AND....She's OFF!!!! Wait wait...That's My TENT!

You're Too Old to Spend the Rest of Your Life on the Couch: Let's Adventure!

My tent, under normal circumstances

A lesson in aerodynamics and how a lightweight becomes obese

My new tent turned slowly, gracefully in mid-air, carrying the attached tent fly and footprint, and tumbled to the river’s surface. For a moment I was stunned to silence, not entirely sure that what I’d just witnessed was, in fact, MY tent that had begun to sink downriver in the current.

Then I burst out laughing. “TENT IN THE WATER!!! I shouted. And started to run straight into the rocks to retrieve it.

Let me back up.

It was mid-afternoon, the last full day on the Lower Salmon River. Oregon River Experiences, the guiding company, had brought us once again to a lovely, broad swath of white sand for us to set up for the night. The three guides were busy unloading and setting up the table for snacks and dinner.

Only one problem. Okay, several. First, the air temperatures were close to one hundred nearly every day. The white sand was superheated by the time we landed, hot enough to burn feet. Five days of this and everyone is exhausted.

The guides had just done this trip, had a two-day turnaround to shop for the next trip (ours) and head out into the heat again. Such heat saps the energy out of everyone, and regular dips in the sixty-ish water just aren’t enough.

We had already set up a shade canopy, where I’d left my big gear bag. After hauling that bad boy in the afternoon heat for several days, I was just done with it. I’d left the heavy bag slumped on a chair and had taken my tent down the beach to set up first.

Normally that wouldn’t have been an issue but for two factors. First, I didn’t know how windy it could get. I set the tent up, pounded some stakes into the hot sand (like that’s going to matter, right?) and headed back for ballast.

Under the shade canopy, I’d just grabbed three bags of gear to throw on the tent floor to secure it when one of the other guests asked me a question.

The few seconds I took to respond to her were all it took for a good gust to rip my tent poles out of the sand and launch my tent down the river.

There she was doing somersaults, the fly waving goodbye.

I had no clue whether I could get down to the tent fast enough. The sand was deep, piping hot and I was no match for an Idaho wind determined to make a fool out of this fool for not being better prepared.

No matter, my help wasn’t necessary.

Kaelen, the trip leader, sped past me, leapt into the river and started swimming. Ben, another guide, shot past me on the left, darting from one rock to another at a speed I couldn’t possibly match. Barefoot.

I started to run, too. I got just far enough to nearly break a toe on my left foot, and smash a toe on the right, badly.

At such times we are reminded that first, you are no longer a sprinter (just saying) and second, YOU ARE NO LONGER A SPRINTER.

Out of self-preservation, I stopped. There’s foolhardy and just plain stupid.

This was just plain stupid. I stood bleeding into the hot sand.

As I watched from a distance, the two young men reached the tent, or what remained of it. It was by this point submerged. Light as air, a feature I dearly love of Near Zero, the tent loses all such advantages when submerged. That’s also because all the tub seams are sealed to keep moisture out.

In this case, the bottom of the tent was holding massive amounts of water in, as Kaelen and Ben tried to get it out of the water like a beached whale.

Also, the super-light shock-corded poles which give the tent its shape were never intended to be stressed to this level. Now, hundreds of pounds of water weight were making the tent obese as Kaelen struggled to salvage what was left of my overnight home before the Lower Salmon claimed yet another piece of my gear.

Rivers do that. Nearly everyone who gets on the river loses something. A much-needed glove, for one. The river ate my waterproof camera when the battery compartment failed to click securely close.

NOW MY TENT? Come on man!

My overheated imagination was picturing this:

Happily, not my tent.

Minutes later, soaked and panting, Kaelen climbed out of the water. He and Ben folded up the poles and hefted the wet tent pieces between them. I feared the worst.

Well, hell, I thought. It’s not like the tent isn’t really hot at night (it’s an oven until nearly 11 pm because of the hot sand) and I’d already half-decided to sleep on one of the bright blue mats brought along for us civilians, I reasoned.

As I watched them trek back to where I was standing at the edge of the rocks, my damaged toes seeping blood into the sand, I could make out that at least the poles looked largely intact. That was a surprise.

The rest, well, we’d see.

Kaelen and Ben retrieving my wet tent

The two young men, now soaking wet and cool from the water and the breeze- it wouldn’t last - handed me what was left of my home.

The afternoon sun was brutal. I found a few small rocks and laid out the tent footprint, which was dry in seconds. The dark red tent with black bug netting was next, and it also dried in seconds after I laid it out on top of the tent footprint.

The fly, draped across some hot rocks, took less than a minute.

Lots to say about a tent that dries that fast. The fly had a couple of rock cuts, easy to repair, and nothing that would be problematic if we had rain.

We would not have rain on this trip.

The poles were another story, however. The force of trying to lift the tent from the top shock cord had badly bent several of them, which didn’t bode well for trying to set the tent back up.

Like my back in the mornings

Kaelen located a mallet with a plastic cover. Ben and John, a retired engineer and fellow veteran on this Road Scholar trip with his wife and two of their grandkids, laid the metal out on one of our metal tables. They banged away.

We managed to pound the table quite securely into the sand. Eventually with John’s guidance and Ben’s perseverance we managed to get the bends straight enough for government work.

Ultimately, the tent was only mildly changed in shape. This is how my tent looked after the repairs. You can see the curve in the top and left poles which shouldn’t be there, and the slight lift on the side of the tent instead of its lying flat on the ground.

That said, despite taking a swim, being submerged and rescued weighing far more than it normally did, this little tent worked just fine. I’ll need to replace the shock poles and repair the fly, but given the beating it took, I was delighted.

Effectively, this ended up being my tent review. Most of us don’t subject our tents to this kind of stress-testing, but it was a fine way to find out what would happen if an errant wind stole your Near Zero and dropped it in a nearby lake.

Assuming you got there soon enough and it didn’t slip out of sight, you could get it out. And even if you did bend the poles as happened here, a handy rock and flat surface- or nearly flat surface - would allow you to get the shock corded metal tubing straight enough to function.

Not only did I learn just how well-made this tent really is, I found out how well it performs in a serious pinch. Near Zero’s products were made for those adventurers who want far better than Walmart but aren’t interested in dropping a thousand for a single tent at REI. That’s a sweet spot for many of us who want good, lightweight, well-made gear but will likely never climb Denali.

If I wanted to know how well a tent this light (just under four pounds, with everything) would perform, I know now. I hadn’t exactly planned on trying it out scuba diving, but there you go.

My last night on the river was just fine, thank you very much. And by the way, here are a few reasons why the Near Zero two-man tent is now my go-to for summer camping:

The above three views give you an idea why you can not only see everything through this fine mesh, but for my fellow Floridians, mesh this fine will keep out the no-see-ums. That’s saying a lot. If you’re lucky enough to wake up on a clear night, you will see the stars. All of them.

Sadly, I saw stars every time I put pressure on my poor toes:

The one on the right didn’t fare well and is getting treatment; the one on the left is just reminding me that it’s stupid to try to run on rocks past a certain age.
Definitely, for sure, go on the river (after all, John was 78). I’ll be sharing more about the trip later, with plenty of stories about what we saw, what we did and what happens to you when you land in the rapids.

But leave sprinting down river on the rocks to young guides.

Let’s play.

Ben, unloading.

This article is dedicated to a certain river guide who was reminded of that very fact lately.

If you enjoyed this article, and are inspired to do a little rafting, I heartily recommend Road Scholar, which contracts with O.R.E. to run some twenty-four rafting trips during the season. I was delighted with all aspects of this trip, more to follow. I recommend the multi-generational trips if you’ve got grandkids. I don’t have grandkids but I got to play “gramma” for a few days with OPK, or Other People’s Kids. If you enjoyed this, please consider

If you know of someone who would get a laugh out of this story, please consider

No matter what, please put down the remote and go remote.