In the News today

[Toddy]

News report about the deaths of two people who were found in a tent on Loch Awe side. The cause is reported to be carbon monoxide poisoning from a camping stove.

Be aware, be careful, please.

Man and woman found dead in tent from 'carbon monoxide poisoning'

Emergency services were called to Loch Awe, in Dalmally, at around 4.25pm on Saturday.

news.stv.tv

 

[Pattree]

RIP

I just won’t hot tent and I cook outside.

(I worked on wind blow at Dalavich, Inverinan Forest, around Loch Awe in the 60’s)

 

[demented dale]

Always, always cook outside please. That is so so sad and more so because it was so unavoidable. Bless them and rip. x

 

[Chris]

RIP

I just won’t hot tent and I cook outside.

(I worked on wind blow at Dalavich, Inverinan Forest, around Loch Awe in the 60’s)

Hot tenting is glorious but I have a minimum of two CO detectors and I never go to sleep with the stove still burning.

 

[Broch]

Very sad - but, there has been enough publicity on this for the last few years

I've just spent a week in Scotland and the campsite owners tell me they may have to stop providing pitches for tents - something to do with insurance because of the number of deaths. In fact some we came across have already switched to camper vans and caravans only

 

[Wayland]

I cold camp even in the Arctic.

This is so tragic.

 

[Tengu]

Very sad - but, there has been enough publicity on this for the last few years

I've just spent a week in Scotland and the campsite owners tell me they may have to stop providing pitches for tents - something to do with insurance because of the number of deaths. In fact some we came across have already switched to camper vans and caravans only

Everyone has got a campervan in Scotland (or hired one)

I suspect they are more lucrative anyhow.

 

[Broch]

Everyone has got a campervan in Scotland (or hired one)

I suspect they are more lucrative anyhow.

So it would appear, the place is awash with them, the roads are choked with them, and every lonely beauty spot has two parked up for the night

 

[DariqWosh]

It is sad to read such information. But when you go on trip do you stove in the tent? Maybe there is something wrong with me but I always do it outside the tent.

 

[Broch]

Czasami widzę ludzi używających małych kuchenek kempingowych w namiotach, ale to nadal wydaje mi się zbyt ryzykowne. Lepiej cieszyć się ciepłem ognia na zewnątrz i mieć spokój ducha.

True, but that's the trouble with very small lightweight tents without vestibules - there's nowhere to cook safely in a deluge.

 

[Chris]

Tell me about it.

 

[Pattree]

Yes, good point - when it's pouring non-stop, cooking outside becomes super inconvenient. Have you ever tried using a light tarp or some quick-set-up awning just for cooking? I wonder if that wouldn't be a safer workaround in heavy rain instead of trying to cook in a tent.

What’s The hurry? Why are you trying to cook in the pouring rain? Wait a little. The deluge won’t last long and you’ll soon be able to light up your spirit stove. You don’t have to wait till it’s stopped.

 

[Keith_Beef]

Tak, dobry punkt — gdy leje bez przerwy, gotowanie na zewnątrz staje się super niewygodne. Czy kiedykolwiek próbowałeś używać lekkiej plandeki lub jakiegoś szybko rozkładanego przedsionka tylko do gotowania? Zastanawiam się, czy nie byłoby to bezpieczniejsze obejście problemu w ulewnym deszczu zamiast próby gotowania w namiocie.

Dlaczego piszesz po polsku?

 

[Pattree]

Jaki jest poler chatbota?

 

[Herman30]

Why are you trying to cook in the pouring rain? Wait a little. The deluge won’t last long.

So you have never been camping where it rained for two days in a row? I have.
Thank goodnes we were in a village and did not have to cook our food, ate at a restaurant.
But it was cold and miserable living in a tent when it rained for two days. Did not have enough clothing to keep warm. It was summer and supposed to be sunny and warm....

 

[Pattree]

I’ve camped when it rained all week. You prepare for that when you set up in the Lake District. It’s never continuously torrential.

I can light a Kelly Kettle in rain, I just wouldn’t do it in a downpour.

I’ve camped with the tipi frozen stiff for days but nothing on Earth would persuade me to bring fire into it.

 

[GreyCat]

There's a lot to be said for having a tarp or other rain shelter for cooking when camping in the west of the UK. There's times in west Wales where it rains for days, often heavily.... most recently a couple of days of very heavy rain just after they had been talking about a hosepipe ban in parts of Ceredigion.... (that little clump of rain brought the groundwater back up to winter levels, my pond fills from below from groundwater and the stream is fed from a spring, so levels in them are a good indicator of groundwater levels).

The west is so much wetter, yesterday I had to travel to London for work (aaarrgghhh ) and from the train, the fields around WIltshire looked ever so dry. Yet in west Wales it's all green again as it's been pretty regular rainfall since the spring dry period ended.

When I was younger and stupider, I used to lightweight camp, and when it was wet, lived on stuff that could be prepared with boiling water in a Trangia, as that was about the only thing then that was (a) carriable and (b) could be relied on to work outside in the rain/wind- set up the Trangia just outside tent when using it because use of a stove in a tent was Just Not Done. Dried pasta meals and potnoodles were a saviour (couldn't afford posh freeze dried meals). Would struggle with that now, but as I say I was younger and stupider, with a cast-iron digestive system too.

GC

 

[Pattree]

I’m older and even more stupider than I was in the early days. I’ve learned that I shall survive and enjoy surviving.

I love cooking in camp but it’s not The be all and end all. If pressed I think I’d say it’s the feel and the sounds of Camping that matter. That includes (feeling) cold and wet if it has to. (As opposed to BEING cold)

Please please, if you really must have a stove in your tent light it during the day when you are least likely to fall asleep.
CO poisoning starts with drowsiness.

 

[Broch]

I honestly believe that it's keeping the things lit to stay warm that causes most of the accidents - even if it's raining it's possible to keep a door partially open when cooking.

Even my backpacking tents were/are double skinned and had a vestibule to leave the wet stuff in and cook under. I preferred to carry 1kg more and have the comfort of somewhere to cook, somewhere to leave my soaking jacket, and somewhere I could have open and gaze at the view without getting soaked.

 

[GreyCat]

I honestly believe that it's keeping the things lit to stay warm that causes most of the accidents - even if it's raining it's possible to keep a door partially open when cooking.

Even my backpacking tents were/are double skinned and had a vestibule to leave the wet stuff in and cook under. I preferred to carry 1kg more and have the comfort of somewhere to cook, somewhere to leave my soaking jacket, and somewhere I could have open and gaze at the view without getting soaked.

Quite probably.

The idea of a "hot tent" was nothing I'd heard of until seeing it recently on you tube. I grew up with the idea that you cooked outside and in utter extremis (up a mountain, howling blozzard) you might use your Trangia in the vestibule for cooking a hot meal/drink.... but still very carefully. Otherwise the vestibule was for storing wet kit.

That's why my dad liked his Trangia- the stove was perceived as the safest option if one did need to cook in the vestibule in extremis (it was stable, didn't flare up suddenly, no issues of gas liquification in the cold, and with only a fairly small amount of fuel capacity in the burner, would burn out before CO got to be a problem). You used your karrimat and sleeping bag to stay warm, the idea of a wood stove in a tent was just not in the consciousness. If you had a wood fire, it was away from the tent.

I agree with what @Pattree alludes to, part of camping is to feel the elements, not insulate yourself from them!

(I can understand in the Arctic that if you're camping for several days in the snow, a hot tent makes sense, especially if you are towing a pulk and so can more easily carry the kit for one, plus you forage the wood you need as you go along).

GC