Hey guys,
Just got back from a weekend near Ivinghoe (stayed at town farm campsite, it's very good), and had the opportunity to use a firesteel (the campsite rents out fire pits).
They provided little bundles of impregnated tinder but I wanted to try something a bit more natural, so I had a wander and picked up some dry grass and then saw the motherlode - a lovely patch of thistles with fluffy dead heads - and I thought "they'll be perfect".
On the first attempt I lit the thistle, which lit the grass, which.... didn't light the kindling. It was too thick. So we broke the supplied kindling down a bit and added some dry twigs and tried again - this time it worked excellently! The key was building the fire in stages - the thistle lit the grass which lit the twigs which lit the larger bits broken off the kindling, which lit the kindling which lit the logs. Just going from the thistle to the grass to the inch-square kindling was never going to work.
Massive learning experience, and I'm really glad that I didn't read anywhere that thistle heads were good, I just discovered it for myself
So yeah, hugely rewarding. Want to try out flint and steel next time
Camping was really fun, we saw kestrels, discovered that my partner has a natural talent for spotting prints - she followed deer tracks to a spot that was full of stripped bark. Quite a few times she'd see a track long before I could make it out. We'd earlier seen about 8 or 9 muntjac sitting watching us quietly from about 15 meters off. And I got re-acquainted with mapreading. It's amazing how rich an experience you can have in just a few days
One question: what do you guys think about taking compass readings off the path you're on? I did it a few times to check we were heading in the right direction, but I got a niggling feeling it was a bad idea for some reason? So in other words I'd point the direction arrow on the compass down the path, rotate the dial so it lines up with the needle, then take the compass to the map and rotate the frame until the arrow on the dial points north on the map, and then check that the direction arrow points the same way as the path on the map. Effectively using the path 10 meters ahead as you would use a landmark like a church. Is this bad practice?
Cheers!
Just got back from a weekend near Ivinghoe (stayed at town farm campsite, it's very good), and had the opportunity to use a firesteel (the campsite rents out fire pits).
They provided little bundles of impregnated tinder but I wanted to try something a bit more natural, so I had a wander and picked up some dry grass and then saw the motherlode - a lovely patch of thistles with fluffy dead heads - and I thought "they'll be perfect".
On the first attempt I lit the thistle, which lit the grass, which.... didn't light the kindling. It was too thick. So we broke the supplied kindling down a bit and added some dry twigs and tried again - this time it worked excellently! The key was building the fire in stages - the thistle lit the grass which lit the twigs which lit the larger bits broken off the kindling, which lit the kindling which lit the logs. Just going from the thistle to the grass to the inch-square kindling was never going to work.
Massive learning experience, and I'm really glad that I didn't read anywhere that thistle heads were good, I just discovered it for myself
So yeah, hugely rewarding. Want to try out flint and steel next time
Camping was really fun, we saw kestrels, discovered that my partner has a natural talent for spotting prints - she followed deer tracks to a spot that was full of stripped bark. Quite a few times she'd see a track long before I could make it out. We'd earlier seen about 8 or 9 muntjac sitting watching us quietly from about 15 meters off. And I got re-acquainted with mapreading. It's amazing how rich an experience you can have in just a few days
One question: what do you guys think about taking compass readings off the path you're on? I did it a few times to check we were heading in the right direction, but I got a niggling feeling it was a bad idea for some reason? So in other words I'd point the direction arrow on the compass down the path, rotate the dial so it lines up with the needle, then take the compass to the map and rotate the frame until the arrow on the dial points north on the map, and then check that the direction arrow points the same way as the path on the map. Effectively using the path 10 meters ahead as you would use a landmark like a church. Is this bad practice?
Cheers!
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