"camping In The Rain:..."

https://gearjunkie.com/camping-rain-checklist-tips


Good afternoon Newcomers and other readers,


Article per; it's basic. The thinking process and note-taking starts the project.

Note the article mention and picture of "Nik Wax". I'm sure it's $$$.

Re 3; Can't a down sleeping bag be placed inside the tent to keep it dry ? This is a technique used in many areas of the world.

Rain pants for short hikes; ... perhaps. For long hikes - and if loaded with heavy pack mule stuff, consider high-quality pants with nylon if not in cold environment.

Re 5; Is the writer inferring that the pack won't be inside the tent ?

Must learn the MILSPEC and FSN for a backpack rain cover.

Wallet is always in vest under main shirt.

Just like some extra socks, bring some hard, compact soil. Some places don't have any.

Communal areas now subject to social distancing obligations.

I know how to make a fire with river-soaked wood. A few others here do also.

......

Don't know if link relates to "A rainy night in Georgia" or "Singing in the rain".

 

Down shouldn't be use in any wet like environment. In tropical environment you can only go with synthetic even when not raining & above the tree line.. Down is seriously bad in humid environment.

Backpack that have rain flipper & DWR water repellent will do just fine under direct heavy rain An example of such backpack. So far all my electronic are safe within such backpack even under monsoon rain

 

Good morning Varuna,

"Any" is catalogued as an absolute, collective word.

There are some - Preppers, military, NGO members, others, who travel on assignments through different topo and geographic environments in rapid succession.

Less the extreme environments such as Polar areas and cold seas like above 60 north lat, frequently enough there is little changing of some types of equipment and gear.

We're saying about the same re a rain flap and rain flipper / repellant. The objective is to keep items dry whether from rain or condensation.

 

I have camped all over north America, yes to all that but i would buy the biggest tarp you can have. i like two 12 ft x 25 ft tarp and lots of ropes.
You can tarp over a camp fire pitt and tent. many is the times when it is going to hard rain all day i set up a large tarp just to one side of a fire pitt and camp under the tarp while a roaring fire keeps you warm and dry .
btw load up on fire wood before it rains .

 

Good afternoon Arctic Bill,

Good info and firewood tip.

My question involves the weight of the 2 mentioned tarps and ropes.

My foot evacuation here would involve a loadout of 1 or 2 - depending on the variables generating the evac - small small ripstop nylon tarps. The big concern is weight. I cut off the margins with the grommets (sp ?) and replace with old shirt button holes sewed onto the tarp.

Do you have a specific material you like to use for tarps ?

The fireproof ones - I had access to them that are used by truckers - are relatively heavy.

...

You've got me in the mood for some of that apple juice that's fermented and then distilled. Some health care problems mean no apple juice for me any more. Loved the stuff ......

 

I good heavy truckers tarp is a priceless tool for long term life in the wild. That is all we ever had when I was growing up for camping and rain didn't bother it at all. The problem is they weight a LOT! They will last for years and with a little care and knowledge, you can mend them and maintain the waterproofing.

 

I use the cheap Chinese tarps. they are light weight, I like the blues ones as they last longer.

 

apple cider, Back in the day in Canada apple cider was illegal much like moon shine in the states . I would go on trips with my father in the 50"s . He knew that you just walked in to gas station on the old roads and asked.
In the 70's the allowed apple cider to be sold it was never the same again. the old guys said that the good old stuff was great.
this is for you prag

 

Nik Wax is very popular in the UK, cleaning products for a range of different materials and not expensive, I use their down wash on all my down jackets and sleeping bags, kind on the down and no impact on it lofting post wash.

The article is OK. The whole open fire thing for me is over played. If you have the right clothing and shelter you don't need a fire, you won't freeze to death. I always take a stove and treat a fire as a luxury or a group thing on group camps and even then one or two twin ring propane stoves and you can cook for fifty. I used to go on 'bushcraft' camps and it used to pee me off seeing fires lit for a coffee, no need, no point.

Good dry bags are essential, make sure you have enough, they don't cost the earth and can save your life.

Tarps are handy either as a solo shelter or group shelter site rain protection. I bought a few different sizes off a guy who made them from silnylon, very water proof, very lightweight and 'quiet' (cheap plastic tarps are OK but noisy in wind) and the guy did a fantastic job on the seams, really strong.

 

The nice thing about good tarps is that they are so very adaptable. If situations change you can modify the setup easily. We got hit by a monster thunderstorm one night and we dropped on side of the tarp down to better block the wind. This was a heavy canvas trucker tarp and we rode out the storm with no problems and then lifted the side back up in the morning. We got hit by a similar storm in west Texas one time and it flattened my cabin tent and broke some of the poles. I'm the original boy scout and had spare poles so once the storm passed we were ok.

The thing is that in the long run, the tent isn't as tough as that canvas tarp. I like my tents in the summer but for a survival situation, I am not going to live in a tent for long. I like a couple of small tents and a big tarp. That is what we do sometimes now. The tarp can be used as a temporary roof on a fast made log cabin and then used to cover the woodpile when your housing situation is settled.

Nylon tents are great for vacation camping for three seasons but they are not designed for long-lasting living. If you want that in a tent you have to go to military-style canvas tents. They are great but weight a ton.

 

Good morning Arctic Bill,

I've sampled both the real apple juice of the old times and the new governmental required stuff.

Yes, a distinct difference.

 

https://www.survivaljunkies.com/how-to-keep-tent-dry/

This article will help you keep your tent dry when camping in the rain. Works well when combined with your article.

 

Good morning Evan,

A good article ......

My plastic ground cloth - if carrying it; depends on the variables - is a white shower curtin liner. It's just another piece of sturdy thick plastic (sometimes I cut off the top thicker portion with the curtin rod hook holes) but I can cut it in strips to make an "X" on ground in case aerial SAR assistance is needed.

Tropical storms - no variables; will be soakin' wet and my maps useful for paper mache class project.

 

The two articles linked are good for absolute beginners.

"The thing is that in the long run, the tent isn't as tough as that canvas tarp." ? Not really, all depends on your tent, its design, materials used. More to tents than just pitching, you need the right spot, provide shelter where you can, could be trees, bushes or a snow wall et al, I've used them all.

 

Agreed, you must 'shelter your shelter' whether your in the woods, camp site, mountains always shelter you shelter, you look after it and it will look after you. I remember being screamed at when training "Sort that ******g basha out or your in for a cold wet night son"...happy days

 

I guess that I am one of the ones that don't know what a shelterbelt is. Maybe it is because we don't have snow or much cold weather here or the fact and our forests where I live and was raised run for hundreds of square miles with almost no break in the overhead coverage. I used to camp in a forest that was called the Big Thicket that is now a National Park because it is a unique type of place with several odd sorts of ancient flora. I have been in places where the ground has not seen the sun in a century or longer with native carnivorous plants. It is a very strange place. The entire East part of Texas was originally endless park-like pine forests with no underbrush because the pine trees shaded the ground so tightly that it choaked out the underbrush and eventually covered the ground over with acidic pine needles that inhibited growth. So, what is a shelterbelt...?

 

England was once a great big Forrest, then people turned up and started finding uses for wood. You must keep an eye out for snow on trees Tex? It has the potential to flatten your camp.


shelter belt

noun
noun: shelterbelt

1. a line of trees or shrubs planted to protect an area, especially a field of crops, from fierce weather.

 

Never heard of the term "shelter belt" before, will make sure to use it in the future.

 

We call that a windbreak. They planted cane along the fence lines in central Texas during the dust Bowl years to protect the freshly plowed fields from wind erosion. There isn't a lot of farming where I live it is mostly ranches or pine forests with a big lumber industry. We have not had any snow that accumulated in the last 30 years where I live. We are more likely to have an ice storm than snow.

 

Two countries separated by a common language

 

The US is one country with mostly one official language spoken by all of its citizens and even then it is fun watching a Boston Yankee try to talk to a South Louisianna Cajun. Lots of talk with little understanding and no communication.

 

Snow routinely brings down trees where I live. Snow brings down VAST numbers of limbs. Where I used to live; we'd drive, then hike up to the tops of mountains. One mountain has a cliff for a side near the top. Wind hits the mountain, then shoot straight up at hurricane velocities. Trees have limbs on the side facing the mountain, however many trees are barren of limbs facing the winds -- these limbs get ripped off and most never get a chance to grow back. Altitudes at that mountain area is over 6,000 ft., 1830+ meters.

And then there's the matter of lightening. At the top of mountains, trees get annihilated. They get blown apart as if someone drilled the tree and put sticks of dynamite inside. What is fascinating is to see is where a tree has been hit by a bolt, the discharge rips the bark off one side of the tree, then runs out a root branch along the ground.

Big-ego rich often build houses near mountain-tops. We locals laugh at them. If the idiots get killed, locals will make jokes about it. People who build up there are also hated, because their homes destroy the beauty of the mountains. The Cherokee considered such places sacred; this belief was passed on in their progeny both Red and White. My mom's dad's hunting skills were partially Cherokee -- at least one of his great grandmas (? great-great?) was Cherokee. Scots leased land from and married in with the locals, i.e. native folk. When we'd go hunting, Pap turned into something else, not "somebody" else; his eyes changed; whatever age he had on him disappeared; was like he turned into a panther. I was always wary of that man. When we hunted, by god, I said nothing.



Now on a much prettier day



The border between North Carolina and Tennessee runs along this ridge.

The population density of the county in which I currently live is 70 per square mile, 27 per sq kilometer. Used to be industry here, but older industry was closed due to foreign imports, now only one big plant in the county. This same phenom killed industry in state region where I am from. This current county in which we live is now mainly agriculture (ag. = why the county was settled; native Americans were nomadic but did hunt in this region), plus there are massive tracts of mountain forests. Winter storms routinely cut road traffic with fallen trees and sheets of ice. Snow drifts can also cut road traffic.

This is why I have done thousands of miles worth of scouting around here. One must be ready to take alternate routes. Mother Nature rules.
.

 

Had a tree snap in backyard of one house we had in home-state.

Big white pine broke-off during a winter storm. It landed between the dog houses and our house. I heard a not-so-mighty pop (not a POW!, nope, must've been weakened long before), then when it landed in the snow (maybe only 8 inches of snow), it went whooooooshhhhh. At the time, my only chainsaw only had a sixteen inch nose, thus I had trouble cutting up that big white pine.

Had that beast fallen on our house, it would have caused serious damage.

On that same property, the former owners (both man and wife were psychologists, go figure; flakes, marriage counselors getting a divorce) had also planted a line of Georgia pines. Georgia pines CANNOT take Appalachian winters. None of them fell but they were always losing limbs to winter snows. Before we sold that place, I dropped two of those Georgia pines. I hate pine trees in general. I'm used to living among deciduous trees. I love the fall colors.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=southern+appalachia+fall+colors&atb=v140-1&iar=images&iaf=size:Large&iax=images&ia=images

I particularly love the red colors during fall.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=southern+appalachia+fall+colors+sugar+maple+red&atb=v140-1&iar=images&iaf=size:Large&iax=images&ia=images
.

 

The Cherokee had two house shapes, winter and summer. Summer houses had right-angles, square-ish or rectangular. Winter houses had slopes to shed snow and rain. When settlers entered, the Cherokee adopted the log-cabin design. You walk up to a cabin unknowing who lived there, you could be met by European, Cherokee, or mix. European trappers (my lot, mostly Scots-Irish, some German, some north Englanders) brought with them tools for building. Such tools were traded for pelts. Big saws, metal axes, chains, ... all that. The concept of owning land was European. Once the Cherokee had better houses, they could survive winters, grow corn, have domestic animals.

http://www.sliderbase.com/spitem-1300-1.html




For those interested in history, here's some history from S.Appalachia as pertains to the Cherokee living in "the hills".

Not interested in history? Then the following may just bore you royally.

It wasn't that European settlers wiped out North American natives via violence and via the spreading of measles and smallpox. One phenomenon that is often forgotten is how we Europeans absorbed them genetically. Like the Borg, we assimilated their DNA until they were not who they used to be.

Let me tell you something, Andrew Jackson and later The Confederacy, were a bunch of elitist monsters (Democrats, slavers, murderers). Andrew Jackson was an out-and-out mass-murderer. The Trail of Tears began in the 1830s and this was in North Georgia, a snippet of Tennessee (Chattanooga area), but also involved the states of Alabama and even Florida (I don't know who all were involved). Why, in the Name of God, the Cherokee in the deep South sided with the Confederacy (circa 1860) after having been displaced and murdered by the Trail of Tears is utterly beyond me! My people hated the Confederacy and our region (former State of Franklin) had to be occupied by Confederate forces to keep us from continually burning down their railroad trestles.

Where I'm from, the White trappers and earliest settlers absorbed native populations genetically -- there sure were a whole lot more of us than of them. Visit Cherokee, North Carolina. Many "Indians" there have White in them. My wife and I were talking to a local girl, high school age, and she said that their casino money was going to pay her way all through college. I'm glad that the stupid tacky tourism has been GREATLY supplemented with the Harrah's casino -- all of the locals (native Americans) get a cut of the profits. Tourism is still important, don't get me wrong, however I like them shaking money out whitey with tobacco and gambling. My dad shook money out of inept gamblers; makes me smile that the Cherokee are benefiting from the same industry.

Oh by the way, if you are in their territory and see FBI on a building, it means Full Blooded Indian. They hate the FBI. My dad's lot had to watch out for the revenuers (Treasury Dept.). Something else we have in common. In my mind, the Feds should leave the folk who were first here alone. The first-here can deal with their own issues; they sure as sh## do NOT need the D.C cancer coming to visit.

Stand Waitie's story is interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Watie

Support groups for native Americans who are in need of help:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=support+groups+for+native+americans&atb=v140-1&ia=web

I didn't know about these groups at all. Glad I looked them up. When giving to charities, think before writing a check to some whoever, ex. let's say the Red Cross. The Red Cross management folk make close to six figures a year, top admins make over six figures. Trips my gag-reflex! My father-in-law hated the Red Cross -- brilliant man, God's Peace be upon him. We usually give to the Salvation Army. Now I read about these first-here helpers ... raises an eyebrow. This week was also looking into support groups for veterans. Christmas ain't far off people. Got some money from past year's labors you can donate? Think about the agencies who actually do work for the deserving. Charities will be hurting as the economy tanks. Me and the wifer have stacks of food put back; if there's some money left over, then we think about those who simply can't stock up.

Holy crap, I've rambled. I'm sick, no energy, can't think straight. Hope I've made some sense. Been thinking about my ancestors a bunch. Seeing faces and images from over a half-century ago. Remembering a bunch of stuff that I'd forgotten. Constantly falling asleep. Speaking of which ...
.

 

Good morning Old Geezer,

Don't know if it helps or hinders the cause,... not near but - on - ......

Congressman Davy Crockett was "born ON a mountaintop in Tennessee..."

His birthplace might have been North Carolina territory at the time. I forgot.


cc: Fess Parker

 

https://www.tnstateparks.com/parks/david-crockett-birthplace

Limestone TN, Davey Crockett State Park
.

 

Texas is full of part native Americans that don't even know it. Native Americans couldn't own property in Texas until some time in the late 1920s. Lots of people are like my wife and 25% Native American. Her maternal Grandfather left the Oklahoma reservation passed through Louisiana and then came into Texas across the Sabine River on a Ferry. He instantly became a Louisianna Native with the last name of Ferry. South Louisiana is full of dark-skinned Cajun French Indians so he looked it pretty well. I'm either one eighth or so Cherokee from a Great-Great-Grandmother. Texas is an entire State that is like the US with all manner of people mixed together and very little in the way of pure breeds. We all share one thing and that is that we are TEXANS first and foremost.

 

When you look at shelters from all over the world they all take on the same basic shapes and characteristics, round/slopping/bent all done to shed rain and wind.