In a Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold describes what he thinks makes up a good outdoor recreational activity. A good outdoor recreational activity as one that promotes ecological awareness, conscience, and perception. He suggests that such an activity is one that gives the individual a change of scene, isolation, a chance to perceive nature, and a reward for that experience (284-293). He also that that we need to be concerned with the impact of mass use of an activity and how technology can distract from the natural virtues (285). We will explore these virtues in the context of truck camping.

Several weekends of the summer I take a few hours away from my busy life to spend some time in the woods alone, truck camping on a Friday night. My 4x4 Ford Ranger has a Leer cap and I usually go to a state forest about 20 miles from my house off a state truck trail. I only usually spend the night up there, spending a little time alone. I build a campfire, cook up some food on a portable propane stove, and drink beer.

I sit and listen to the WAMC Friday night specials or country music, and spend some time catching up on doing some pleasure writing or reading. I often go out on night hikes listening to the wildlife around me and looking up at the stars. The next morning I pack up and leave early, staying only a few minutes to grab some pictures of the Catskill Mountains in the early morning light to bring back as my trophy.

Going truck camping gives me a chance to be more aware of the environment around me and has reinforced my existing environmental values learned from camping with far less technology. The truck might be noisy going through the woods and scare away animals, but once it's parked it's relatively quiet. I have hiked these woods many times in the daytime, but the animals around are different at night. You can perceive a variety of animals that might otherwise be invisible in the daylight. In the daytime, you do not hear the owl with it's eerie cry at night, nor the eyes of a coyote as he runs through the bushes surprised to see a human up here at night. You also do not see the world under moonlight and the brilliant stars that come out in a clear night in the summer.

Most nights up there you won't see another human throughout the whole night. Occasionally you might hear a car rolling down a distant county road but that's relatively rare. It's a unique chance to perceive nature without the distractions that are constantly around my parent's farm. I've always been fairly aware of the natural environment around me. As a Boy Scout I spent hundreds of nights camping and studying nature. We were required to look for a variety of plants and animals and identify them for various merit badges and requirements. I went on a diverse number of activities from camping deep in the Adirondack Wilderness to attending massive camporees at places like Kinderhook and Plattsburgh. I go out hiking, biking, and off-roading on my quad and in my truck all of the time. It's not like the woods is oblivious to me. Yet, it seems that spending so much in the woods at night with little to do but build a fire and roll out my sleeping bag in the back of my pickup truck gives me a chance to reinforce my ecological awareness.

At the same time I'm aware of the costs that truck camping has to the environment. My pickup truck weights nearly two tons when weighted with gear. That knocks down plants in the meadows and leaves ruts. The plants may take several weeks to fully recover, assuming no other trucks or quads pass through. The ruts might last for years until erosion wears them away. It can also leave grease and other chemicals from the under body of the truck. It's less damage then riding a quad through the same area can do, but it's still changes the environment. Yet, those choices to build truck trails where made by the Department of Environmental Conservation long before I first took my truck or quad up in the woods. The impact is on a relatively narrow section of the woods and the damage is minimized by the relatively rural and unknown nature of this land. Mass use simply is not a problem up here. Yet, the impact on nature by my truck or even my quad is relatively small compared to what others do. I've seen people cut down trees that get in their way or for timber theft.

I've seen all kinds of trash dumped in the woods from the remnants of a burn barrel to several pickup truck loads of construction debris. You have to wonder why when the local township takes that stuff for free. One state forest I was in Tugg Hill Plateau had all that plus the carcasses of several animals spread all over the land by idiots with guns and hunting knives. These things have a relatively small impact on the conscience compared to standing on the open face of a landfill or seeing rich soil from farmland being carted away to make for the latest in suburban sprawl, but it's still bothersome to see this in such a pristine environment. Littering, dumping, and the destruction of public property never has made much sense to me. You simply don't defecate in your own backyard. I guess the more garbage and destruction I see in the environment the more it shocks my environmental conscience. I've always made it policy that right after I leave a site I always inspect it for anything I might have left behind and to pick up any thing else other people have left behind. I've avoid losing several things that way and found several others useful things that others have left behind. I always take that stuff with me.

I've always carry around two boxes in the back of my pickup, one for burnables and one for things to take back for recycling. When I'm on my quad and snowmobile I have a garbage bag for that same purpose to pickup my trash and the litter of others. You could argue that I learned to tidy up after others from my previous experiences from Boy Scouts. I agree with Leopold that learning these outdoors skills has taught me an environmental ethic that has forced me to act in a way that is different from some individuals (181-191). It might be fun to drink or shoot up an old television in the gravel pit, but I've learned if I want that privilege then you need to clean up your mess so others can enjoy this area too. My ideas on what is enjoyable in the woods started with simple and basic outdoorsmanship and expanded with the toys that I got access to later in life.

Truck camping has certainly taught me to be more perceptive of nature at the same time. The night hikes have exposed me to new wildlife, and getting up in the morning to the fresh dew has continued to make me think about the world around me. My knowledge of plant identification and animal identification probably needs more refinement, although certainly I feel as though I have a working knowledge of what is around me and what the most common animals and plants I will likely run into in the woods.

Yet, truck camping does suffer from technological distractions and keeps me from refining some of my outdoors skills further. The art of putting up the tent alone is replaced with finding a relatively flat place to park the truck. Setting up the bedding is a matter of unrolling the bungee cord, and unpacking the pack is about opening a 30 gallon plastic tote box. Sitting under the bright florescent light powered by the inverter in my pickup blocks out the stars and listening to country music on the clock radio scares away the animals.

The book I'm reading or the essay I'm writing keeps me from looking out to see what's going on just past the light. Sterno heat keeps the cap warm even in the coldest winter weather. It's a compromise for sure and it does keep me a degree from nature, but it's still different then a modern RV camping in a massive lot with dozens of other trailers that Leopold so strongly condemns (281-282). Leopold would probably agree that what I do out there is little more then just a compromise that I can fit into my everyday life when I can't get deep in the forest for a real outing.

My ecological awareness and perception did not come out of truck camping nor from playing with my quad or snowmobile. It came from doing what Leopold advocates that everybody learn: basic outdoors skills (181-191). It was building fires in the snow with wet wood, cooking and baking over smokey fires, setting up a tent in the snow, after drudging for miles to get deep into the back country. Hard work teaches values, and create a lasting respect for nature. You have to balance it with the convience of truck camping after a long hard day at work and the desire to do other activities besides basic camping skills.