Steve Farzam
General Overview – COO of Shore Hotel – Santa Monica
Tag: Outdoors
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How to Build a Great Campfire
Posted at 11:23 am , on May 7, 2018
While it is no longer a vital component to our existence as it once was for ancient humankind, a campfire can still inspire discussion and storytelling among the group and is essential to a great camping trip. Don’t let your trip be a bore and know how to build a campfire worth remembering.
Create Your Fire Pit
It is crucial to be aware of your surroundings when building a fire so as not to start a wildfire. If your campsite has a designated fire pit, use it.
If you’re in the backcountry or a more rugged area, you will need to create your own pit. Choose an area that is clear of trees, bushes, and other plant material. Your fire bed should not be on grass, especially dead grass, but rather, on bare earth. If you cannot find a bare area, make your own. Do this by digging and raking away any plant material, ensuring you clear away all dry plant material, as it can easily catch fire.
Once you have an area cleared of plant material, make your fire bed. To do this, gather dirt and place it in the center of your cleared area, shaping the dirt into a 3-4 inch thick platform.
Gather Wood
You will need three types of wood from the ground for your fire: tinder, kindling, and fuel. Do not cut whole trees or branches, dead or alive. Live wood will not burn and you’ll be damaging the forest, and dead trees are usually homes for birds and other wildlife.
Tinder: materials like dry leaves and bark, twigs, wood shavings, dry grass and needles, and fluffy fungi are considered tinder. You can also bring your own in the event that the surrounding tinder is wet. Homemade char cloth and dryer lint are good alternatives. Starting with tinder in your campfire is essential to building a great fire. Tinder catches fire easily, but it also burns quickly.
Kindling: typically small sticks, twigs, and branches, about 1” in width. Kindling provides more substance than tinder but doesn’t smother the tinder flame like big logs would. However, kindling also needs to be dry to burn.
Fuel: large pieces of wood. This is what will keep your fire roaring. These pieces of wood do not need to be exceptionally large, like the logs you would use in a fireplace. Instead, gather pieces of wood that are as wide as your wrist or forearm. Any larger and it will take longer for the wood to catch fire.
Lay Your Fire
Pile a few handfuls of tinder into the center of your fire pit, then add kindling to your preferred lay.
Teepee: Lay the kindling over the tinder like you’re building a tent, leaving an opening on the side the wind is blowing against. This method is best used for cooking.
Lean-to: Another method for cooking, stick a long piece of kindling into the ground at an angle over the tinder, pointing into the wind. Then lean smaller pieces of kindling against the longer piece in the ground.
Log Cabin: This method is best for long lasting campfires. Start with a teepee lay and then surround your pile of tinder with kindling, stacking pieces at right angles. The top should consist of the smallest kindling.
Once you have your fire built, ignite the tinder with a match or lighter, blowing lightly at the base of the fire. As the fire grows, add more kindling and fuel to keep the fire going. Always keep the fire small and under control, and never leave it unattended.
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How to Identify a Great Campsite
Posted at 5:34 am , on January 31, 2018
When a person decides to venture out into the wilderness for an extended adventure, one of the most important aspects of their travels will be finding the perfect place to set up camp. Here are just a handful of things a camper should look for to identify a great campsite.
Cover
Picking a great campsite requires a moderate amount of forethought. Although dusk is the most common time of day to begin settling down in an area, a camper must also consider the effects of the sunrise on their night’s sleep. In order to ensure a good night’s sleep, a camper should pitch their tent in an area that has plenty of natural covering to prevent the bright rays of sunrise from waking them up too early.
Avoid Hazards
A camper should always maintain a healthy sense of self-preservation when choosing a spot for their campsite. Remain vigilant of any potential hazards in an area that would make the spot not ideal as a campsite. Some of the hazards they should look for and avoid are dead trees, dry river beds, large rocks or logs that could be home to venomous snakes, and steep hillsides or cliffs.
Terrain
Before a camper begins unpacking their tent to set up a campsite, they should be sure to give the ground a thorough inspection. When it comes to choosing a great place to set up a campsite, a camper will want to ensure that the ground has minimal or no mounds that could make sleeping uncomfortable. A camper should also choose to make camp on a level surface for safety reasons.
Convenience
Nature offers few conveniences the deeper into the wild you go, but a camper can make the experience easier for themselves if they opt to set up their campsite near a stream of water for bathing, a thick set of bushes for waste excretion, and trees to provide firewood. It is also better to follow in the footsteps of campers who came before by using well-worn campsites. This indicates that the site is ideal and popular.
As a camper is traversing through the wild outdoors, they should keep an eye out for a great spot in which to set up their camp so they’re not scrambling to find an area in the dark. It’ll be virtually impossible to choose an ideal campsite once the sun sets. A golden rule of thumb is to leave the camp area cleaner than how you found it.
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