Picking a campsite

What you need

• An hour of daylight left
• Eyes up

How

1. Look up first. Dead limbs, leaning trees and standing dead wood over the tent kill people every year.
2. Get off the low ground. Cold air and water both run downhill and pool where it is flat.
3. Check what is above you for water. Old flood lines, flattened grass and gravel bars mean the brook has been there before.
4. Put the wind at your back and the fire downwind of the tent, well clear of the fly.
5. Camp within a short carry of water but back from it, sixty metres or so, for the bugs, the bank and the animal trail.
6. Clear the rocks and roots off the flattest dry spot before dark, not after.

Watch for

Notes

Leave it cleaner than you found it. Fire out cold, ashes scattered, everything you carried in goes back out in the pack.