For anyone who'd like the video version (with subtitles), it can be found here:
Work has been very busy for a while now, due to the government selfishly calling a General Election without consulting me. So I took a few days off post-madness to get out into the woods and to try out a couple of new toys, most notably the 3F UL LanShan2 tent. Monday was a beautiful, sunny day and there was heavy rain forecast overnight and into the Tuesday, so it seemed like a good opportunity to test it out.
I went to a bushcraft camping spot not too far away from here, where it's a tenner for the day/night and only a few pitches so you get your privacy. I checked online and there were no bookings. Result!
Packed my kit and ended up getting to the site at around 1600, after an hour of waiting for a roller to finish work on the only road in to the site.
Once I got there, it seems a few others had a similar idea to me! There were a few people about, but I had a nice quiet spot to myself. I was rather surprised to find the lovely chap that is Paul Messner at the site! I've been watching Paul's YouTube videos for a couple of years now and I certainly did a double take when I saw him wander past my car. He was a real gent and we had a bit of a chat about video making and the LanShan.
Anyway, once I'd got over that nice surprise it was time to get camp set up. Here are my current thoughts on the LanShan 2:
- It's not easy to erect it at first. I'd tried already in the garden once just to get some silicon sealant on the guy-out points, but this ground was very hard and made it quite tricky.
- I'm glad I bought the footprint. The floor feels quite thin, as you'd expect from an Ultralight bit of kit, but the footprint adds some nice protection
- There is absolutely stacks of room for one person inside. Me, big daysack and a few bits of kit fit in there no problem at all. As you can probably see, I am not exactly a ballerina. I reckon you'd be good in this up to 6'6"ish.
- The pegs that come with it are useless, so I'd sack them off right off the bat if I were you.
- The ventilation is ace, especially if you leave a couple of inches gap between the floor and the outer. Not a sign of condensation in the morning.
- I reckon it looks quite nice and inoffensive, not going to be too easy to pick out of the woods if you camp somewhere sensible.
- The stuff sack it comes with is a bit too small, so I picked up a dry bag (13L) which is more than big enough for the tent, footprint and some pegs. You could go smaller no problem.
Having seen the pegs that came with the tent, I thought I'd try and find some aluminium lightweight ones that'd do a bit of a better job. As a result, I ordered these:
I'll cut to the chase. They were absolute rubbish in hard dirt. Two I tried bent and snapped pretty much straight away. They might be ok in soft mud, but otherwise I really cannot recommend these.
Thankfully I'd also brought these heavy duty NGT pegs which are my usual pegs for bivvies or tenting:
These are great. Can recommend.
Anyway, I digress. After some fruity language and being eaten by the flying things which had decided to come and enjoy the sunshine with me, I had the tent up. It might not be pretty, but it was functional. The good thing about the above pegs is you can screw them into the ground, meaning even if you only get a few inches into the ground they hold firm.
Next up, it was time to chop some wood and get a fire going. The wood chopping is a breeze with Mr Mears' Wilderness axe from Gransfors Bruks. My first strike was embarrassing, as I'd seemingly forgotten how to control my arms momentarily. Oh well. Wood chopped and fire ignited easily, using the traditions of our ancient ancestors, a butane jet lighter and a feathered stick.
As my featherstick burned prettily at the base of my kindling, I took a moment to reflect on the fact I am an idiot and didn't take a photo of it for the July photograph competition on here. Bummer. Oh well, the smoke got rid of the pesky flying things.
With the essentials sorted, I spent the rest of the day relaxing, doing some food prep and enjoying the wonderful lighting of the evening. Honestly, there is nothing in the world that touches my soul more than an image like this:
Dinner was a forerib of beef the size of my leg (a ribeye with cap on and a bone, basically) and a few new potatoes.
After dinner I did a bit of experimentation with fire configurations. As I posted elsewhere on the forum, I am not sure if this is a configuration that has a name, but I quite like it. Radiates heat outwards all around the fire and surprisingly didn't burn through wood very quickly. Also, you'd easily be able to boil a big kettle of water on top of the central log. If it doesn't have a name, I hereby name it the Foutish Candle, as Pattree observed it's a bit like an inside out Finnish candle.
With a strategically-leaned log, I was able to direct plenty enough heat to my small metal mug to get the water boiling in there.
I'd also bought a little dram with me to enjoy this evening before bed, before my hot chocolate. It's an Aberlour 14 Year Old, a nice regular in my rotation. There was only about 50ml left in the bottle so no wild partying tonight, just a nice warming sip whilst enjoying the fire.
Bedtime came quite late and I was plenty cosy and insect-free within the LanShan 2. I could see a few mosquitoes trying to breach the defences on the inner, but they had no success. Happy days. I kept one of the front flaps open until the fire had died down sufficiently for me to be confident I would not get very suddenly and rudely burned to death in the night. It was peaceful hearing the rain on the tent and watching the glow of the fire.
From about midnight, it started absolutely weeing it down. Paul's camp a few hundred metres away got turned into a swamp, but my area stayed well drained so I wasn't carried out to sea whilst I slept, and breaking down camp in the morning was no problem at all. The rain had even doused the firepit for me, how thoughtful.
I decided I could not really be bothered to cook up my sausage and beans for breakfast, so the morning was a nice and quick affair before I got into the dry embrace of my car for the drive home.
Overall, it was a great trip and a good chance to relax and unwind in the woods.
Work has been very busy for a while now, due to the government selfishly calling a General Election without consulting me. So I took a few days off post-madness to get out into the woods and to try out a couple of new toys, most notably the 3F UL LanShan2 tent. Monday was a beautiful, sunny day and there was heavy rain forecast overnight and into the Tuesday, so it seemed like a good opportunity to test it out.
I went to a bushcraft camping spot not too far away from here, where it's a tenner for the day/night and only a few pitches so you get your privacy. I checked online and there were no bookings. Result!
Packed my kit and ended up getting to the site at around 1600, after an hour of waiting for a roller to finish work on the only road in to the site.
Once I got there, it seems a few others had a similar idea to me! There were a few people about, but I had a nice quiet spot to myself. I was rather surprised to find the lovely chap that is Paul Messner at the site! I've been watching Paul's YouTube videos for a couple of years now and I certainly did a double take when I saw him wander past my car. He was a real gent and we had a bit of a chat about video making and the LanShan.
Anyway, once I'd got over that nice surprise it was time to get camp set up. Here are my current thoughts on the LanShan 2:
- It's not easy to erect it at first. I'd tried already in the garden once just to get some silicon sealant on the guy-out points, but this ground was very hard and made it quite tricky.
- I'm glad I bought the footprint. The floor feels quite thin, as you'd expect from an Ultralight bit of kit, but the footprint adds some nice protection
- There is absolutely stacks of room for one person inside. Me, big daysack and a few bits of kit fit in there no problem at all. As you can probably see, I am not exactly a ballerina. I reckon you'd be good in this up to 6'6"ish.
- The pegs that come with it are useless, so I'd sack them off right off the bat if I were you.
- The ventilation is ace, especially if you leave a couple of inches gap between the floor and the outer. Not a sign of condensation in the morning.
- I reckon it looks quite nice and inoffensive, not going to be too easy to pick out of the woods if you camp somewhere sensible.
- The stuff sack it comes with is a bit too small, so I picked up a dry bag (13L) which is more than big enough for the tent, footprint and some pegs. You could go smaller no problem.
Having seen the pegs that came with the tent, I thought I'd try and find some aluminium lightweight ones that'd do a bit of a better job. As a result, I ordered these:
I'll cut to the chase. They were absolute rubbish in hard dirt. Two I tried bent and snapped pretty much straight away. They might be ok in soft mud, but otherwise I really cannot recommend these.
Thankfully I'd also brought these heavy duty NGT pegs which are my usual pegs for bivvies or tenting:
These are great. Can recommend.
Anyway, I digress. After some fruity language and being eaten by the flying things which had decided to come and enjoy the sunshine with me, I had the tent up. It might not be pretty, but it was functional. The good thing about the above pegs is you can screw them into the ground, meaning even if you only get a few inches into the ground they hold firm.
Next up, it was time to chop some wood and get a fire going. The wood chopping is a breeze with Mr Mears' Wilderness axe from Gransfors Bruks. My first strike was embarrassing, as I'd seemingly forgotten how to control my arms momentarily. Oh well. Wood chopped and fire ignited easily, using the traditions of our ancient ancestors, a butane jet lighter and a feathered stick.
As my featherstick burned prettily at the base of my kindling, I took a moment to reflect on the fact I am an idiot and didn't take a photo of it for the July photograph competition on here. Bummer. Oh well, the smoke got rid of the pesky flying things.
With the essentials sorted, I spent the rest of the day relaxing, doing some food prep and enjoying the wonderful lighting of the evening. Honestly, there is nothing in the world that touches my soul more than an image like this:
Dinner was a forerib of beef the size of my leg (a ribeye with cap on and a bone, basically) and a few new potatoes.
After dinner I did a bit of experimentation with fire configurations. As I posted elsewhere on the forum, I am not sure if this is a configuration that has a name, but I quite like it. Radiates heat outwards all around the fire and surprisingly didn't burn through wood very quickly. Also, you'd easily be able to boil a big kettle of water on top of the central log. If it doesn't have a name, I hereby name it the Foutish Candle, as Pattree observed it's a bit like an inside out Finnish candle.
With a strategically-leaned log, I was able to direct plenty enough heat to my small metal mug to get the water boiling in there.
I'd also bought a little dram with me to enjoy this evening before bed, before my hot chocolate. It's an Aberlour 14 Year Old, a nice regular in my rotation. There was only about 50ml left in the bottle so no wild partying tonight, just a nice warming sip whilst enjoying the fire.
Bedtime came quite late and I was plenty cosy and insect-free within the LanShan 2. I could see a few mosquitoes trying to breach the defences on the inner, but they had no success. Happy days. I kept one of the front flaps open until the fire had died down sufficiently for me to be confident I would not get very suddenly and rudely burned to death in the night. It was peaceful hearing the rain on the tent and watching the glow of the fire.
From about midnight, it started absolutely weeing it down. Paul's camp a few hundred metres away got turned into a swamp, but my area stayed well drained so I wasn't carried out to sea whilst I slept, and breaking down camp in the morning was no problem at all. The rain had even doused the firepit for me, how thoughtful.
I decided I could not really be bothered to cook up my sausage and beans for breakfast, so the morning was a nice and quick affair before I got into the dry embrace of my car for the drive home.
Overall, it was a great trip and a good chance to relax and unwind in the woods.
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