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SETTING CAMP
SETTING CAMP
When you're out camping, it's essential to scope out the best place to set up your tent, kitchen, and bathing area. Safety is the most important thing, so make sure to find a flat area for your tent and fire as well as dispose of any trash and food to avoid attracting wildlife. Once you organize your camp, you're sure to have a fun weekend in the woods. Setting up a campsite may seem complex, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are some basic tips to help create an ideal home away from home.
Camping is all about celebrating the outdoors, getting back to your roots. It helps to plan ahead and take the time to set up your camp right. With that in mind, here are those important tips before you make your way outdoors.
FINDING YOUR SITE
Find the flattest land available and keep water drainage in mind. A level area can make cooking a little easier and having your tent on flat ground could help you get a more comfortable night’s sleep.
You’ll also want an area that is free of vegetation and roots.
Campers normally prefer an area that is covered by trees because of the shade they provide and their ability to block damaging winds. When camping among them, be aware of the limbs directly overhead, and keep your distance from dead or dying specimens.
PITCH YOUR TENT
Give your campsite some extra security with a strong, sturdy tent setup.
It might seem easy to some, but setting up a tent can be trickier than it looks, especially for novice campers. Struggling to set up your tent could lead to uncomfortable sleeping conditions and an overall bad experience in the outdoors. Thankfully, however, you can avoid this negativity by following a few simple steps. You can now spend your time in the great outdoors embracing its beauty, not wrestling with tent poles.
The first step is to lay out your tent’s footprint, or protective tarp. This will add a barrier between the ground and the bottom of your tent to protect it from gathering moisture and reducing its overall lifespan. If your footprint is larger than your tent’s floor, tuck the exposed edges underneath. This can help prevent any water from running off of the fly and back under your tent.
After your footprint is in place, unfold the tent and begin to construct your tent poles. Once the tent poles are assembled, thread them through the main frame of the fabric. This should result in an “X” shape as shown in the video above. To raise the tent, start at one end and insert the end of each tent pole into its corresponding pocket. Repeat this process with all of the remaining pole ends. This will help the tent by giving it shape and dimension.
Once the tent is raised and secured, it’s time to add further structure stability by staking the tent into the ground. Begin staking down the tent at the corners with the provided tie-out loops. Also be sure to drive the tent stakes into the ground at an angle, away from the tent. Check the stakes every morning to make sure they aren’t coming loose.
If weather conditions call for it, you might need to add a rain fly to your tent. Lay the rain fly over the top of the tent, attaching it around the perimeter with the provided clips or hooks.
Having a secure tent can elevate your outdoor camping experience. Without the worry of a frustrating tent setup, you’ll have time to explore the woodlands, cook an appetizing meal around the fire or just enjoy nature in and around your campsite.
Watch Video Below
Camping poses a lot of challenges. It’s not like you can go into your kitchen and turn on the stove and boil some water, so everything takes a little bit longer, everything’s a little bit more inconvenient, but it’s super fun. One of the fun things about camping is figuring out crafty solutions to all these little inconveniences. So, when you’re setting up your tent and your campsite, you want to think about how to set it up to make it as easy on you as possible. You kind of need to think about six areas in your campsite; there’s where you’re going to put your tent, there’s where you’re going to have your fire. You should also have an area where you hang your tarp and make a little lean-to; this will be a place where you can be outside your tent if it’s raining, so you can still enjoy the day and not be stuck in the tent. You want to think about a place to do dishes after you’ve cooked, and that should probably be a place sort of near your fire and where you keep your food, which is the other place you want to think of on your campsite. Then, finally, you want to think about where you can put your bathroom and hygiene area so that it’s sort of away from the rest of camp and everybody knows where to go in the middle of the night and they need some toilet paper.
The Camp Kitchen
WARNING:When you're dealing with a campfire, you need to be very careful. Locate a flat area—away from any leaves, twigs, or brush that may catch fire—in which to set up your kitchen. Do not cook anything in your tent!
Yummy!!
The main necessities for this camp kitchen setup include a sturdy cooler, a small foldable table, pots and pans, and essential utensils and dinnerware.
Depending on what you plan to cook, you might want to include additional items like larger knives, a cutting board, a grill grate, and a coffee maker.
If you don’t feel comfortable cooking over an open flame, consider a camping stove instead. Mostly gas powered, camping stoves are available in a range of sizes, and they’re ideal if you’re car camping.
When it comes to cookware, cast iron is a must-have for outdoor cooking. It’s sturdy and versatile, and it can be used with high heat. Why settle for hotdogs and white bread when you can create gourmet campfire meals?
The best way to stay organized while camping is to make sure everything has a spot and that everyone at camp knows to put things back where they belong. One of the hardest areas to keep tidy is the camp kitchen because it contains a lot of miscellaneous items.
The first step to assembling a killer camp kitchen is designating a chuck box. A chuck box can be as simple and economical as a large plastic tote or as complex as a hand-crafted wooden box (DIY tutorials are widely available online) complete with fold-out tables, equipment-specific compartments, and removable legs. The function of a chuck box is to keep all your cooking essentials organized and stored in the same place. That way, when you make an impromptu decision to load up the car and head to the hills, you can simply grab the chuck box and know you’ll have everything you need (excepting your stove, table, and well-stocked cooler) to whip up a tasty meal.
Please Remember Pack It In Pack It Out!
CRITTER-PROOFING
The goal of critter-proofing your camp is to minimize odors that might attract bears, and to set up safe storage areas for food and garbage that are out of reach of bears and are away from your sleeping area. The best way to do this is to start with a camp set up that facilitates these goals. A basic camp set up is where the sleeping area is upwind of the kitchen and food storage area and at least 300 feet (100 meters) apart.
