I slept several hours like a happy little woods creature burrowed into a gigantic warm nest. If you haven’t been in a hot tent you don’t know what you’re missing. Winter camping is not for the faint of heart but a hot tent is a very inviting environment.
I conked out laying on my cot on top of a 0 degree sleeping bag with a thin little “adventure blanket” over my feet. Eventually the fire went out… which I slept through. As the temperature dropped, the adventure blanket got pulled up snugly. Then I burrowed into the sleeping bag. Just gradually nestling in as the temperature drops. This is how I adapt to a fabric shelter in winter temps. It works great.
I woke up long after the fire was out. My 0 degree bag was still toasty warm. I hadn’t even zipped it up. But those beers I’d drank had to go somewhere. So I stumbled out into the moonlight. It was gorgeous, as moonlight always is.
[Warning, camping is as much about uncouth necessity as it is moonlight poetics. Skip the next section if you wish.]
Back at the tent I decided to kindle the fire again. It’s not that I was cold, but that I knew a relit stove would heat the tent for several hours. Light something in the middle of the night and you’re less likely to wake up in a frozen tent at dawn. Of course my 0 degree bag is fine for sleeping but I like waking to boots and jacket and such thawed. I lit the woodstove again. As usual my tent was like a little oven within 15 minutes.
You almost have to let that initial heat wave die down before falling asleep. If you throttle back the airflow to the fuel too soon it might go out instead of maximizing the BTUs out of your limited fuel. I was glad I had all that nicely stacked wood right at hand instead of rummaging around in the night to find fuel.
Since I had time to kill, I thought about finding an outhouse. Earlier I’d seen a washhouse but the doors were locked. Makes sense to shut down water in unheated buildings over the winter. Surely there was a creaky old off grid outhouse somewhere? Maybe nobody needed one? Presumably, the other campsite people were using their self contained plumbing systems.
I decided it was time to test the final frontier.
Every camping trip should be a testing and training day for the next one. We must learn of stagnate! In this case, I was at a nearly abandoned State Park which surely had an outhouse somewhere but I also had my “Luggable Loo” (which I affectionately call “shitbucket”). I spring for expensive Mylar double bag waste bags (which have bio-gel and other features). Some marketer named them “Double Doodie“. Don’t blame me for dumb names.
I know the manly thing is to crap on a stump like the bears do but it’s not like a Park is the wilderness. Also, the pairing of “Luggable Loo” and “Double Doodie” is actually quite civilized. It’s easier on the knees. Not gross like you’d think. You don’t have to dig into frozen soil. I know people are resistant to the idea of a bucket, but it’s a big step above not having one. I heartily recommend a Luggable Loo for anyone who’s doing car camping (obviously it’s not an option for backpackers!)
Also, I was in a State Park. I think they’d frown on bearded bloggers taking unauthorized dumps. 🙂
I’d tried the paired bucket/bag system but never in freezing weather and never inside the tent. I always used them outdoors; behind a bush or something. It works very well. IT IS NOT YUCKY! Get over your biases!
There’s no cover in a State Park. I intended the system to be used “inside” in brutal winter blizzards so I might as well test it when it’s not mission critical. It worked very well. The biogel really does it’s job, plus I’d just fired the woodstove and it was easily 70 degrees in the tent. So much less physically challenging than squatting while wearing ten layers of jackets.
When I was done I put the bucket (with lid sealed tightly) outside the tent, where it promptly froze. It was more sanitary than almost any possible situation. I’d preformed the most non-yucky State Park dump ever. (Is there an award for that?)
So now you know a new technology. Creepy frozen State Park concrete outhouses (or trying to hammer a hole into frozen soil in the legitimate forest) can be replaced by a much more civilized approach.
Note: This is one of the advantages of solo camping. If there were two people in the tent I think the Luggable Loo would be fatally embarrassing.
[\Warning]
It was the middle of the night but I didn’t feel like sleeping. My tent was warm and cozy and I was happy. I sat by the stove in my lawnchair reading a Sci-Fi novel from the 1950’s. (I usually read from Kindle but this book was on dead tree.) Lately I’ve been reading less than usual. I think stress takes you away from reading for pleasure. I probably spent half the night reading by the little woodstove. Very peaceful.
More in my next post…