First Trip Out With The Hot Tent

Just got back from a nice camp up in Cumbria, got to test the new stove and tent and both performed admirably, very happy indeedy ..

Flue at an angle was my first choice, I could do with another flue section but it still drew well ..

Two props and some wire to secure ..

Later in the day the wind switched round 180 degrees and I was getting the occasional blow back into the stove, this meant a little puff of smoke came out the damper and into the tent, caught here with the sun coming through one of the vents ..

Stove worked well, very happy with that

I switched the flue to a vertical position and this cut out the blow backs ..

Barbon Beck, a nice soundtrack for the weekend..

I went for a walk up the nearby hill to see if I could get a phone signal and give Carol a ring, got some great views

Shots in the cold last night ..

With temps down to -8*c we think, the whole setup was brilliant, the battery in my max/min thermometer pooped out but still recorded -6.5*c. I woke up at 06:15 this morning and threw a featherstick, some kindling and bigger pieces in the stove, without doing anything else it caught by itself and started chugging away again. I noticed frost glistening on the inside around the bottom 2ft, I also had moisture on the inside of my bivvy bag in some places. It was 08:25 when I woke up next and the tent was still toasty, I stuck the kettle on and it brewed up in no time. Once I decided to get up for a morning constitutional I just hooked the bivvy and sleeping bag to the ridge pole and left them to dry, by the time I'd got back they were ready to pack, I measured 24.8*c in the apex when I went to bed last night, nice :)

Leave only footprints, check out the frozen river :)

A couple of pics of my setup inside, lousy quality sorry

Heavy duty 6x8' pvc groundsheet, corner nearest stove folded over

NATO 5 season CCF pad

Exped Downmat 7DLX

Alpkit Pipedream 600

Ajungilak cotton and nylon base bivvy

Old shortened Multimat for sitting/kneeling on

I didn't bother to pack a rucksack but threw most of my stuff in a Snugpak Kitmonster, makes life a lot easier in a big tent

My kitchen box consisted of one of those fold down plastic carry boxes, inside was my kettle and brew kit, MSR Whisperlite and Blacklite pans for backup, various lanterns and lights, BBQ firelighters, cutlery, FAK, leather gloves, knife and axe. I also took 2x 4 pint milk bottles for drinking water as they're easier to handle than my 10L MSR Dromedary in a tent with a hot stove running.

The first night I arrived well after dark and wasn't planning to pitch a new tent blind, but when I got to the site I talked myself into it and I was glad I did. It only took ten minutes to set it up including the stove, it was a dead calm evening but I expect it'll be trickier when it's blowing a hoolie. When I first setup I looked at the flue jack and it looked to be too high, nightmare, but when I got the stove out and set the legs up it lined up perfectly with either the 45* elbow or the straight section of flue, lovely jubbly. I got a firelighter lit and piled up some thin split pine kindling, then put on some thicker stuff and went back to the car for some more kit/junk, coming back and unzipping the tent was like getting off the plane in Mexico, instant heatwave in the face.

I'm glad I talked myself out of a night under the Trailstar, when I woke in the morning I shuffled myself down towards the stove and got it lit again, I laid there for ten minutes and then had to get up to water the plants. Again coming back to the tent after standing outside in my woollies and Crocs was a great feeling. I'm not sure what time the stove went out in the night but I really had it roaring when I went to bed, the stove was glowing on the top and sides and I could get a whiff of the flue jack, I kept having to put my headtorch on to make sure the tent wasn't on fire. It wasn't even singed when I checked in the morning so I'm chuffed about that. The tent was cold first thing and I had some condensation on the inside of my bivvy, only on the nylon waterproof base though, the cotton upper was bone dry, I might have to think about a full cotton bag cover I think.

The second night I switched my bag round and slept with my head nearest the door, I could then literally lean over and put a log in the stove without any effort, the other way round I had to do the caterpillar shuffle until I could reach it. My kitchen box was then behind my head and I could chuck a load of wool layers against it to make a great pillow.

I'm dead chuffed with how the tent and stove have worked out, here's hoping for a cold snowy winter now