Boundary Waters Quetico Forum :: Trip Planning Forum :: Making camp tear down and setup faster / less work
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okinaw55 |
TechnoScout: "All above good ideas. Nice. I spent a week at Philmont as a teen. Was a very nice (and HOT) week. I still have the unused patch I bought there. |
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bobbernumber3 |
Try sleeping in the canoe? |
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ockycamper |
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sns |
On the shelter setup time aspect, I have found that especially for my hammock and hammock tarp, getting it just right is important, and in the early days it took me 20+ minutes of fiddling and adjusting, testing, more fiddling, etc. Over several weekends this summer I would take a break from other tasks, and would set it up and tear it down, 3, 5, 8 times per day, in new trees each time. Practice really helped my judgement on eyeballing distances, tensions, heights, etc. and I am sure I cut my average setup time in half. Of course, then I was the moth to the hammock's flame, and many a nap was had during those 'practice' weekends. |
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okinaw55 |
I think what I'm leaning to is what most have suggested. Organize. There was talk of a lot of stuff sacks. I have a bunch I have made but then thinking about the subject here it hit me, dedicated color stuff sacks for each zone that you guys have been discussing. I think that would work well. |
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TechnoScout |
For my tent, when I get up, I start packing everything into their respective stuff sack (water resistant). Once a stuff sack is full, I toss it out of the tent and go to the next one. When all is removed from the tent, I tear down the tent. These were learned while a scoutmaster: four BWCA and two Philmont trips. All changed campsites on a daily basis. |
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boonie |
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andym |
We tend to do a mix of moving days and sitting in place days. If we want to make an early start then we try to pack as much as possible the night before and skip a hot breakfast that morning. Some water and fig newtons and we can be on our way. That means we can pack up almost all of the gear the night before. But to be honest, we’re not really fast at this stuff most of the time. |
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unshavenman |
For me, setting up the community tarp and hanging my hammock & fly is a thoroughly enjoyable activity and integral to the whole BWCAW camping experience. |
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goetzc |
unshavenman: "If you are looking at making things easier for set up and tear down, I would choose between tent camping and hammock camping. I agree. There have been many other good suggestions already. Should you decide to skip the tent and just use hammocks - you can save a lot of time by using sleeve for you hammock much like the sleeve(aka snake skins) used for hammock tarps. The benefit is you can leave everything(underquilt, top quilt, pillow, sleeping clothes,etc...) you need right where it belongs and just slide the sleeve over the hammock while it's suspended. Then just unhook the hammock/sleeve from the suspension, suspension from trees and stuff it all in your pack. I use a similar approach with a big "bishop bag" and I can setup my hammock/tarp in a few minutes. The longest part usually occurs "testing" the hang... I tend to linger horizontally longer than necessary. :) |
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eagle98mn |
I do keep some extra line and stakes in my tarp's stuff sack in case they are needed to complete a setup at a particularly challenging site. With that plan in place, setting up and tearing down a tarp should be 10 minutes or less once you are comfortable with it. |
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okinaw55 |
Being her first trip, we base camped on Brule because I didn't want to push her too hard and I wanted her first experience to be a positive one. Mission one accomplished. While there I thought to myself, how can I make this easier for both of us next year so we can move around some? Mission two in the planning stage. We have a Nemo Losi 3p and two Warbonnet hammocks. We took the two hammocks with us on this trip, along with two hexagonal tarps for the hammocks. Additionally, we hung a 12x12 over the kitchen area. Hanging gravity water system, cookware, flex lite chairs, food, etc. It seems to me, the only real way to cut down on time would be to change from the hammocks to the tent and forego a tarp for the kitchen. Fewer ropes to deal with by far! We don't hang our food so there is no bothering with that. I don't like the idea of our only dry space being the two vestibules on the tent which are extremely small. What's your secret to a fast camp setup and tear-down? |
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billconner |
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cyclones30 |
We typically have a tent and tarp setup. The stuff inside the tent (pad, sleeping bag, etc) and then tent itself are the first things to get packed up. Then everything is re-packed into the packs and tarp is taken down and put near the top of one of the packs (since it's often first thing up if chances of rain are good) Other than that....we're never really in a hurry or rushed. Just focused on the tasks at hand to keep getting things packed up. It goes pretty quick after you've done it a few times |
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rtallent |
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bhouse46 |
Secure a hair band to the tie outs on the tarp, figure eight wrap the lines and double wrap the hair band to secure the line to the tie out loop. Tie out lines do not tangle and that can save time and lots of hassle. Snake skins for hammock and tarp may not save much time, but sure make rigging and tear down nice. I have looked at set up and tear down as a challenge, faster or tweak this to make it "better". Part of me still does, but mostly it is part of the total experience and unless I have some good reason to hurry I usually set up the hammock and tarp then wander around awhile thinking about how I will fit into the campsite. The camp chair gets set up and tested out. Then I might get wood or fix a hot beverage while setting up the kitchen. Each segment has its routine, and overall faster is not a concern. Easier, now that sounds interesting...see tips above. PS I was also on Brule late the 19th and paddled to No Temperance the 20th. Came out the 22nd. Brule was packed the 19th. Great weather and colors. |
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Northwoodsman |
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marsonite |
I don't spend a lot of time on the tarp. I grab it by the center, stuff it in the stuff sack, and all the ropes just get wadded together and stuffed last. I don't have trouble with tangling. I get worse tangles by winding up the ropes. I use bear ropes, and I wind that up just like you would wind up a ball of yarn, pulley and all. When I pull it out I just give it a toss holding on the the end and it unwinds by itself. |
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4keys |
If I'm in the tent stuffing my sleeping bag etc, then he's putting the stoves, water filter etc together. When he's in the tent I count dishes and put kitchen stuff away. As the stuff sacks are filled they are placed next to the backpack they will go in. We each always carry the same items so we don't have to wonder who has what -he always takes the ropes, saw, hatchet, fuel. I always get the the stove, first aid, tent, Tp. We use 2 backpacking packs, so everything gets packed the same way every time- after all you pretty much pack the same stuff for a 2, 5, or 7 day trip. I'm not sure our take down is really fast, but it is smooth and fairly efficient. |
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soundguy0918 |
4keys: "As we've been married and camping together for 30 plus years, we have pretty much fine tuned our set set up and take down routine. In other words, we are set in our ways! " +1 here. A routine is key. Divide and conquer. You will quickly find a pattern that works best and has you both finishing about the same time. Try to set up everything so only one person is needed to tear it down. Have FUN! |
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Michwall2 |
However, the real time savings for us came when we decided to look into a way to forego "cooking" breakfast. At first, we played with the idea of eating lunch for breakfast. Peanut butter and jelly or sausage and cheese go well. But then we found we didn't want to stop to cook for lunch either. So we came up with other no cook options for breakfast. Breakfast cookies, instant oatmeal, cliff bars, etc. We still had hot beverages, but just didn't want the clean up associated with say pancakes or scrambled eggs. Boil water, eat while you pack other things, and go. Very little clean up, etc. This saved us a lot of time getting out of camp in the morning. It gets us on the water much sooner. |
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pswith5 |
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THEGrandRapids |
Defined packs- Sleeping gear, Cooking gear, fishing gear Tarp- hair bungees tied into loop on tarp and quick figure-8 loop around thumb and pinky Before buying more gear, ask yourself- will I actually carry this with? Does it overlap the function of something else? Everyone has their own opinions of must haves and luxuries. I wouldn't ever forgo a tarp- I'm tempting to take two. First thing that gets set and last thing that gets taken down. |
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boonie |
Like Bill, I only set my tarp up if I need to, but also take it down the night before if not needed. Pre-rigging the tarp makes setup and takedown much quicker. I use the ridgeline setup on my tarp - lots of information here if you search that. I also have a very simple breakfast as mentioned - coffee and cold cereal. There's really nothing much to clean up and pack. |
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Duckman |
When it's time to go, stuff the sleeping bag and pad, pack the tent. Clothes sack, kitchen sack, and food sack go on top, and I'm on the water. When I'm solo I can make it from up to on the water in ten minutes if I want to. I assume having a wife or kids along would change this, can't help you there. This system works for anyone who can make themselves organize things before sleeping. |
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okinaw55 |
I have been on some pretty hefty treks up there but it was always when I was much younger and the packing decisions were being made by someone else. Since then I've pretty much base camped and have gotten used to it. I was semi-relieved when most said that it's not a quick operation. That's something that I thought I was missing and wasn't able to figure out. So what are we talking for packs? Currently only have backpacking packs which I hate because they don't sit low in the canoe. I'm in the market for some real packs. So one big 120ltr-ish for sleeping, one smaller 3.5ish for camp and a school backpack type size for misc? I have all of my ropes sectioned off into 20' and 10' lengths looped on each end so I can "daisy chain" if needed. When I went that route, it never occurred to me to leave one rope on each tie down point for tarps. That would save a lot of time. |
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okinaw55 |
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andym |
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BnD |
The reason I point this out is others have highlighted organization, however, organizing and packing less gear is way faster than some of the garage sales We’ve seen at portages. I sure wouldn’t want to pack and unpack all that unnecessary gear. |
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okinaw55 |
BnD: "Pack less stuff. We always take and setup a kitchen fly. In fact, it’s the first thing up at camp and the last thing down when leaving. We’re single portages so we only have two packs. My biggest suggestion.......make a VERY detailed list of eveything your currently packing and the exact weights of each on day 1. For us to single portage we cannot have more than 115# of pack weight total including the packs themselves. For us the 115# lincludes ALOT of fishing gear so this number could easily be reduced substantially if you don’t fish a lot. I get where you are coming from and yes, if I had to do a hard look at stuff I don't need and I was new to this, I'd say that's sound advice. Thank you for pointing that out just in case someone else comes along looking for advice. Seriously. That said, I think we've trimmed to our comfort level. It's always a trade off of course but I don't think any more than 1-2 of our extras are time consuming. I'm not looking to single portage and never have been. 1 1/2 might be nice if I could get my wife down to one trip. Pretty sure she'd agree to that. :) |
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okinaw55 |
andym: "We started doing that sort of 1.5. It makes life easier for me too because only my big pack gets put on the ground. At the far end of the portage the canoe goes into the water and her pack goes into it and then she watches it while I go back for my pack. She can move it out of the way if another group comes by and so we aren't blocking the end. I think this works really well for us." That sounds like a nice system. I'm pretty sure we should be able to do close to the same but we are definitely going to need to replace our hiking packs with portage packs. |
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Oldtown13 |
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Jaywalker |
okinaw55: "andym: "We started doing that sort of 1.5. It makes life easier for me too because only my big pack gets put on the ground. At the far end of the portage the canoe goes into the water and her pack goes into it and then she watches it while I go back for my pack. She can move it out of the way if another group comes by and so we aren't blocking the end. I think this works really well for us." My old paddle partner and I used to 1.5 portage, but a bit different than Andym says. She would take off with one pack and I’d carry the other about 1/3 to 1/2 the way and drop it in the trail, then go back for the canoe. We would end up at the far end at just about the same time. Passed lots of other groups this way. I too am always trying to find ways toSet up and take down faster, especially with my solo trips. I don’t think there are a lot of secrets - just minor improvements. I do use the separate bags approach - one bag with the tent and everything that goes in it, and one pag with the tarp and everything that goes there. I used to waste time walking back and forth. Love my CCS packs for this. I think I also saved a lot of time when I rigged my tarp for a ridgeline set up. The tarp is always on top of the “camp” bag and the first thing up/last thing down. The ridgeline and tie out ropes all stay on and are figure -eight bundled and tied to prevent tangles. I think I can get it up in less than 2 minutes when rain if falling, though I might tweak it for a while after all else is done. I also almost always tie a slip-taughtline hitch for the tie outs. It’s like a regular taughtline hitch but with the tail end inserted back through so it can be untied with just one hand in just a second. I think this saves me a lot of time in the end, and stuffing my tarp as I undo the ridgeline also saves time and mess over folding and rolling like I used to do. |
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bwcadan |
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cowdoc |
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nofish |
How long does it take to set up hammocks? How long does it take to tear down hammocks? How long does it take to set up the tarp? How long does it take to tear down the tarp? How long does it take to get the gear unpacked and to the needed location? How long does it take to get all the gear back into the packs? Are there certain parts of any tasks that seems to be the major time suck? Rarely is there one single change that will end up saving a ton of time. If there was one thing that was taking up all your time you'd have probably already figured out a better way by now. Instead the time is consumed in small increments in each step of the process. Not a big deal if looked at individually but when combined they can add up to a lot. I think as you pay more attention to the time involved in each task you'll start to see where you'll be able to make things easier and save time. Likely it won't be that you're changing gear or electing to not set up something like the tarp but you'll probably start learning faster/easier ways of doing the same things you're doing now and ways to be more efficient in your motions. Also as you take more trips with your wife and refine your set up you'll both begin to be a well oiled machine. You'll both know the fastest system and you'll both be able to just dig in and get the work done without thinking or wondering what the other person is doing. |
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TrekScouter |
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