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Hot Tent Camping In A Blizzard | ASMR

Glenn MacGrady

Glenn MacGrady

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Long. Watch this in bed on your phone or computer and drift off to slumberland. It has informational subtitles if you want to turn them on.

This outfit doesn't look like the canvas gear I've seen from youse guys. Very petrochemical and electronic. And a lot of work for one midnight cheese sandwich, a cup of freshly roasted coffee and some scrambled eggs.

But it must be more fun than typing on a laptop, even though no one in the great Nile, Fertile Crescent or Mesoamerican empires ever did it.


 
The only thing that was really interesting was this "coffee roaster".

I've never seen anything like it before.
 
This is the kind of video that I would have had my friend Keith watch. We instructed BSA trek leader guide training for more than 30 years together. We often teased each other with sightings of new unique camping and canoeing gear and techniques and I would say to him "hey, Keith, the next time we go canoe camping, I want to see you with one of those". I guess that is how Keith ended up with eleven different bivy sacks, almost as many sleeping bags, heavy steel wood stoves, and dozens of other items he never should have bought. I was just as guilty. Quiite unfortunately Keith unexpectedly passed away while hiking on an easy trail almost two years ago now, and I can't send him this video link, only in spirit. One of the last things he teased me with was: "hey Paul, Subaru has come out with a new Wilderness model Forester, you should get one". Guess what ended up in my garage just a week ago? On his birthday today, I miss Keith so much.
 
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Really fascinating how much gear he had, with lots of small parts to get lost (he says speaking from some experience). He seemed to have a specialized piece of gear for everything he wanted to do, some of it battery-operated yet he used a rock for pounding in pegs into what I assume was frozen ground. No KISS. The whole coffee routine was way, way past what I would do. I wonder how much his pack weighed? Overall quite interesting.
 
I think the video was in part a demonstration, if not a commercial for, a new brand winter tent and some other gear. Not being a winter camper myself, though I'd like to see our forum on the subject get more traffic, one thing I was wondering is how canvas tent campers would react to the Mylar coated dome tent. It seemed to hold up to the strong winds very well.
 
I'm not a hot tenter but the stove seemed to be unnecessarily complicated to set up (maybe they're all that bad?). I'm also wondering why the tent appeared to be separated into two rooms.

Again, not part of my yearly routine but I think I'd prefer to be able to stand upright in the tent and would also like to have a short-legged cot upon which to sleep.
 
I found the stove interesting. It looked to be fairly efficient for a pack stove. For me personally, winter camping and piece of kit that requires nuts and bolts for assembly/disassembly is a no no ( again speaking for myself ). My snow trekker tent and kniko stove are too large to back pack like in the video. They are designed to be pulled on a train ( toboggan ), so in no way as compact, but I think set up, even in a blizzard would be faster, easier. Also no snow legs on his stove? I wonder if as the ground under the stove thaws, it starts to sink into the soft - wet ground? Anyway, interesting twist on winter trekking.
 
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If you try tiktok, and search winter camping, you will find hundreds of these types of videos, and they all follow the same "plot". In most of them, I'm fairly certain their car is 15 feet away, but conveniently not shown. They spend more than half the video cooking their meal, which I always find so incredibly boring.

I will say that I find these new types of winter tents to be interesting, especially the "Inner room" concept. There might be some merit in keeping your sleeping quarters completely separate.

I think the tradeoff in terms of snowtrekker style versus these new tents is comfort. I can stand up in the snowtrekker and sit in a chair. If I was forced to scrunch around in a little tent like that after a day of man-hauling and cutting wood, I would probably spend the night with leg cramps. Those little dome type tents are very good in bad wind, probably more so than the snowtrekker, but you can put a big arse honking stove in the snowtrekker too, and burn the storm away in front of it while comfortable sitting in uour chair.
 
memaquay said:
If you try tiktok, and search winter camping, you will find hundreds of these types of videos, and they all follow the same "plot". In most of them, I'm fairly certain their car is 15 feet away, but conveniently not shown.
Click to expand...

It may not change your opinion, but here are what his YouTube notes say about the place he camped:

"This was my first time hot tent camping in a blizzard like this. The weather forecast called for 12 inches (30 cm) of snow and wind gusts of 40-50 mph (64-80 kph). I hiked through knee deep snow for two miles (3.2 km) to reach my camp. It took nearly 3 hours with the bad weather! When I arrived at the lake I found it was frozen over and the wind was absolutely howling!"

memaquay said:
If I was forced to scrunch around in a little tent like that after a day of man-hauling and cutting wood, I would probably spend the night with leg cramps. Those little dome type tents are very good in bad wind, probably more so than the snowtrekker, but you can put a big arse honking stove in the snowtrekker too, and burn the storm away in front of it while comfortable sitting in uour chair.
Click to expand...

If you want a bigger tent, the same guy's channel tests the TheDookan, which should be big enough for a lot of honkin' stuff, maybe even a canoe shop!



TheDookan can be set up even in the water:

TheDookan in water.gif
 
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To me, it looked like his wood gathering in the dark was illuminated by his F-250’s headlights and light bar (what we call moose lights).
I will give him points for not being in his back yard.
 
Stoves keep getting smaller and lighter. But it is hard to keep them going. You need a lot of small wood. Just getting a little stove going for 1/2 an hour can change your whole outlook. You get to get warm and dry out your outfit.

I had an outdoor fire yesterday afternoon in the backyard campsite. Brilliant.
Then I lit a fire in the house after sun down in the wood stove.
We are having company in Jan and plan an outdoor gathering. Time to set up the wall tent with a stove.
 
Gamma1214 said:
I'm not a hot tenter but the stove seemed to be unnecessarily complicated to set up (maybe they're all that bad?). I'm also wondering why the tent appeared to be separated into two rooms.

Again, not part of my yearly routine but I think I'd prefer to be able to stand upright in the tent and would also like to have a short-legged cot upon which to sleep.
Click to expand...
I actually prefer taller cots because they lift you up into the heated zone- anything much below the bottom of the stove gets little heat because heat rises. I also like to be able to store stuff under it like firewood, food, etc- It's a good way to keep your food cold without storing it outside within reach of all the little, hungry creatures out there.
Just remember to allow a bit of airspace under it to allow circulation.
 
ppine said:
Stoves keep getting smaller and lighter. But it is hard to keep them going. You need a lot of small wood. Just getting a little stove going for 1/2 an hour can change your whole outlook. You get to get warm and dry out your outfit.

I had an outdoor fire yesterday afternoon in the backyard campsite. Brilliant.
Then I lit a fire in the house after sun down in the wood stove.
We are having company in Jan and plan an outdoor gathering. Time to set up the wall tent with a stove.
Click to expand...
those are the reasons I make my own stoves, They're usually 12x12x24 and can be made with half of a 4x8' sheet, a little heavy, but can hold enough decent sized hardwood to last all night, they also mean not fiddling around trying to cut nearly 2' pieces into little chunks or splitting it down into all kindling.
my latest one is that size and made from welded 14ga steel and weighs 28lbs, and is primarily for car camping- no worry about burnout or rusting through, all my pipes,including the damper, elbows, and wind cap fit inside nicely as do the tools (poker, ash scraper, and shovel), and the base is an angle iron frame that the stove fits into when flipped for transport.
 
To me, this looked more like survival than joy. I’ve owned two canvas wall tents. One was 8 x 10. The other was 10 x 12. Plenty of room to stretch out, and to stand up. No scrunching in front of the stove. I wonder how often his small stove needed to be refilled to truly create a “hot tent” experience. I note that he was bundled up throughout. Even near the end of the video, I could still see his breath. In our hot tent, I can easily get the temperature to more than 30 C (86 F). Clothes are coming off as Kathleen and I luxuriate in the warmth. Even with our larger stove, though, we need to refill every three hours or so.

I was impressed with all the technology. But as already mentioned, a lot of bits and pieces to keep track of. He says he hiked in 3.2 km in knee-deep snow. One bit of technology he seemed to lack was snowshoes. Seems like a significant oversight. Although I can not backpack my canvas tent and wood stove, I have dragged it and all the supplies in a toboggan for as much as 6 km (4 miles). Had snowshoes. ‘Twas not really a struggle. But I was much younger then. Anyway this video did not tempt me. How many people would replicate his experience in the pursuit of fun?
 
PaddlingPitt said:
How many people would replicate his experience in the pursuit of fun?
Click to expand...
That's the rub, when you and I were plodding through the snow, we were in pursuit of fun, or at least challenging experiences. These guys are in pursuit of "likes" and "shares", and my guess is that if social media went away tomorrow, they would be waxing their beards at the latest Lumbersexual coffee bar in downtown Toronto.
 
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