Truck Camping Tips
- December 2010
- Simple Living Travel
Hi Steph! I’m a big fan of your blog and climbing videos! I always show the Diamond video to people who are curious about climbing- I feel that ascent really displays the power of a focused mind.
Anyways, I’m taking this year off of college to camp out and focus on climbing, meditation and martial arts. I’m super psyched for the trip but have never really done anything like this before and was wondering if you had any good tips for the truck camping lifestyle. Like, what are good healthy camping foods, any camping tips that make life easier…
Thanks!
-Bill
Hi Bill,
That sounds like a great year off! Where are you going?
My best food tip is: tortillas!
When I lived out of my car, I had a piece of particle board ( about 18″ square) and a rolling pin (you can find them at thrift stores always) and a bag of flour in my food box. It’s the easiest thing ever to mix up tortilla dough (about 1/2 the amount of water to flour, play with the ratio to get a good ball of dough), and then roll out tortillas.
Make them about the size of your frying pan, and just brown both sides (no oil needed) in the hot pan. Stack them up as you make them, and cover them with a towel–this keeps them warm and also makes them soft and pliable as they stack up in the towel (important tip!).
If you are camping with other people, it’s really fun to make fresh tortillas around the fire, and then everybody else will get psyched to cook up some beans and fixings. It’s a great way to make friends and inspire group meals. And they are super yummy with some honey on them, for dessert…
And you will never run out of food completely, if there’s always a can of beans in the box and you have your flour.
Have a great time!!
Steph
Hey Steph. Thanks for the tips, I definetly will put them into use! My year has been great so far! Been kind of all over the place. I did a lot of bouldering and trad climbing in Tahoe, CA, then went to Bishop. Then more bouldering and trad climbing around Flagstaff/Prescott/ Sedona AZ, Boulder, CO and a bit in Utah. Braved the drive out East for some sport climbing in the New River Gorge then climbed ice/ mixed in Sandstone Minnesota. Its been super fun, so glad I took the year off haha!
I had another question for you…. : I’m planning on heading to Europe to go sport climbing during end of March/April/ May and was wondering if you knew of a good climbing area where I could easily meet climbing partners and not have to have a car to drive to the crags from the camping. Thanks for writing me; I was so surprised when I checked your blog and saw my question to you on the front page!
Hope all is well in Moab or wherever you are at.
-Bill
We’re trekking through Mediterranean Europe at the moment (halfway in a one year trip), and I’m thinking about your climbing next to the camping question. There are not that many climbing areas next to a camping; Here in Spain we often just park our van near a crag, and sleep in it.
Oh a good one: ‘Siurana’ in NW Spain; 100s of sports climbing routes, great limestone. Campsite is next to the crags. There are a lot of international climbers there. The weather is great during that time of year. You need to be a fairly good climber (onsight level 6b or 5.10c) to really enjoy it here. Excellent topo: rockfax.com: ‘Costa Daurada’. The area around Siurana towards Lleida is probably the are in the world with the most hard routes. Chris Sharma lives in Lleida, and opens extremely hard routes here. The camping owner Tony Arbones is a high level rockclimber, and you’ll easily be able to find more information through him.
‘Orpierre’ (France); lots of routes at all levels, camping in between the crags. Probably not so many loose climbers to meet. Topo at every shop in Orpierre.
‘Gorge du Tarn’ (France). Campsites and wild camping between the crags with many hundreds of routes. Best climbing 6b and more.
‘St. Leger du Ventoux’ wild camping between the crags. Very hard routes only. Very international atmosphere.
‘Sella’ (Spain). camping between the cliffs. Many british climbers (rockfax.com, ‘Costa Blanca’). Might be a bit hot in may. A good starting point could be ‘the Orange House’ a climbing accomodation in Finestrat. The owner knows everything about climbing in the Costa Blanca, and you’ll easily meet buddies with a car that take you to the rocks. http://theorangehouse.co.uk/
All in all you could do worse than starting in Siurana. You’ll easily get into the climbing scene there.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to mail: bartmkp at gmail.com.