[at-l] Beach trip report and questions about sand and camping

[jeanpaul at comcast.net (Jean-Paul Miller)]

(i sent this a few times now but i think the list was having problems each
time i hope you dont get this twice)

let me first apologize for not inviting anyone. I only knew I was going the
night before do to problem planning with finals and end of school graduation
things happening or I would have invited other people. (we were gonna go to
PA but the snow and temps made the beach more favorable for our gear.. I had
to go out hiking I have been trying to for nearly a year and some weather
was not gonna stop me! oops)

under most unfavorable weather I went to the beach and spent a night on the
beach.

I went with a friend.(my friend is not a backpacker persay he just comes
along with me but seems to enjoy it. he is slowly learning and I have raised
him from a newbie car camper.) this means I normally cook set up camp break
down camp and everything like that. he could do most of it I think but it is
faster and easier for me to do it. the first trip I took him on was a 23
mile days along the Appalachian trail in Maryland and he loved it.(I knew he
was in shape for it we were training for something at the time) we have
biked the C&O canal camping on the canal and done some backpacking in New
York. he has night hiked and done some relatively "advanced" things with me.
but he has never gone out or taken me out backpacking I always take him. if
that makes sense.

we hiked 12 miles on the beach. there was rain and strong winds and piling
sand and it was a horrible trip. we even hitched about a 3 miles ride with
some hunters who were also getting off the island because of the weather was
bad.

it was a horrible trip for many reasons including a stove failure, water
bladder failure.

aside from gear failures. I notice some functional problems with gear and
sand. if anyone can explain what I was doing wrong so I can try it again
that would be good.

it was raining and sanding, if that makes sense. this is what I noticed.

I brought a clip flashlight.  first thing to note this is a bad choice.
no-see-um netting stops no-see-ums but not sand! we were dusted with sand
all night to wake up to a fine coating of sand dust in the morning. the tent
and everything in it including us was a nice tan color. the door acted as a
dune. and sand collected on it and pile all night forcing me to dig out of
the tent. took me nearly 5 minutes to free us from the tent. I was
considering cutting the tent for a time period cause I could not figure out
how to get the leverage to move the sand. eventually un "staked" the tent
and dismantled it from the inside out and exited from the side. the tent is
not a good tent under wind either. it is my only backpacking grade tent
though and no matter how I sliced it tarping sounded bad on the beach.

now I set the door facing the wind at night figuring like I have noticed all
my life at the beach the wind shifts at night and in the morning it would be
blowing the other way. this did not happen for some reason. was this wrong
to set the tent up like that. should I have put the door the other way? 90
degrees?

we also used a kind of deadman or sand anchor to stake the tent down. they
were hard to use and I am not sure if I was using them correctly. I made
them modeled after something mountainhardwear sells. should I have used
large tent stakes.  what I did to solve this problem was I found drift wood
and unfortunately trash, like soda bottles and old tire parts... tied
guylines to them and buried them in the sand around 12 at night when the
tent loosened. I buried them horizontally to make more resistance that
worked well. would really long tent stakes have been better?

zippers don't work and Velcro gets caked with sand to the point on not
working. also slide locks or side locks (like the thing on your waist belt)
fail when wet sand fills them. what do you do about this? there is seemingly
no way to prevent this.

gear gets wet sand caked on it. my gear doubled in weight. is there anyway
to prevent or remove this sand in the high winds and rain while on the
beach. I eventually ended up carrying about 2 gallons of sand on and in my
pack. it nearly doubled the weight of my pack.

(some fun facts I learned... when the wind blows hard enough on the beach
the sea froths like beer and you can not see at all! the sand stings any
exposed skin and it feels like it is smoothing your eyes. if you cover up
with clothe it cakes with wet sand. the back side of islands flood during
the storm leaving you the open of trekking in knee and thigh deep water of
flooded "swamps" or trying to make head way in the strong winds on the beach
front)

this may be similar to snow for you folks that do snow camping. feel free to
pitch in ideas too!

happy hiking,

Wisperlight



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