The test begins…

During x-mas holidays or so I got this idea of a winter camping office that I could move around with me and thus it would allow me to camp out in some nice places, but it would also enable me to work a couple of days from the wilderness if there is only an internet connection available via cellular, etc…

Things I’d need would be like:

• • table
  • chair
  • place to sleep in
  • something to protect me from the snow and wind
  • warmth
  • a portable battery to keep my laptop running for a couple of workdays

So with this idea I went out to buy a family tent for four to sleep in from a local super market and found one with a reasonable price and in bright Swedish colors. Also picked up a cot and a gas heater that runs on small spray can sized tanks of butane that are easily obtainable from any market or camping related store here around.
(…and they also run the gas stove that I’m planning to incorporate to my van later.)

After packing all the stuff I needed, I drove to the testing site I had chosen and started to clear the snow for a place to set-up the tent. Erecting a cheap family tent like this alone is not an easy task. I did test the set-up at my place once after I bought the tent, just to see if it can be done alone and the package had all the stuff needed within it. Still it took me almost an hour to get this thing up and standing out in the snow alone.

…and it didn’t help at all that I did it wrong once…

The tent is about 2 meters by 4 meters and large enough to hold my cot and my to-come office and other gear I’d carry around with me. It is also 1.85 meters high, so one can actually stand up in there. It’s held up by two longer sets of fiberglass poles that should cross each other at the top and two shorter ones at the sides. The tent also has two large doors, one per side, so I could later set this up next to a van so that the other side door opens to between the tent the van and one can walk trough the tent and use the other door for accessing the tent and the van.

To test the escape and evasion bug-out office I brought it to my epic rural hideaway place (the same place to where I did the bike trip in ’19) and set it up next to an old sauna, that I could warm up just as a precaution, if I’d need a place to warm up during the night. As I haven’t used a cot in the winter and I wasn’t sure about the R-ratings and insulation of my sleeping pads, I wanted a safe place to test this setup.

The tent is big enough to hold in a table and a chair for work and cooking and the cot for sleeping. Also it’s not cramped so the gas heater won’t burn nor melt anything in the tent. It could be a bit smaller, but it shall do for this project. The table I’m going to swap later for a bit more practical version. All this fits nicely in the trunk of my car and can also be hauled around with a ahkio (kind of a pulk meant to carry items in winter conditions) if needed. And yes the tent has enough ventilation to use the gas heater safely.

The heater has 3 levels of operation and running it on mid level the one tank of gas lasted for about four hours and kept the tent round +6°C while it was about -3°C outside.

It did rain some snow during the night, but nothing that the tent couldn’t withstand. The problem with a thin single layer tent like this, not meant for winter use, is the condensation and ice that forms at the inside and also on the outside of the tent cause of the heater keeping the inside above +0°C and the snow melting on the outside.

Overall a successful test-run, even thou I did sneak in to the sauna at the morning hours as the cot didn’t have enough insulation and my hips and bottom got too cold from below to sleep comfortably. I might have endured the cold if it was up to my survival and life threatening situation, but as I had a sauna cabin heated up already less than ten meters away, I took the comfy option to spent the rest of the night in a warm place. I would also have had some spare cans of gas for the heater and could have run it at full power, but this was enough for me to test this setup and gear.

Tear-down was fast and simple and the tent was packed away in about 15 mins. Then just carrying all the gear back to my car and driving off back to the city…

Summa summarum: the gear is not pro-stuff and would not keep me alive in arctic conditions, nor in heavy snow storm as the tent might collapse under a heavy snow load. But as a option to allow me to get out of my covid-corona isolation and to have a place to sleep, cook and work during mild temperatures of like -10°C and warmer for a day or two, this should work well, after I get a better insulated sleeping pad on the cot and maybe a fan to spread the heat from the gas heater more efficiently around the tent.

Till next time…

( : Ok – Thnx – Bye! : )