People who know us know, know what avid campers, outdoors and doing stupid s*** kind of people we are. But we’ve always done camping in the confines of a campground, where we knew we had good facilities and not to mention no bears. But I’ve always wanted to do an off-grid camping, where it’s just me and the elements.

Elma would not let me do this alone, so I brought it up some of my co-workers (Brandon and Yuriy) to see if they were interested, and to my surprise they were. So we agreed in a day that worked. It was just the three of us and we decided on Howland Falls. The reason we chose this place was because it was close to the road, yet had a beautiful view with the falls and a swimming hole underneath it. It was close enough to the car that if we needed to sleep in the car, for some odd reason, we could.

The three of us met at Howland Falls. Brandon and I brought our hammocks,  and for Yuriy we got a tent. We got setup and we started a small fire for lunch. That was Brandon’s win, apparently it puts “hair on your chest” being one with nature and what not… lol.

For the rest of the day, we ran into a lot of people, some with cute puppies. We all sat around the waterfall and chatted / swam and shared stories.

It started getting darker sooner than expected and we heard some thunder in the background, and then look at each other’s worried faces. Yuriy sleeping in the tent was fine because the tent was waterproof and everything was good while Brandon and I where sleeping in our hammocks.

Now my hammock setup was good. I had a full-on tarp and I knew I would be dry. Brandon on the other hand was not so waterproof and as soon as it started raining, he was wet. Luckily for him, Yuriy was kind enough to let him in the tent.

The night was beautiful. You could hear the thunder. The sound of the rain on top of the tarp was amazing and to my surprise, I fell asleep very quickly.

As always, I was the first one to wake up in the morning to hear the birds chirp in the background and also shocked that we were not attacked by bears, so that was a good win! I decided to go for a swim in the waterfall, take a quick shower, and change my clothes before we made French toast for breakfast. Here are some of the pictures that we took along the way. 10 out of 10 would do this again.

  • Puts hair on your chest
  • Yuriy being Yuriy
  • Dinner setup
  • My sleeping setup
  • Brandon’s Hammock

For the curious minds, my gear is: