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Is It Safe to Camp During Winter?
For camping addicts who live in the northern states, the winter months can cause you to go through “camping withdrawal.” But is that reason enough to try and venture out during the coldest season? Recently, a blizzard swept across the northern part of the U.S., dumping untold amounts of snow across several states. What if you were camping during these blizzard conditions? Is camping outdoors in the winter safe?
As is often the case, the risks will depend on you. Just because the calendar says December doesn’t mean you can’t camp safely. If the temperature is high enough, maybe there are some instances in which you can head out and enjoy a good time camping. But that also doesn’t mean you can treat winter camping the way you’d tread summer camping. It’s an entirely different animal.
For one, winter camping will require plenty of planning, especially as it relates to weather. How cold will it be during your trip? Will the temperatures drop on a specific day, or will wind make things worse? You’ll want to avoid snowfall, drops in temperature, as well as wind, which can make the temperatures feel drastically colder. If you’re not an experienced veteran of the winter season, it will help to get some cold-weather experience under your belt before you go camping.If you’ve been able to find a relatively warm and stable window in the winter weather, this is the time to go camping. Low winds are also very important. If you do decide to go camping during the winter in these occasions, then you’ll want to pack like you usually do, but with an increased emphasis on insulation, protection from moisture, and being able to build fires. Dress in layers that insulate you while also keeping moisture from snow out. If you can stay dry and warm, then you’re doing it right.
It will also help to have a good escape plan if necessary, as well as a cautious eye. You don’t want to get caught in a snow storm, so it’s a good idea to head for non-camping shelter as fast as possible if you perceive a threat. Don’t try to “rough it” because you could potentially compromise your safety. Make sure that you stay close enough to civilization that you can easily get out of a blizzard should one arrive.
Photo Credits: Rob Lee
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How to Conduct a Camping “Trial-Run”
If it’s been a while since your last jaunt in the woods, it’s fair to say that your camping skills are, shall we say, a bit rusty. You won’t necessarily be able to start the fires and set up the tents with the same speed you did years ago – unless you practice. You never know what kind of challenges you’ll face until you actually go camping, which is exactly why you’ll want to conduct a camping trial-run to make sure you’ve got everything planned for. Here’s how to do it.
First, set aside one day and one night before you go camping, preferably not too far in advance of the actual camping trip. You’ll be using this day and night to conduct what is essentially a camping simulation. Set up your tent, bring out your own water, and even so far as to avoid using the indoor bathroom – unless you’re in a highly urban area. (Note: If you live in a city apartment, find the closest camping spot and simply use it for a night.)
The goal is to avoid civilization for an afternoon, evening, and through the night so that you’ll know what it’s like to be camping again, without access to a hotel or restaurant. Make sure to take a notepad and pencil with you so that you can write down anything you’ve forgotten to purchase; make sure to pack this with you when you actually head out camping with your family and/or friends.What skills do you want to work on? Try to gather wood and start your own fire, hopefully bringing a tripod grill along with you so that you can cook any meat you packed in a cooler. You’ll also want to make sure you know how to build your tent – some tents are more complicated than others and require a little more effort. Also, keep note of how you clean yourself – if you’re feeling stinky and dirty by the following morning, there’s a good chance you may want to invest in a device like an outdoor shower.
The key is to treat your trial-run as finding your blind spots. You probably wouldn’t be able to plan for everything while sitting at home on your computer, but if you actually go out and experience what it’s like to camp, you’ll finally see where your blind sports are and what you need to do in order to make sure they don’t detract from your camping experience.
Photo Credits: jaygooby
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Delicious Camping Food – Uh, Really?
You read right: you can have delicious camping food, even when you’re roughing it in the wild. This doesn’t involve necessarily bringing in an RV or finding a place to eat out – instead, you can learn to become a great “outdoor cook” that knows how to handle his or her way around the campsite kitchen. It just takes a little know-how, a solid attitude, and the willingness to make it happen. Here are a few tips to making your camping meals great.
Good food starts with good tools.
If you’re not working with good tools, it won’t matter what you’re cooking – you need to be able to cook your food well. This means clean pans, a good way to heat your food, appropriate utensils for eating them, and the right tools for flipping, poking, grabbing, and mixing. Tools like pans built for the outdoors, tripods that let you heat pots over fires, and camping silverware need to be present – and you should consider them essentials for a comfortable camping trip.
Ingredients, ingredients, ingredients.
Your ingredients will determine the quality of your food – it’s that simple. So you need to start thinking of you and your family’s favorite ingredients that also travel well. A steak can be great, but unless you’re prepared to bring some with you, you won’t be able to enjoy them in the outdoors. You’ll need to prepare for it by bringing a cooler and keeping your meat refrigerated.
Think about other ingredients that both taste good and make for easy packing – foods like nuts, beans, and other canned ingredients can be combined easily during a meal. If you use a little imagination, you can find ways to bring these ingredients together and create some great recipes.
Think calorie-dense food.
When you’re running around in the outdoors all day, you need plenty of energy. It’s not time to count calories and order the salad – you need food that fills you up without dragging you down. And you need plenty of energy to feel good. What foods are calorie dense? Bring a bottle of olive oil to add to your pans for healthy fat; other calorie-dense foods like cheese pack well and can be stored in the cooler.
Cooking in the wild is just like cooking indoors: it’s the preparation that will make or break a meal. You can’t cook without preparation indoors, so why would you expect to whip up something easily outdoors? Prepare by bringing the right ingredients, keeping them stored safely, and knowing how to bring them together over a simple pan and fire. It only takes a little bit of thinking and shopping: you can let the fire do the rest.
Photo Credits: fishbone1
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How to Build an “Upside-Down” Fire
If you’ve always been a proponent of the tipi-style fire – you know, the type of fire with the tinder on the bottom and sticks and logs organized tipi-style overhead – but never enjoyed the constant prodding and poking necessary to keep the fire alive, this article is for you. Why? Because we’re going to be talking about how to build an “upside-down” or “self-feeding” fire, a fire that requires minimal effort while it’s burning to keep it alive. How can this be possible? Read on.
Forget What You Know About Campfires
An upside-down fire is called “upside-down” because it’s essentially the opposite of the tipi-style fire. In essence, you’ll want to place your biggest logs at the bottom and your tinder at the top. Doing so seems counter-intuitive, but once you build a fire that really lasts by itself, you’ll see how it works.
You start by placing the heaviest logs next to each other as tightly as possible. You take the next biggests sticks and logs and place them perpendicular to the layer beneath, slowly building this way upward until you have a complete “pyramid” style fire. Make sure that the longest sticks/logs are at the bottom, and that they decrease in length moving upwards.When you get to the top, you can use firesticks to get the fire going – firesticks are high-resin sticks that help to start fires. What happens next is how the art of the upside-down fire works: gravity pulls down embers and heats up the layer below, slowly kick-starting the entire fire itself. The result is a relatively slow-starting but long-lasting fire that you don’t need to poke or prod.
How to Practice an Upside-Down Fire
Now that you know the basics, it’s time to do some practicing. Gather plenty of firewood near your closes firepit. You can try building “mini-upside-down” fires in order to start practicing. As you practice, you’ll need to fill in the blanks between reality and this article, so don’t assume you’ll build a perfect fire the first time.
After you’ve built a small fire successfully, you’ll be ready to move onto the bigger ones. Once you’ve mastered these, you will be able to enjoy long-lasting fires that produce a consistent flame, ideal for campfires and the occasional marshmellow. These fires will also be great ways to consistently cook a breakfast skillet in the morning.
Photo Credits: mikemol
