My time at Oregon Inlet National Park this past week was the most intense, exhausting camping experience of my life. I have windburn, sunburn, bites covering my body, a pound of sand in my hair, and fiberglass in my fingers. I sweat, I bled, I slept in my car and slept in a tent that the wind flattened into a horizontal strip.
I continued to wonder why there is a campground at Oregon Inlet, the wildest place on the entire island.
Let me break it down for you as to why this was one of the worst camping experiences of my life:
1) Constant gusts of winds so strong, I couldn’t do much of anything (like make food, eat food, talk on the phone, read, write, open a car door, much less keep a tent staked down).
2) The seven-hour storm that flooded the entire campground. More storms the following day.
3) A beach that was so windy, I couldn’t lie down without getting pelted with sand or worried that I might get run over by one of the trucks full of drunken assholes.
4) Campsites that are about 30 feet apart and right next to the main road, so when I did fall asleep, it was to the sound of highway, not ocean.
5) A 24-year-old guy on disability (and probably heroin) camping across from me who told me his life story and wanted to run away with me on the road.
6) No campfires are allowed anywhere, however you can burn wood fires at the beach up the road with a permit but only during the day (who would do that and why?).
And also one of the best:
1) A double rainbow that glowed in this pinkish/golden sunset after a storm rolled through.
2) A fiery-pink full moon rising over the ocean.
3) The first day of summer—and my last day there—when everything changed: the winds died down, the water was warm and calm, and the sky cleared to reveal all the stars.
3) I learned so much—about camping (what to do, what not to do) and about myself (my spirit, how much I can withstand).
Here’s how it all went down.
Camping at Oregon Inlet started out OK. My first thought was that it was rugged but gorgeous, sand dunes leading to the ocean. The winds were wild, but with the help of Seth and Will, who stayed with me the first night, we were able to put up two tents, get them staked pretty good with some extra reinforcement, take a walk to the beach, and enjoy grilled corn on the cob, rainbow potatoes, and fresh mahi mahi that we bought up the road.
I was sad to see them go the next morning, but I was also half asleep, so I barely remember it.
The next day, the winds were just as rough, but they were calling for rain, so I attached my rain fly. Meanwhile, two other tents broke (that I knew of), and I watched as another one tumbled over the road. Then it was my turn. I returned from the beach to find my tent had uprooted all but one stake and was blowing madly in the wind. I wrestled with it, trying to pin it down but mostly being swallowed by its loud, billowing sides, wrapping around me like a tent burrito. A camp neighbor took pity on me, I guess, and came over to help.
Then there was the other neighbor. It’s like traveling as a single woman makes you prey for fucking weirdos. He was the top football player in the state of Iowa or something (I was drinking wine), then hurt his leg—got something like 18 surgeries and spent over a year inside a hospital, got addicted to opiates, said he got off of them, is in pain every day, said, “I haven’t told anyone this, but I might lose my leg and never be able to walk again.” He’s traveling the country, too, and wants to be road buddies. He was working 100-hour weeks, he said, before he got hurt (I literally did that math on a calculator because everything this guy said sounded like bullshit). Now he’s on disability. And talking to me. Just came right over and sat at my picnic table every time I was there.
I can’t tell you how many times my tent stakes came out. My first night on my own, I went to fix them before going to sleep. Then at 5 a.m., I woke up to the rain they’d been calling for—gentle at first, soft enough to wake me up but also allow me to dash to my car, grab the rain fly, and assemble it in the dark, just as it started raining harder. I fell back asleep for a few hours, occasionally waking to the sound of thunder crashing, and woke up feeling pretty damn proud of myself. My tent was only slightly wet. Two more stakes had come out though. I covered my sleeping bags and blankets and clothes with a tarp, in case any more rain were to blow in. There was a 30-percent chance that we’d be getting some scattered thunderstorms later that day.
I went to a beach up the road because the wind blows so hard at the campground beach, you’re basically in danger of becoming a sand dune yourself if you sit there long enough. Only moments after getting into the water, I heard thunder. I saw dark clouds moving fast—toward me. I saw everyone gathering their things and heading out. I followed suit. By the time I arrived back at my campsite, the rains had arrived, too.
And so began the seven-hour storm, where I sat in my car, ate junk food while mosquitos ate me, and watched in disbelief as lightning struck every which way, loud booms and cracks lighting up the whole sky, rain pounding down so hard as one storm rolled in after the next—or, rather, ripped through, flooding the entire campground. It was biblical. Adding to this was the fact that when the winds picked up, my rain fly again was problematic. It flew off. Or, rather, kind of twisted around, making my tent and everything in it—three sleeping bags, a blanket, pillow, and clothes—vulnerable to the buckets of rain now being dumped inside. After a few minutes, the nice/not-a-heroin-addict neighbor came over to my car window and motioned to me that my fly had blown off and asked if I wanted help putting it back on. I figured, fuck it, I’m wearing a bathing suit. I jumped out of car and we stepped into the pond where my tent was and got the fly back on, then investigated the damage inside: a few inches of water, sleeping bags drenched, blanket drenched, pillow—somehow—amazingly—dry! He laughed as I clutched it under my arm and ran it to my car, where I’d be sleeping that night.
“I’m Noah, by the way,” he said. (Seriously? Are you even a real person?)
The next day, it happened all over again, but I was smarter that time. I was sweating and bleeding as I fought to put on my rain fly just as the winds were picking up and the sky was growing darker. I could go on and on—about how more storms ripped through, how the whole campground cleared out, how manning the campsite became a full-time job. One day, I completely deconstructed, dried out, and reconstructed everything—two tents, tarps, blankets, sleeping bags—everything. Then it stormed again. There was no downtime. That wind, the sandstorms, surprisingly aggressive cactuses that hide in the dunes, the “big hard sun” beating down with no shade anywhere, thunderstorms, floods. By the end of the week, I was utterly exhausted.
I know this might all sound melodramatic, but I’ve camped a lot in my life—on beaches, at KOAs, on BLM lands, and everything in between—and I’ve never been met with such intense conditions, one after the next.
When I packed up my tent today, I realized that not only had it torn in several places but four of the poles had split, its fiberglass cutting me as I tried to duct-tape them back together … before giving up. It’s trashed. Road life has proven to be way more challenging and way more expensive than I’d thought.
My good friend Scott said Oregon Inlet is like a portal. He almost died there, on a boat, traveling through the inlet. I get what he’s saying. It’s the only inlet along Outer Banks, and it’s as if it creates this vacuum of sheer force, pulling ocean to sound—where earth, sky, water, and wind meet in some grand cacophony of nature. Where heaven and hell meet.
After only six weeks on the road, I already feel like I’ve gone to hell and back several times. But I’ve caught glimpses of heaven, too, thank g-d. Like nearly every place I’ve visited, there were these quiet, sacred moments at Oregon Inlet that served as reminders and put everything into perspective. Like when a double rainbow appeared, wide and brilliant in the sunset sky, after a series of massive storms rolled through. Or the time I looked up and was surprised to see a multitude of stars. Or the time I sat alone on the empty beach, sun setting behind me as I waited for the full moon to rise over the ocean. I started singing, just belting it out, because no one was around to hear me. It was probably my imagination, but it felt like the wind and waves matched my crescendos. And then, that big, hot-pink moon came up over the horizon, and I was just a visitor in her presence. And I realized, this is why I’m here.
I video documented some my experiences at https://www.instagram.com/karmarocca/channel.