Mountaineering, or alpinism, is the set of outdoor activities that involves ascending tall mountains. Mountaineering-related activities include traditional outdoor climbing, skiing and traversing via ferratas. Indoor climbing, sport climbing and bouldering are also considered variants of mountaineering by some.
Camping is an outdoor activity involving overnight stays away from home, either without shelter or using basic shelter such as a tent or a recreational vehicle. Typically participants leave developed areas to spend time outdoors in more natural ones in pursuit of activities providing them enjoyment or an educational experience. The night spent outdoors distinguishes camping from day-tripping, picnicking, and other similarly short-term recreational activities.
A tent is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or attached to a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using guy ropes tied to stakes or tent pegs. First used as portable homes by nomads, tents are now more often used for recreational camping and as temporary shelters.
A tipi, often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan, and in use in Dakhótiyapi, Lakȟótiyapi, and as a loanword in US and Canadian English, where it is sometimes spelled teepee or tepee.
A hammock is a sling made of fabric, rope, or netting, suspended between two or more points, used for swinging, sleeping, or resting. It normally consists of one or more cloth panels, or a woven network of twine or thin rope stretched with ropes between two firm anchor points such as trees or posts. Hammocks were developed by native inhabitants of the Americas for sleeping, as well as the English. Later, they were used aboard ships by sailors to enable comfort and maximize available space, by explorers or soldiers travelling in wooded regions and eventually by parents in the early 1920s for containing babies just learning to crawl. Today they are popular around the world for relaxation; they are also used as a lightweight bed on camping trips. The hammock is often seen as a symbol of summer, leisure, relaxation and simple, easy living.
A shelter-half is a simple kind of partial tent designed to provide temporary shelter and concealment when combined with one or more sections. Two sheets of canvas or a similar material are fastened together with snaps, straps or buttons to form a larger surface. The shelter-half is then erected using poles, ropes, pegs, and whatever tools are on hand, forming an inverted V structure. Small tents like these are often called pup tents in American English.
Backpacking is the outdoor recreation of carrying gear on one's back, while hiking for more than a day. It is often an extended journey, and may involve camping outdoors. In North America tenting is common, where simple shelters and mountain huts, widely found in Europe, are rare. In New Zealand, hiking is called tramping and tents are used alongside a nationwide network of huts. Hill walking is an equivalent in Britain, though backpackers make use of a variety of accommodation, in addition to camping. Backpackers use simple huts in South Africa. Trekking and bushwalking are other words used to describe such multi-day trips.
The Chilkoot Trail is a 33-mile (53 km) trail through the Coast Mountains that leads from Dyea, Alaska, in the United States, to Bennett, British Columbia, in Canada.
Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations or artificial rock walls. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically and mentally demanding sport, one that often tests a climber's strength, endurance, agility and balance along with mental control. Knowledge of proper climbing techniques and the use of specialized climbing equipment is crucial for the safe completion of routes.
A blast shelter is a place where people can go to protect themselves from blasts and explosions, like those from bombs, or in hazardous worksites, such as on oil and gas refineries or petrochemical facilities. It differs from a fallout shelter, in that its main purpose is to protect from shock waves and overpressure instead of from radioactive precipitation, as a fallout shelter does. It is also possible for a shelter to protect from both blasts and fallout.
A bivouac shelter is any of a variety of improvised camp site, or shelter that is usually of a temporary nature, used especially by soldiers, or people engaged in backpacking, bikepacking, scouting, or mountain climbing. It may often refer to sleeping in the open with a bivouac sack, but it may also refer to a shelter constructed of natural materials like a structure of branches to form a frame, which is then covered with leaves, ferns, and similar material for waterproofing and duff for insulation. Modern bivouacs often involve the use of one- or two-man tents but may also be without tents or full cover. In modern mountaineering the nature of the bivouac shelter will depend on the level of preparedness, in particular whether existing camping and outdoor gear may be incorporated into the shelter. A bivouac shelter is colloquially known as a bivvy.
A portaledge is a deployable hanging tent system designed for rock climbers who spend multiple days and nights on a big wall climb. An assembled portaledge is a fabric-covered platform surrounded by a metal frame that hangs from a single point and has adjustable suspension straps. A separate cover, called a stormfly, covers the entire system in the event of bad weather.
Refugee shelters are structures ranging from the most temporary tent accommodation through transitional shelter to building temporary pics and settlements and include the most basic kind of ad hoc structure. They are created in the aftermath of a conflict or natural disaster as a temporary residence for victims who have lost or abandoned their homes. Refugees and IDPs are people fleeing their homes or countries of origin due to natural disasters, war and political or religious persecution in search of refuge and resettlement. Living in these shelters refugees may force marriage crowded, noisy, dirty, disease filled grounds where thousands of families are cramped together and surviving day by day.
Ultralight backpacking is a subset of lightweight backpacking, a style of backpacking which emphasizes carrying the lightest and least amount of gear. While no technical standards exist, some United States hikers consider "ultralight" to mean an initial base weight of less than 4.5kg. Base weight is the weight of a fully loaded backpack at the start of a trip, plus the gear inside and outside it, excluding consumables such as food, water, and fuel. Base weight can be lowered by reducing the weight of individual items of gear, or by choosing not to carry that gear. Ultralight backpacking is most popular among thru-hikers—those hikers on extended trips requiring resupply.
Hammock camping is a form of camping in which a camper sleeps in a suspended hammock rather than a conventional tent on the ground. Due to the absence of poles and the reduced amount of material used, hammocks can be lighter than a tent, though this is not always the case. Most hammocks will also require less space in a pack than a similar occupancy tent. In foul weather, a tarp is suspended above the hammock to keep the rain off of the camper. Mosquito netting, sometimes integrated into the camping hammock itself, is also used as climatic conditions warrant. Camping hammocks are used by campers who are looking for lighter weight, protection from ground-dwelling insects, or other ground complications such as sloped ground, rocky terrain and flooded terrain.
Hiking equipment is the equipment taken on outdoor walking trips. Hiking is usually divided into day-hikes and multiple-day hikes, called backpacking, trekking, and walking tours.
A loue is an ultra-light Finnish open tent-like shelter. It is used to give reasonable protection from wind and rain during a variety of outdoor activities, including camping, canoeing, hiking and hunting. Loues are popular with Scout groups and minimalist campers. Suitable as one or two person shelters, they are compact, light and can be set up and taken down in a basic way fairly quickly. The workman-like sets shown in photographs indicate that more effort can be made to stiffen the sides and the stakes and lines used can complicate a taut setup. The open front permits fire viewing, ventilation and looking out over a scenic view. A loue consists of a roughly conical section of fabric with the semi-circular bottom edge grounded by stakes and the tip raised with a single pole. Suitable standing tree trunks may be used to suspend the tent if an open campfire is not to be used. This style of ''tarp tent" can best be raised using a scissors-pole assembly. A pole suspension system allows for positioning an open fire in front of the shelter without the risk of damaging tree trunks or roots. The panels of a true Finnish loue are designed to provide a semi-circular short wall around the shelter and a triangular piece at the tip can be let down to provide a little more shelter in front. With suitable siting and careful staking and tensioning, the side walls can be set close to the ground, providing protection from drafts and lifting from winds.
A whoopie sling is an easily adjustable rope sling designed for tree pruning or tree removal. The whoopie sling works by wrapping the sling around the trunk of a tree or a heavy load bearing limb and pulling the end of the rope within the sling through a spliced choker. By adjusting the size of the eye in the rope through the choker the user is able to adjust the length of the sling constricting around the tree without needing knots. It is also becoming more common for suspending hammocks during hiking, camping, or sailing.
The Neusiok Trail is a 20.4-mile (32.8 km) hiking trail located in the Croatan National Forest in Carteret County, North Carolina. The trail traverses the forest from a sandy beach on the Neuse River to a salt marsh on the Newport River, and along the way, it crosses cypress swamps, hardwood ridges, longleaf-pine savannah and pocosin—shrubby bogs The entire Neusiok is part of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST) which spans North Carolina, and the MST in the Croatan is a designated National Recreation Trail.
Camp Ondessonk is a rustic, outdoor, Catholic youth camp run by the Belleville Diocese. It is located in the Shawnee National Forest of Southern Illinois, near Ozark, Illinois. The camp strives to remain a “last frontier” of sorts, where participants can experience life away from the plugged in world of today's society, and go back to a time of outdoor living while experiencing nature to the fullest. Camp Ondessonk states their mission to be "to provide an environment that inspires physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual growth for individuals and groups through the appreciation and stewardship of nature." Camp Ondessonk is accredited by the American Camp Association.
