Sunday, August 10, 2014

Make Your First-ever Backpacking Trip Awesome

Whether you're 5 years old or 50 years old your first backpacking trip can be very exciting or very scary. To make sure this is a positive experience planning is the key. Start with picking somewhere that's easy to access and not too far and not too difficult. Don't forget you're carrying everything on your back so try to pack as light and fast as possible. If you're not going to use the gear at least once or twice you probably don't need it ( this would exclude first aid supplies).

This weekend we took our 5 year old on his first backpacking trip. To make sure this is fun his pack carried water and his sleeping bag. Unfortunately, someone else had to carry the rest of his stuff. Since we only went about 1 mile it was no big deal. We went very slow and took lots of breaks making experience for everyone in the group. Several times throughout the trip he said, "this is the best camping trip ever."

Don't be afraid to take little ones backpacking. Its just like car camping but with a lot less stuff. The experience of being away from traffic, city lights, and the like will make it an experience of a lifetime. You don't need a ton of stuff to have a good time camping. 

Saturday, August 9, 2014

How To Build An Alcohol Fueled Beer Can Stove

This is a very easy and very efficient stove. There are many different versions of the stove on-line, but this one I have found to work best. Most of them are hard to use and hard to light, many of them are very dangerous and can explode. This version uses the least amount of equipment and seems to be the safest to operate.

Equipment Needed 
Pocket Knife, Beer can, Alcohol
 
Instructions
- Start by drinking the beer
- Cut the can in half and cut the top out of the top half of the can
- Line the bottom portion with the bevel on the top half of the can
- Using you finger a spacing guide, us the blade of your knife to crease the top half of the can into baffles
- Put the top half of the can into the bottom half of the can
- File with 90+% alcohol to the cover the baffles of the top half of the can