Day Hike with Coffee, Shelter and a Smokey Fire

bacpacbaby and I went for a hike today and stopped by the creek for lunch. The mosquitoes were nasty, so I put her bug net on her stroller and fired up the canteen stove and cup right away to brew some coffee and help fend them off a little bit. I wanted to get it going quickly so I used my Coleman triox tabs and the mini BIC on my lanyard to get it going.

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Starbucks VIA. YUM-O!

Mother Nature threatened rain and t-storms so I decided to use the GI ponchos in my day hike pack to make a shelter in case she snuck up on us. While she slept, I used paracord with square lashings to put up a ridge pole, lashed a corner to the stroller and then made a tri-pod for the fourth corner of the shelter. I used clove hitches for all the lashings, including the one on the stroller, and used the jute twine tie-outs that are always attached to the poncho to attach it to the frame. (Lesson of the Day: It takes a little fiddling to use the stroller as a lashing point for a tarp. It was fine for sun and falling tree debris and bugs, but if it had rained, I would have needed an adjustment to the placement of my lashing to prevent water from getting in the stroller. I went over the canopy to the side, and I should have used a longer piece of cordage to go over the handle and under. I played a with it more before I packed up, and finally got it, but it wasn't as easy as I anticipated it being.) The second poncho was my ground sheet to protect me from the muddy forest floor.

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Once it was up, I started a little smokey twig fire to chase the mosquitoes away. I wanted a fire quickly so I just did a twig fire, with wood shavings, river birch and cattail for tinder, on a platform of birch branches that I cut with my Bacho Laplander, and with a brace made from someone else's old fire dog. (I also made a platform to hold my kindling while it waited to be burned.) Taking the opportunity for a little more practice, I lit it with my Mora LMF.

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Then I sat down and enjoyed my coffee and snack before the sky started rumbling and we headed for home, both pretty happy.

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Here's a little video showing a bit more detail, including what I pack when I take bacpacbaby out on one of our typical fall days:
[YouTube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdhLxx9y-jE[/YouTube]

Thanks for lookin!

Nice! Great to get out for a little hike before winter sets in. Looks like bacpacbaby liked it, too!

An awesome outing. Bacpacbaby is growing fast!!!! She is already tackling cookies? Hooray!!!! Thank you for sharing Jackie!!!

Wonderful!!...not only a chance to play with the camping gizmos but with back pack baby too...
and a reminder for those of us who don't get outside as much as we would like to make a break for it---!!

Bungee cords are better. They save you a lot of fiddling about.

Spoken perhaps by one who's never experienced the joy of having a bungee cord snap back and wrack the cold, arthritic knuckles.

Bungees are someone's idea of a prank. I expect to see some joker with a camera pop out from behind a tree to point and laugh every time I try to use one of those darned contraptions

In answer to your imputation my friend, I have indeed been whacked across the knuckles. Which teaches a salutery lession in safe handling. If you buy decent quality bungee cords and respect their limitations then they become a most useful tool.

Sad to say, I am not the best judge of what is a "good" bungee cord. Despite by best attempts at proper safe handling techniques, the darned things just have it in for my poor hands.

They must be a Murphy product.

+ 1

But there is yet another benefit

It has become a hobby of mine to look for outings like this one on-line and just watch and try to feel myself being in the outdoors. Have been doing this more on our local forums.

Sometimes life will just decide NOT to allow you to get out ... so why not "borrow" a few moments of happiness and relaxation from those who managed to do it.

It is not the same as going out , but it works sometimes. When you open a thread like this, see a creek , sand dune, sunrise/sunset ... etc. it does wonders to tired souls.

Even camping tools are good to look at .. LOL

BTW, BPJ, glad you insisted to enjoy it despite mosquitos and the rain...

and thank you for sharing

The Colonel could always spot a "winner".

Thanks for the vicarious trip - especially the pix of you and the baby. Good on you for insuring that at least some children still know what is on the other side of the walls. Thanks!

When erecting a tarp in this kind of situation, I find the easiest way is to use two ropes, one at the high end and one at the low end. make sure there is an reasonable amount of slope to keep the water off. Tie one end to tree then make a small loop where you want a corner of the tarp. Slip the loop through the grommet and place a small stick or other object through the loop and pull snug. Do this with all the grommets and tie off to the other tree with a sliding knot. This allows you to move the tarp if necessary. The trees don't need to be in a straight line with the position of the tarp. Not my idea, I was shown it YEARS ago by one of my mentors. Been using it for all those years any time I put up a tarp and there are trees. Saves LOTS of work trying to set up some type of poles.

Respectfully,

Jerry

That is freakin' GENIUS.

I do have bungees in my BOB, Leigh, but just keep some paracord in my day hike kit because it's lighter and hopefully the shelter won't be used long.

In this case, I was practicing my knots and lashings, and decided on a ridge beam instead of just a ridge line as a bit of practice in building a shelter out of natural materials. If the weather really did kick up, I could easily have added poles to make a more substantial lean-to or a-frame. I was actually hoping to get to do that that day but bacpacbaby had other ideas.

I love that idea, Jerry. It would be a lot quicker. I've done the stick method with a ridge line before but never thought of doing it at the back too. DUH! Thanks!

Thanks guys. She's growing fast! She a crawler and has started walking, so she's increasingly less content in her stroller. Luckily she loves looking around and singing along to the bumps on the stroller. We're logging less miles and I have to strategize my use of time, especially for fire, a little more.

Chisel, like you, I love living vicariously through other people's trips. It really helps the cabin fever and I always learn something. I figure I should give back and share some of mine too. Not that my trips are epic adventures or anything, and I'm no cinematographer like Les Stroud, but I've learned a lot from your guys. I also hope they'll inspire an idea in someone else, or help some other sleep deprived parent realize that it is possible to get dirt time with a little rug rat in tow.

This is one time I'm actually looking forward to summer ending! It's been so hot and muggy in SD that I'm anxious for fall and even winter to get out and hike/camp. My favorite time of year is fall right after that first bug killing front. It's great to sit by the fire at night and not need any DEET.

So you were OK with the 3 1/2 feet of snow in some parts of the state last week? I thought that was bizarre having snow and tornadoes in the same general area! And yet 400 miles directly NORTH in Canada, we were basking in sunshine.

It's strange- Rapid City got a few feet of snow. In Sioux Falls, where I live, it was about 45 degrees F but otherwise beautiful. It was a bizarre store, a friend from Rapid said a couple days later all the snow was gone, no trace of it.