I don’t remember where I first read about Kaspian campground, but we love it. The sites are walk-to up 25 steps. We camped here a lot when we lived in NorCal and have brought different people at various times, and have a lot of good memories camping here. Being a primitive and walk-to campground, only the dedicated stay here. It even has a fancy flush toilet now! It being a weeknight, we were really happy to find that we have the place to ourselves. I forgot to take pictures of our site, but it’s in (I think, a Ponderosa) pine forest.
Due to construction delays, we were racing the sun to get the tent up and dinner cooked. I should have timed us putting up the tent. It went pretty quickly the 3rd night in a row. Jaron said we were a little more on-brand tonight (by arriving late). We had dinner overlooking Lake Tahoe from our parking lot during twilight, but for bkst we made it across the street to the lakeside.
Our camp host was out of firewood and with an overnight low under 40, we were not excited about that. He went and got 4 bundles just for us. 5 stars.
Julie has been making good use of the hatchet to split kindling. She pulled out the machete to open the firewood bundles just so it didn’t feel left out. Haven’t had a use case for the saw, yet.
We were thoroughly warned about bears and remember Tahoe bears being in the news for opening doors to houses and fridges. Our camp host said that if he leaves his truck unlocked, they will open his doors. There are two bear families that frequent this campground.
And these bear-proof containers are like physical captchas — prove you’re human in order to get your stuff out of the bear box before you’ve had coffee!
I have never been so thorough removing items for the bear box. Everything except for the TP went in there. We read on the national parks website that you should talk in low tones to the bear and wave your arms slowly so it can identify you as a human and not a prey animal. Move away slowly sideways as this will allow you to keep an eye on the bear and not trip. If the bear follows you, you should stop and stand your ground. Whatever you do, don’t scream or run.
I took custody of the car keys for the night so that when I wet my pants encountering a bear when getting up to pee, I could get new clothes. I’ve encountered a bear 2x now and it’s terrifying. We discussed how bear psychology was probably different from human psychology, and that there was no Bear War College where they would learn about deterrence and de-escalation. I decided I would take out my earplugs when I get up in the middle of the night so I would be able to hear a bear approach. I asked Jaron to, if he woke up anyway, come outside with me and stand watch in case I got caught with my pants down.
Bears, bears, bears, bears, bears.
We stayed up until after 11 to optimize not waking up at the coldest hour and got up 2x in the night to pee and refill the air mattress.
No bear.
I was actually kind of disappointed. I had thought out what to say and everything.
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