Tracing the Tradition: April Friendsee
The timing of this post feels fitting – I’m prepping for the inaugural motorcycle camping trip of the 2025 season: the April Friendsee at World’s End State Park in Pennsylvania’s Loyalsock Forest.
The April Friendsee is an event that traces its lineage back to the tradition of naming moto gatherings – a practice that developed organically on the old VFR List. It’s simple: if a ride turned out well and people wanted to do it again, you named it.
Thus, the April Friendsee was born in 2015 – marking the start of each year’s camping season, deliberately placed when frost on the saddles is nearly guaranteed, firewood becomes survival gear, and ride start times depend as much on the thermometer as on the heated gear.
(For 2025, scheduling chaos forced a temporary rebranding: the Maypril Friendsee. Traditions evolve.)
“Friendsee” captures it perfectly: we’re emerging from PMS season (Parked Motorcycle Syndrome) and finally seeing each other again.
Living Well, Lightly Packed
Moto-camping is one of the purest expressions of freedom on two wheels. Packing just enough gear to live comfortably – but not luxuriously – on the road taps into something primal.
Maybe it stirs old neural pathways from before the wheel, when shelter, fire, and food were all that mattered.
Packing Lessons: Volume Over Weight
Coming from a backpacking background, I was surprised by the shift:
Backpacking is a game of ounces. Moto-camping is a game of cubic inches.
And no matter how much restraint you plan to exercise, you will fill every available nook and cranny.
(Some claim I once packed a 9-quart Dutch oven. I will neither confirm nor deny. Let’s just say the “kitchen sink” jokes are not without basis.)
Campground Cooking: A Primitive Art
Everything tastes better cooked over a fire.
One of the great adventures of moto-camping is the provisioning stop – the trip to a small-town grocery store, hoping to find something hearty and cookable.
The group often debates dinner like a panel of hungry diplomats, weighing cravings against realistic expectations.
Options are rarely lavish: three kinds of meat, five kinds of vegetables, one kind of bread… maybe. But that’s part of the charm.
Supplies are often gleefully augmented by treasures brought from home — like Greg’s special meat-seasoning “dust,” Dan’s home-baked bread, or Matt’s legendary mustard.
These touches turn a humble campfire meal into something memorable.
Upon returning to camp, the self-appointed chefs (or voluntold kitchen staff) create meals that somehow taste like Michelin stars under the stars.
Camp dinners consistently rank second among trip memories – right after the roads and just before the campfires or weather, depending on which was more epic.
Firewood: A Group Obsession
Campfires are the beating heart of moto-camping evenings.
Thus: firewood logistics are taken very seriously.
Theoretically, many campgrounds sell wood and sometimes it’s fantastic: dry, cheap and delivered to your site (looking at you Max V.Shaul). Realistically, it’s often overpriced, wet, even moldy, or in scant supply.
Enter Rich, our resident Firewood Quartermaster General.
It would be inaccurate to call it anxiety — better to say Rich possesses an instinctive drive to ensure an ample, seasoned, split, and ready supply of firewood at all times. Some might lodge accusations of excess, but I will attest that it’s rare for us to leave any behind.
Armed with high-quality tools (and occasionally implements better suited for medieval sieges), he ensures we never lack a roaring fire.
The Art and Politics of Fire Tending
Once the fire is lit, a complex, unspoken ritual begins.
At any given moment, a handful of individuals will orbit the firepit, subtly (or not so subtly) maneuvering for possession of the poking stick – the staff of office for whoever holds temporary dominion over flame maintenance.
No one ever says they want the poking stick.
No one ever asks for it.
But when it’s set down – casually, absentmindedly – it disappears faster than a cold beer at sunset.
Tending the fire is part science, part art, and part primal urge. It’s about aesthetics (a good fire must have a certain geometry), efficiency (no wasted wood), and ego (no collapse on your watch).
Early signs of bravery are often revealed when someone assumes responsibility for building or saving the fire — a bold move not without social risk.
Anthropologists have studied tribal fire-tending rituals for decades. If they ever stumble across our camp, they’d find a living example of:
- Passive-aggressive repositioning of logs
- Understated critiques (“That log’s never going to catch like that…”)
- The occasional synchronized effort to rebuild a sagging structure with all the solemnity of an Amish barn raising.
Yet somehow, despite all the subtle jostling, it never turns into conflict.
Just part of the evening’s rhythm – a dance of camaraderie, mischief, and unspoken rules as ancient as the flame itself.
And yes, sometimes the poking stick goes missing into the woods at 2AM, only to be triumphantly retrieved the next morning. Tradition is tradition.
A Weekend Agenda: Coffee, Lies, and Roads
While our trips vary as much as the machines we choose to ride, there is a core structure to the moto-camping weekend that we tend to follow.
Friday
- Riders arrive from all directions — some easily within a day’s ride, others crossing multiple states and sometimes starting in the opposite direction (Greg!).
- Tents are pitched, chairs assembled, picnic tables buried under coffee gear and snack debris.
- Dinner, beverages, campfire, cigars and catching up
Saturday
- The day begins in reverence: coffee.
Over years of collaborative trial-and-error, we’ve perfected campsite brewing and by that I mean it’s utter chaos. There will always be an equal numver of methods to produce the brain juice as there are attendees, plus one. V60 pour-overs, AeroPresses, French-press thermal mugs, Jetboils, alcohol stoves, WhisperLites… and, yes, one packet of instant (he’s not invited, but he always finds the ride). - Breakfast varies wildly: it could be elaborate campground cookery, a diner dash, or skipped entirely in favor of making miles — supplemented with strategic beef jerky at fuel stops.
- The day stretches out in front of us, a long ribbon of asphalt and scenery, stitched together by whatever roads call loudest — with a few U-turns and the inevitable stretch of dirt just to keep us honest.
- Evening returns us to food, fire, and storytelling — analyzing the day’s pucker moments with forensic precision and competing (gently) for fire poking rights.
Sunday
- Coffee again, but now with the bittersweet air of packing up.
- Homeward paths are plotted — some direct, some meandering, always reluctant.
Post ride texts fly as riders check in safe at home, sharing thanks for another amazing event spent riding, camping, laughing — and living the kind of experiences that can’t quite be captured in a photo or even in a blog post.
Weather: Expect It, Embrace It, Engineer Around It
We always hope for the best weather — and we plan as best we can — but anyone who rides knows the old adage:
“If you wait for perfect weather, you’ll never leave the house.”
Our trips rarely cancel due to gloomy forecasts.
Instead, we’ve developed… let’s call them creative techniques to manage whatever Mother Nature decides to throw at us.
On more than one occasion, a casual glance at our campsite would have led a passerby to assume a band of vagabonds had taken up residence — missing only the discarded refrigerator boxes to complete the aesthetic.
Tarps, poles, paracord, and a healthy dose of collective stubbornness come together to create impromptu shelters that are somehow both chaotic and expertly crafted — an art form honed over years of necessity. Examples in the gallery below.
Dripping skies, high winds, frigid mornings — they’re all just added ingredients to the story.
Besides, if we didn’t have at least one trip per year where a tarp nearly took flight like a rogue parachute, would it even count?
Want to Join In?
If this sounds like your kind of weekend, you can absolutely get into moto-camping — without breaking the bank.
(Though fair warning: collecting gear and gadgets might become its own adventure.)
As Dan often reminds us: riding with this group saves you a whole lot of trial and error. We’ve already made the mistakes — might as well benefit.
Let me know in the comments if you’d like a post about essential gear and starter tips. And if you’re already a moto-camper, share your favorite firewood story — you know you have one.
‘Living well, “LIGHTLY PACKED”‘!?!
bwaahahahaha
😀