I have witnessed someone set up a hammock and tarp, and cook on an open fire in virtually standing water, using logs to get his fire above water. Anybody else done it, and any tips or tricks for camping in a swamp? Bit like snow but muddier!
Tricks and tips for waterlogged Ground?
- Thread starter Falstaff
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My first tip is to move somewhere else, because life is miserable when everything is wet and covered in mud.
This ^^^^^^^.
Why would you do it? Some festival sites do get very wet but there is rarely nowhere to go.
Not sure why a hammock is necessary. Wet ground is soft to sleep on. If you are tenting you certainly need decent tent pegs. My normal pegs are 225mm but I always carry four 320x30mm plastic augers and two stainless steel 500mm ground anchors - but then we are not talking back packing here.
I also have a humongous bag that everything can be piled into on the last day.
This is good weather to work out how to use your bivi sack. How do you get into it in the rain? First go for a good wee before you attempt it.
It takes practice. I use a full length neoprene to sit on while I pull the bivi and sleeping bag combined, up around me. My boots are upside down over sticks at the Head end of the mat. Once in, I shuffle the whole caboodle along the neoprene . The bivi sack is upside down compared to the way it is usually shown in use so the hood comes way over my head. I pull my boots in and tuck them under the end of the neoprene as a pillow and add a sweater etc to the “dry” side. Finally tuck the windward half the hood under too.
No idea how you manage with hoops and pegs in a bivi-tent. Anyone?
Yes of course some water gets in if it’s raining hard but water warms up.
The cooking system in the top left of this post can work in a puddle if you really want it to but it can easily rest on a couple of logs, stones etc.
I have in the past pitched in a swamp but always found slightly higher ground. It’s pretty miserable.
Edited to add.
I really should have written the bivi bit in the past tense
Why would you do it? Some festival sites do get very wet but there is rarely nowhere to go.
Not sure why a hammock is necessary. Wet ground is soft to sleep on. If you are tenting you certainly need decent tent pegs. My normal pegs are 225mm but I always carry four 320x30mm plastic augers and two stainless steel 500mm ground anchors - but then we are not talking back packing here.
I also have a humongous bag that everything can be piled into on the last day.
This is good weather to work out how to use your bivi sack. How do you get into it in the rain? First go for a good wee before you attempt it.
It takes practice. I use a full length neoprene to sit on while I pull the bivi and sleeping bag combined, up around me. My boots are upside down over sticks at the Head end of the mat. Once in, I shuffle the whole caboodle along the neoprene . The bivi sack is upside down compared to the way it is usually shown in use so the hood comes way over my head. I pull my boots in and tuck them under the end of the neoprene as a pillow and add a sweater etc to the “dry” side. Finally tuck the windward half the hood under too.
No idea how you manage with hoops and pegs in a bivi-tent. Anyone?
Yes of course some water gets in if it’s raining hard but water warms up.
The cooking system in the top left of this post can work in a puddle if you really want it to but it can easily rest on a couple of logs, stones etc.
I have in the past pitched in a swamp but always found slightly higher ground. It’s pretty miserable.
Edited to add.
I really should have written the bivi bit in the past tense
Last edited:
Was this in the UK? and was there a possible location they could have relocated too?
And yet, Mesolithic man bult their dwellings in bogs at times
Yeah but he didn't have the benefit of Uncle Ray did he.
In the case I witnessed, the happy camper arrived at a "nearly wild"campsite with only a hammock & Tarp. The site was near dartmoor on a slope leading down to a stream. Literally the only place with trees he could attach tarp lines to was in almost standing water near the stream, and it got even wetter over the weekend. I would have passed and found another site but he didn't, and made a pretty good job of it.
I managed to find a slightly raised bit of flat ground for my bivi and tarp set up and just about stayed dry, pretty much as Pattree suggested. Using a poled Bivi tent is actually no different.
Sometimes though, there is simply no choice in the matter, e.g. once at the old Bushcraft Show, very brambly and late arrivals had buggins choice. I was lucky and found the last flat'ish grass spot. Co-incidently the very same person arrived after me, and again ended up at the wet end of the slope, being the last pitch in the woods.
I do not plan to use that Nearly Wild site again though, even though the owners were lovely.
I managed to find a slightly raised bit of flat ground for my bivi and tarp set up and just about stayed dry, pretty much as Pattree suggested. Using a poled Bivi tent is actually no different.
Sometimes though, there is simply no choice in the matter, e.g. once at the old Bushcraft Show, very brambly and late arrivals had buggins choice. I was lucky and found the last flat'ish grass spot. Co-incidently the very same person arrived after me, and again ended up at the wet end of the slope, being the last pitch in the woods.
I do not plan to use that Nearly Wild site again though, even though the owners were lovely.
And yet, Mesolithic man bult their dwellings in bogs at times
Now, now. Barnstaple isn’t that bad.
Claiming their methods are his you mean? Or showing them how to do something their ancestors have been doing for a thousand years?
I know you were joking
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