, aliens, what was the meaning of life. I noticed that Tuck became more quiet as the conversation and speculation continued between us from the many deep meanings of existence to the solid truth of the religion we were in and brought up to believe.
He became more stolid as we continued our conversation, so much so, that I found myself paying more attention to his composure than to the obvious track of the conversation.
Even when I attempted to bring him into the conversation, he was recalcitrant from participating in it.
After awhile, I finally realized that I had directed the conversation to the most scary story of all, and while observing Tuck’s composure, I understood I had scared the man the most by questioning his foundation of his beliefs.
The product of that night’s campout stays with me all these years and realizing that some people want to be superficially scared, others want to be terrified, and others don’t even like the thought of wandering out of the cave of their understanding.
This ended the campout with friends and scary stories told around campfires.”
Hey, Marshal! Sounds like your camping trip in the summer of ‘79 was a truly unforgettable experience, filled with the excitement of youthful adventure and deep conversations under the full moon. The image of hiking up to a waterfall and cooling off in its refreshing flow on a warm summer day is just perfect! It’s amazing how a simple campfire meal and the challenge of telling scary stories can spark such profound reflections on life and beliefs. Your story really captures the essence of what makes campouts so special—connecting with nature, friends, and even our deepest thoughts. We truly appreciate your entry and the way you brought us back to that summer evening. Thank you for sharing such a vivid and memorable story!
To everyone else, thanks for reading. Come on back next week when we’ve got more camp stories comin’ atcha! Till then.
- John
