Thread: Camping

Is anyone interested in an ongoing camping thread?

I consider being outdoors and camping one of the finer things in life. I try to get as many camp outs in as I can per year, but at minimum I go on 4 trips a year. Most of my camping is walk-in style, but occasionally we will drive to a campsite and do some luxury camping w/chairs and coolers. I will get things started by posting two wintertime camping photos.

Boiling water for coffee after a big snow. This was about a year ago. We had about 10 inches of snow between 11PM and 8AM.

This was a couple of weeks ago. This is my buddy standing on lake ice. Most of the lake was iced over.

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

This was a couple of weeks ago. This is my buddy standing on lake ice. Most of the lake was iced over.

Great thread idea.

I really need to get my lazy butt out for some quality time in the snow before winter bids us adieu. Your pic of the lake reminded me of what it one of my all-time favourite camping experiences: sleeping in a quinzhee that had been built on a frozen lake. Now, any well-built quinzhee will be a load of fun and nice and snug, but being on the lake was something special. The ice is constantly shifting, cracking, and settling, so every once in a while you get these really weird noises that range from a zingy blaster shot in star wars to a dead ringer of a .22 being fired. This is especially true if it gets *really* cold as this causes the ice to contract, leading to more cracking. The night I'm thinking about went down to about -40c so there was plenty of sound effects. But since we did a good job on building the thing by morning we had thrown off the blankets and were sitting around in t-shirts. Very, very cool experience.

Oh, just be sure the ice is thick enough! Where we were was nearly a metre thick so there were no worries about it failing.

Cangooner, the inspiration for this thread was your SOTD pics from camping. I have been wanting to build a Quinzee buy we normally don't have the right conditions(snow and cold at the same time) when I have the time to camp.

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

Cangooner, the inspiration for this thread was your SOTD pics from camping. I have been wanting to build a Quinzee buy we normally don't have the right conditions(snow and cold at the same time) when I have the time to camp.

Come north, my friend... come north.

Originally Posted by Cangooner

Come north, my friend... come north.

I have several Canadian dream trips...
Winter camping by toboggan in Quetico or Labrador,
Canoeing the Moise,the Missinaibi, or Woodland Caribou Park,
Fishing Nueltin Lake or the Pacific

Great idea. I love camping, but my knees are too stuffed to do walk in walk out stuff. I go to Deep Creek national park as often as I can; which isn't as often as I'd like to lately. Here's a couple of pictures of my 'luxury' camping trip last year at Deep Creek and a 'walk in walk out' trip at Deep Creek from back in '05...

The first photo shows my table set up to write a letter to Mick and Nathan (from memory) from this site using a dip pen. Yes, I know it's odd to take a dip pen camping.

The second photo shows my shaving gear from the same trip. Proraso is great for straight shaving while camping as you can use the lid as a bowl.

The third photo shows my tent (the light green one) and my son's tent (the larger). My tent is a two man tent but effectively a one man tent; it's nice to be able to fit your pack in the tent; and you can't do that with a true one man tent. My son now has a tent the same size as mine. You can put it up really quickly but it packs up small and it's still large enough to get changed in and sit up in. In this photo the spot was on a hill overlooking the view to Kangaroo island. There was no-one else there and in fact almost no-one else in the park. The great thing about Deep Creek is that in winter you can have 45 square kilometers of native Australian bush to yourself, and so accommodate romantic ideas of escaping there (with long bow, AK47 and knife) to live as a hunter/gatherer when (not if) the zombie apocalypse scenario strikes.

Oh, yes, I agree. It's also odd to take a vintage tea cup and 'mocca pot' for brewing fresh coffee camping, but it's the small things that are important and need explaining (see here).

For the past 2 years I have been wondering about Leatherstockiings,,

It seems like he goes camping every month, now don't get me wrong,, I really love the photos,,

But,,,,,

Could it be that his Better Half tosses him out of the house & he uses it as an excuse to call it "Camping" ??

I used to go camping every month, but only average three or four trips a year now.

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

I used to go camping every month, but only average three or four trips a year now.

I'm just jealous that I don't take the time,,