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Five Essential Items For Your Camping To-Do List
Have you ever gone camping before and felt, well, terrible at it? Sure, you might have packed well, but when your feet actually hit the great outdoors, you’re in a whole different world, especially if your experience is going to be truly rustic. Good camping comes with good experience, but it also comes with the right kind of knowledge.
If you ever feel lost camping, this article is for you. Here’s your checklist to kick off your camping trip right:
1. Shelter first. I was recently on a camping trip with some friends and we arrived in the twilight hours. Luckily, we followed the idea of “shelter first” by setting up our tents with the limited light we had left. By the time we were done setting up camp, it was dark out and we were getting our fire ready. If we had built the fire first, putting up the tents would have been a major nuisance.
2. Get a fire going. If you’re camping with others and you finish your tent first, you can help them with theirs, but you can also start gathering firewood. A fire is useful to cook your meals and have a supply of warmth around for when night rolls around. If you brought a fresh supply of water with you, you don’t have to worry about that.3. Get warm. The fire is useful for keeping warm at night, but you’ll also want to be ready for sleeping out under the stars. Even on summer nights the temperature can drop drastically and you’ll want to make sure you’re properly insulated. Bring some heavy flannel clothes even for camping in the summer and be sure you have a sleeping bag that really traps heat well.
4. Plan for the next meal. If your shelter is up and you’ve got heat taken care of, plan for the next meal – even if it’s tomorrow’s breakfast. Check your cooler and make sure you have all of the utensils and goods you need. When you wake up tomorrow, you should be ready to start a fire and get the bacon crackling.
5. Set up your wants. The three needs of survival in the wilderness tend to go like this: shelter, water, food. With all of that taken care of (you brought fresh water, right?), set up your “wants.” Have the DVD player ready to go in your tent. If you brought an outdoor shower, make sure you found a suitable place to put it, and that it’s filled.
Photo Credits: tranchis
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How to Treat Frostbite
If you’re a natural outdoorsman who enjoys the hiking trail even when it’s littered with snow, you’ve probably encounter some pretty cold conditions before. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve had a real case of frostbite, even if you have exposed yourself to the possibility. Frostbite is a real and serious injury that should be treated as such, which is why you’ll want to hear about how to treat it.
Get inside or to an emergency room ASAP.
Needless to say, you’ll want to get out of the cold as soon as possible. Being in an environment where all of the air around you is temperature-controlled will help stop the frostbite from advancing. Even so, if the frostbite is serious, you’ll want to bring the victim in to the emergency room to be treated. Getting indoors is merely a treatment for being cold – someone with frostbite needs medical attention.
Use warm – not hot – water to help.
Immersing the affected extremities in warm water will help, but make sure that the feet or hands can stay warm after they’ve been thawed out. For example, warm water will lose its temperature quickly in a freezing environment outdoors. It’s also not a good idea to begin thawing someone’s affected parts if they’ll simply freeze over again, as this can cause tissue damage.
If you don’t have access to water, find something dry and insulating that can trap as much heat around the victim’s extremities as possible, such as a dry blanket. Be careful and gentle.
Don’t let the victim control the temperature.
Frostbite’s numbing effect means that the victim won’t feel warmth like they normally would, so don’t let them control the temperature. They might put their feet in scalding hot water simply to feel something when it could produce burns. Let someone with a warm body measure the temperature with their touch; as mentioned, the temperature of water should be warm and not hot.
Pain can be a sign that feeling is returning.
If the victim is being warmed and gradually feels more pain, that might be a sign that the feeling is returning. Don’t necessarily take it to mean that more heat is needed.
Overall, the best way to avoid frostbite is by preventing it. This means keeping tabs on your fingers and toes, not venturing too far from a source of shelter and heat, and keeping good circulation in your fingers and toes.
Photo Credits: winkyintheuk
