Hammock camping

I quite like this style now.  Yesterday, I was out on a hike.  I knew I would spent a few hours in the woods and had wanted to relax in there, so I brought my hammock along.  I also brought two tarps to protect me from the rain.  This time, I set up my camp along the edge of a creek at the bottom of a hill.  A tent would not fit well in this area with the slope and space and all but it works very well for a hammock and tarp!

Hammock and tarp setup by a creek.

Now, I just need to figure out how to lessen the bulkiness of my two backpacks!  I carry a photo backpack along with a 60L backpack for my camping gears.

Camping on crown land, part 2

My tarp-hammock camping setup.

So, yesterday, after lunch at the Mandarin with some friends, I started my way up to Big Orillia Lake.  The trip took me 3 hours, including a stop at Bass Pro Shop to buy an Ascent -30C mummy sleeping bag.  I arrived at Big Orillia Lake late, partially because of heavy traffic in Toronto and partially because the road I saw in Google Map is in fact a private road!  I was pissed but as the sun threatened to set within an hour, I had to hurry to find a way into the crown land I had researched earlier.  I got lucky and found a spot off the public road quickly to park my car.

Before lugging my large backpack in, I decided to do a quick survey of the area to find a place to build my campsite.  The first part of the land is populated by the maple trees, succeeded by pine trees bordering the lake.  While the evergreens maintain their luster green still, the maples were disrobed of their foliage.  Bare, naked, most of them.  The area was littered with maple leaves.  The ground yellow, orange, and red.  It was soft but wet.

Ascent -20F (-30C) Mummy Sleeping Bag

My first order of business after locating a place to set up my campsite was to lay down a tarp to keep everything else dry on top of it.  I then took about a minute or so to set up my hammock and another five minutes to put up a second tarp over the hammock.  I laid down a foam mat inside the hammock, followed by my new -30C sleeping bag.  Once the tarp and hammock were set, I was satisfied.  Darkness set in while I was setting up the tarp but now I had a shelter, and with it, some insulation from the elements but not food.

After repeated failures to start a fire in my hobo stove (everything was damp and I did not have any birch bark), I decided to dump half of an InstaFire bag into the stove to help with the fire.  From then on, the fire was more or less self-sustaining, enough at least for me to boil water to make some instant noodle soup.  I could not eat it quite yet as it was still too hot.  As I waited I looked up into the sky.  It reminded me of a night at a cottage.  While the darkness enveloped me, the sky was littered with star lights.  It was an awesome sight in the middle of the forest.  Again, while waiting for the noodles to cool down, I took out my camera and snapped some pictures of the sky but they really do not do justice.  The field of stars was just unbelievably clear up there.

It must have been past 8pm when I decided to call it a night—I wanted to take more pictures but I could get lost in the darkness if I had ventured out.  The sleeping system was good.  I felt really warm.  My feet were warm.  My hands were warm.  Everything felt great.  Until 3am.  I knew, even at 8pm, that the cold air was settling in.  I was breathing it in and out.  By 3am though, my body stopped producing enough heat to keep me warm.  My back started to feel a bit chilly, not cold, but chilly enough to feel uncomfortable.  By 4am, my feet started to feel chilly too.  I knew my body was not generating enough heat.  Every now and then, when I had to adjust my position in the hammock, I’d feel warm again as I had to use my muscles to push myself up one end of the hammock—oh yeah, I made one end higher than the other so I kept on slipping slowly down the hammock.  Anyways, the temperature must have dropped to -5C or even lower.  (When I finally got up at 6am to take pictures of the lake and the field of stars, it took merely 20 seconds or less for my exposed fingers to freeze so it must have been pretty cold.)  I should have added to my sleeping system my summer sleeping bag as an under quilt.  That should have kept me a lot warmer.

So, I think that was my *winter* camping in the bush! :)

Oh, I heard three howls.  I believe they were of wolves.  I also heard a couple of hoots.  Maybe there were winter owls around there?

Bannock, part 3

This morning, for a hike I did today, I decided to make some bannock and take it with me.  That would be my breakfast and snack when we rest.  I used the same recipe as the last time except that I doubled everything as I wanted to make enough bannock to last the entire trip.  One thing I changed was the temperature I set the convection oven to.  Instead of 170 degrees Celcius, I lowed it to 150 degrees.  Before starting to bake, I allowed the dough to sit for 5 minutes or so--I went to do my other daily morning routine in the meantime.  I then allowed the bannock to bake on the glass plate a little longer in the convection oven for a total of 20 minutes.  At half time, I flipped the bannock over to bake the underside.  The bannock came out better than before.  The crust is not as golden brown as before, just golden.  The crust was softer than before, softer than a french baguette.

Storing cooking oil

For my last camping trip to Cyprus Lake over a month ago, I thought it'd be smart to carry some cooking vegetable oil in an empty hot pepper glass bottle.  Today, when I took out the bottle to use the oil to coat the blades of my knifes, I saw some greenish brown spots at the bottom and on the side wall of the bottle.  What the heck?  How can mold grow in oil?  I ran some searches on Google and oddly enough, mold does grow in oil, or maybe it's because of contaminants from the air and what not that allowed for the mold to grow?  Well, I poured out the oil--it looks clean to the naked eyes--and tried to hot wash the bottle.  I poured really hot water into the bottle but nothing seemed to work to remove the mold.  It looks like the mold has taken root on the imperfect surface of the bottle.  As I cannot get a brush into the bottle, I had to throw away the bottle.  It is unfortunate because I like the bottle.  It is small and light for carrying cooking oil for camping.

Bannock, part 2

Well, I'm a bigger fan of bannock now.  I am using the following portions for my version (basically reducing the original recipe by six folds):

• 1/2 cup of all-purpose flour
• 1/3 tablespoon of baking powder
• 1/6 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of brown sugar
• 1/6 cup of raisin
• Water as necessary to get a certain dough consistency ... maybe 1/3 cup ... not sure how much water actually

I let the dough sit for 4 minutes or so before putting it in a small convection oven.  I baked the dough on a plate with some oil at 170 degrees Celcius for 10 minutes, then flipped the bannock over (the underside was still doughy), and baked for another 5 minutes.

The crust is crunchy.  The inside is soft.

Maybe I should bake at a lower temperature for a bit longer for a softer crust?

Now ... I gotta figure out how to bake this bannock in a pot over my hobo stove.

Bannock

On my next camping trip, I am thinking of going light on food.  I have never brought dry food and rehydrate them later.  The next time, I will bring only dry food and one of the bags I will bring with me will contain ingredients for bannock.  I saw a number of recipes online and also saw an video of Kevin Callan on YouTube where he was making bannock.  It sounded like a very simple recipe and it sounded nice.  So, last night, I swang by the supermarket to pick up a few items I did not have at home.  This morning I tried making it.

The original recipe calls for 3 cups of all purpose flour, 2 tablespoon of baking powder, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1/4 cup of melted butter, and 1 1/2 cups of water.  I changed the recipe a tiny bit, to more like what Kevin was using.  For my first attempt, I cut down the volume by 2/3, so I used 1 cup of flour, 2/3 tablespoon of baking powder, 1/3 teaspoon of salt.  I did not use butter.  After adding water and mixed the powder up, I added some brown sugar and sprinkled some raisin into the mix.

For cooking, I did not feel like baking it so I put some oil in a small pot and placed the mix in the pot over an electric oven at low temperature.  As it was taking too long, I turned up the temperature dial.  That was a mistake as the bannock started to burn a little.  After a few minutes, I turned the bannock over to grill the other side.  That side got burned a little too.  Yikes.

After a few more minutes, I stopped the cooking process.  The bannock tasted ok.  I think I needed more brown sugar and more raisin.  The bannock alone (without the sugar and raisin) has virtually no taste.  Well, now I sort of know how to make bannock.  I am ready for the next camping trip! :)