Woodcraft 101: Putting Up A Tent ©

 

 

Photograph by the author.

This article complements the video “Woodcraft 101: Putting Up A Tent ©”, HERE, and teaches what you should look, for before picking your campsite.  As an aside if you are a Boy Scout this article and its associated video will help you complete, Tenderfoot rank, part 1b, sleep in a tent you have helped to pitch, Second Class rank, part 1a, sleep in a tent that you have pitched and Second Class rank, part 1c, explain what factors you should consider when picking a camp site and where to pitch a tent – Author’s note.

 

So first, what do you look for before you pick your campsite, obviously you need at least one tent-sized relatively level spot, but what else should you look for? 

 

Location, location, location…and the 5 W’s

 

Whenever you set up a campsite in the wilderness, you should always consider the 5 W’s, wind, water, widow-makers, wood, and wildlife, before you choose a location.

 

Wind

 

Wind can be your enemy or your friend, so always treat wind with respect and plan for it when you choose your campsite, because it can blow branches and trees down on top of you. 

 

On the other hand, wind can also blow mosquitos and other bugs away from your campsite. 

 

So, what type of winds are there besides storm winds? 

 

Prevailing winds worldwide, from “Essays on Long-Range Transport of Air Pollution and Its Health Outcomes”, by Moon Joon Kim, page 4

 Prevailing winds are, according to the Oxford dictionary, “a wind from the direction that is predominant at a particular place or season”.  It is always important when you travel or camp in the wilderness to know the usual wind direction, when canoeing it can help you stay in the calm water on the sheltered lee side of the shore or if you put your camp on the windward shore, it can help blow the bugs away from your camp.  It is important to remember that prevailing winds are not constant all day long, as Alan Innes-Taylor noted on page 53, when he wrote of prevailing winds in the Arctic Survival Guide: “Fair weather winds usually decrease at night”.  In Algonquin Provincial Park and much of northeast Canada and the United States, fair weather winds usually blow from the northwest to the southeast during the day. 

An excerpt from the Arctic Survival Guide, Alan Innes-Taylor, page 53

There are offshore, onshore and valley winds which are all generated by the daily warming and cooling of the land. 

 

An excerpt from Weather, by the Boy Scouts of America, page 9

During the day, the land warms faster than water and higher elevations warm faster than lower elevations, so...

 

During the day warmer air rises over the land pulling the cooler air over the water ashore in an onshore or sea breeze.  The warmer air above ridge tops and hills rises and pulls the cooler valley air upslope and up-valley

 

At night, the process reverses, and the land cools faster than the water, the rising warm air over the water pulls the cooler air over the land away from the shore as an offshore or land breeze.  At night, the air above mountain slopes and hills cools faster than the valley air and the warmer valley air rises and pulls the cooler hilltop air downslope and down-valley.

 

Onshore breezes seldom penetrate far inland, but they are usually stronger than offshore breezes. 

 

All of this is important, because you want to face your shelter so that the front is perpendicular to the general flow of the wind.  This will prevent bugs from being blown into your tent as your go in or out.

 

Water and Widow-makers

 

Speaking of wind, water and altitude, the second and third of the 5 W’s are water and widow-makers.  While you want to be near drinking water, setting up your shelter near that babbling brook is often a bad idea, as a storm far upstream can quickly turn that tame stream into a raging torrent and wash you away. 

 

Drawn by the author.

Also, you should look for a level area half between the summit of the hill and the valley bottom, as cold air at night collects in low spots and valleys and the summits of hills are also always cold.  It is often significantly warmer half-way up a hillside, between the crest of the hill and the valley bottom and far safer from flooding. 

 

A widow maker hanging in an oak tree, photograph by the author.

Always look up and around your planned campsite and make sure there a no dead trees, snags or widow-makers stuck in the branches above you, just waiting for the right wind to come crashing down on you. 

 

And lastly, don’t shelter under the tallest tree in the forest, it is a lightning rod!  If possible, shelter in a grove of equal sized trees.  Also avoid hill-tops and exposed cliff faces which can also attract lightening, so don’t shelter at the base of the tallest cliff in the area or on the top of the hill.

 

Wildlife

 

The fourth of the 5 W’s is wildlife, be careful of setting up your shelter on game trails, or near swampy areas that breed mosquitos.

 

Wood

 

An excerpt from “How Not To Get Lost”, by Charles Elliott, describing how mush fire wood you will need

The last of the 5 W’s is wood, the area that you choose for your campsite should have plenty of firewood, if you plan on having a campfire.

 

So now that we know what to look for in a campsite, let’s set up that tent, but before you do that, put up you tarp (for more on putting up a tarp, watch “Why Should You Put Your Tarp Up First ©“, HERE).

 

A tarp on an island in Maple Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park, 2017; photograph by the author.

The reason why you always put up your tarp first, is because if you are caught by a sudden storm, you will have a place to find shelter.  Also, if worst comes to worst, you can set up your tent under the tarp before moving it to its final location before staking it down over the footprint.

 

Always put a plastic footprint or ground cloth down between the tent and the ground, the footprint protects the bottom of the tent from abrasion.  Also, tuck any extra plastic footprint under the sides of the tent, so that rain or condensation doesn’t gather and pool on the plastic beneath the tent floor.  Also, always remember to take the time to stake out the sides of the tent fly so that condensation can run down to the ground and not soak your tent and you while you sleep

 

I hope that you continue to enjoy The Woodsman’s Journal Online and look for me on YouTube at Bandanaman Productions for other related videos, HERE.  Don’t forget to follow me on both The Woodsman’s Journal Online, HERE, and subscribe to BandanaMan Productions on YouTube.  If you have questions, as always, feel free to leave a comment on either site.  I announce new articles on Facebook at Eric Reynolds, on Instagram at bandanamanaproductions, and on VK at Eric Reynolds, so watch for me.

 

That is all for now, and as always, until next time, Happy Trails!

 

 

Notes

 

 

Sources

 

Boy Scouts of America; Weather, [Boy Scouts Of America, Irving, TX; 1992], page 9

 

Innes-Taylor, Alan; Arctic Survival Guide, [Scandinavian Airline Systems, Stockholm, Sweden, 1964], page 53

 

Kim, Moon Joon; “Essays on Long-Range Transport of Air Pollution and Its Health Outcomes”, [Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina, 2017], p. 4, https://repository.lib.ncsu.edu/bitstream/handle/1840.20/34686/etd.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y, accessed 9/28/19

 

United States Department of Agriculture, Outdoors USA: 1967 Yearbook of Agriculture, [United States Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, 1967], p 87-89, https://archive.org/details/yoa1967/page/n3, accessed 11/02/2019