Michigan makes it easy on camping newbies
BY LORI RACKL Travel Editor Jun 10, 2010
A couple of staff members at Hoffmaster State Park near Muskegon, Mich., give the kids a tent tutorial as part of Michigan's First Time Campers program.
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MUSKEGON, Mich. - I could picture those cavemen from the Geico commercials laughing at us: two college-educated grownups and a couple of hungry kids, standing helplessly around our camp site's fire pit.
We had matches, logs and an old National Geographic magazine for kindling, but we couldn't quite pull off the most basic of human survival skills. Our misguided efforts produced plenty of smoke, but no fire.
That's when Gary came to our rescue.
An avuncular retiree from Michigan, Gary spends a couple of months each year volunteering at Hoffmaster State Park as a "camp host." His duties thankfully include helping clueless city slickers whose fire-making skills consist of flipping a switch to turn the gas on.
Gary opened his bag of bone-dry kindling and showed us how to arrange the wood in a teepee-like structure to give the flames room to breathe.
"I think we got 'er made now," Gary said, as my 9-year-old stepson and 5-year-old niece grabbed some skewers to roast their hot dogs.
Gary is used to giving a helping hand to folks at camp site No. 191 - the site the state park reserves for people in Michigan's First Time Campers program. Rolled out last year, the program is designed to give outdoor recreation rookies a chance to experience an easy, affordable introduction to camping.
For $24 (or $20 for Michigan residents), up to four people can get two nights of camping in a state park. Outdoor retail giant Gander Mountain provides much of the gear - tent, tarp, camp chairs, flashlight, lantern - and a $10 Gander Bucks coupon in case you're so smitten with the experience, you want to buy some camping gadgets of your own. They even threw in a few baseball caps and a kite for the kids to take home.
Each participating park has set aside only one or two sites for First Time Campers so staff have the time to patiently walk you through the basics of outdoor recreation.
"We found that there are a lot of people who really want to try camping but find it a little intimidating," said Maia Stephens, recreation programmer for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Environment. "They just need a little extra help to give it a try."
Roughly 200 families took part in the First Time Campers program last year; 15 percent of them came back later in the season to camp on their own, Stephens said.
"It's a great way to spend time with your kids and get them away from their computer screens and text messaging," Stephens said. "A lot of single moms used it last year. We had one whose kid really wanted to sit by the campfire and make s'mores. She wasn't sure how to do it, so we had a ranger out there making s'mores with them."
Newbies to the camping scene can choose from one of 19 state parks. We picked P. J. Hoffmaster, a prime slab of real estate along the sandy shores of Lake Michigan, a little more than a three-hour drive from Chicago.
Hoffmaster has it all: sandy beaches for swimming, miles of forested hiking trails, towering dunes for the kids to climb up and run down, and, my personal favorite: very clean campground bathrooms.
The park also has an excellent visitor center that puts on a bunch of kid-friendly nature programs through Labor Day. Exhibits show how the area's hallmark dunes were formed. Kids can head downstairs around lunch time to watch staff feed the snakes, turtles and other critters in captivity. Nearby, a 193-step wooden stairway puts you at the top of one of the park's largest dunes, offering expansive views of Lake Michigan. Or, in our case, a lot of fog.
"I've never been in a cloud before," said my niece, who'd also never slept in a tent before. But she and my stepson - thoroughly worn out from a day spent climbing steep, sandy dunes - slumbered peacefully in our four-person tent. My husband and I, not so much.
Part of the problem was that the tent was set up on a wooden platform, which felt like sleeping on a gym floor. (We gave the cushier sleeping bag and our sole air mattress to the kids, who were happy to report the next morning that both worked really, really well.) Another factor contributing to our insomnia was the 4 a.m. concert given by what sounded like every single bird in the western hemisphere.
Some morning stretches, a few cups of coffee and cheese omelettes fired up on the camp stove set us straight.
"I like camping," declared my niece, who originally didn't want to come because she has "sensitive skin and can't sleep on the grass."
This soon-to-be-kindergartner learned - through first-hand experience - that her camping fears were unfounded.
My husband and I learned the importance of ear plugs and air mattresses.
And we all learned how to build one heck of a fire.
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