Camping anyone?

[Steve H]

This little fire pit was awesome!

 

[noboundaries]

I've been a camper and backpacker since I was a kid. I've backpacked solo and with groups for up to ten days at a time. I orienteered in uni with the NROTC so I never worried about getting lost, though there were a few "Where The H(eck) am I?" times. Still have all the gear.

My wife tried it a few times, but she prefers comfort. Still, she'll give everything a try once, like the last time we ever went camping: 2012 Burning Man.

I engineered our camp over the course of like 6 months. Tested it once on the actual Black Rock Desert two months before the event. 70 MPH late afternoon winds absolutely DESTROYED our Monkey Hut, bending 1" PVC and 3/8" rebar like drinking straws. I re-engineered the frame and anchors. The ground connected ribs were held in place by a 36" piece of 1/2" rebar augered 18" into the ground. It held up beautifully in equally strong winds for the actual event.

Fun times. Might have to do it again sometime. I still have everything ready for the desert.

General view of our Monkey Hut.

Closeup view of my tarp anchor system: 12" nails driven into the desert floor and the bungees wrapped around the nail heads.

Different view showing the support structure.

My truck and trailer hauled everything to the desert. The bikes are for desert transportation because once your truck/car/RV/etc is parked, you don't move until time to leave the desert.

Table I built out of PVC and an old piece of press-board for inside our tent.

A swamp cooler I built for the tent. It's not attached in the picture. I put water and ice in the cooler and zipped the tent opening around it. Inside the cooler was a pump that distributed the meltwater around the filter element. The cooler wasn't needed at night because the temp would drop into the 40s, but during the day, in 100F+ heat, it was a creature comfort you usually don't have when tent camping.

The second one without the tubing was our grey-water evaporator. With a couple of gallons inside it would run dry in about 90 minutes.

Shower and toilet.

Galley.

My fat belly:

My wife and her study material:

Just another afternoon on the Black Rock Desert:

2012 Google Earth view of Burning Man and our camp. If you've ever been to BM, it is impossible to get lost the way the city is laid out. It also makes it easy to find one's camp on a Google Earth pic.

And an evening view that makes you forget about the heat, dust, and noise.