Camping In Heavy Rain Storm - Part 1

Hey, what's going on everybody? Welcome back to the channel. Today's adventure, Boomer and I are out in a very familiar lakeside location with a massive tent and a sky full of gray clouds and rain in the forecast. So as you guys can see, we've got the tent set up just in the nick of time. I decided to go with this hot tent, even though it is summer, no wood stove in this, but it has a very large indoor vestibule aside from the sleeping area, making this the perfect tent for a rainy day. So Boomer's got his nice spot over here, nice and dry. We've got loads of room inside of here to cook and process wood or whatever it is we're gonna get into on this adventure. Plus we've got a lake front view directly out the front door of this tent, making this an epic location. So now that I'm out of the rain and everything's set up, as far as the tent goes, I do have to get the sleeping bag and the sleeping pad inflated. And then right after that, I'm gonna kick back and start on a hot coffee. All right, guys, I've got my cup of hot coffee on the go right now. Beautiful area to work in right now. The rain is still coming down. I'm tucked in a pretty thick canopy of leaves. So it doesn't seem like it's raining that hard, but out on the open lake, it is actually still raining. So if it does come down harder later on this evening, I'm not gonna worry at all. I've got a huge room to tuck way back inside of and just relax. So Boomer is asleep right now. He is out. He was wet and cranky. He just doesn't want anything to do with the rain today. So he's gonna sleep now. He'll be awake a little later on. But for now, I'm gonna get a little camp chair set up, get it propped up inside of here and enjoy this coffee. All right, everybody, with coffee almost finished up, the rain has seemed to let up outside and inside of the forest. So it's got me thinking that I kind of maybe wanna play around with the idea of having an outside campfire. There is a fire pit just in front of the tent, probably about 20 feet. I could have a fire. I did not bring a saw or an ax, but there's all kinds of firewood around here just laying on the forest floor that is dead and still dry, believe it or not. I could break that up with my hands, baton some of it with my knife if I really need to. I do have a fire starter, plus there's birch bark all over the place out here. Could be fun to spark up a fire, kick back and enjoy that into the night if the rain holds off. I'm not too sure. So I'm gonna plan for that. I might pick up a few pieces of wood, maybe get them set inside of the tent to keep them dry and basically finish up this coffee, take care of that, start on supper. And then if it's still good outside, I'll probably spark up a campfire. So let's finish this up and get to work collecting some wood. All right, guys, I've got a fair bit of firewood set inside of the tent along with a couple pieces of birch bark. Now you'll guys will notice that I did not use a knife to collect that birch bark. It does not harm the birch tree if you're peeling back the layers that are shedding naturally. You don't wanna dig too deep. You don't wanna take an ax or a knife and really gouge the tree. That can harm the tree. But the pieces that are shedding off the birch tree, they fall off in natural causes from the wind, from snow, from rain, all kinds of things. Doesn't harm the tree. So I've got a couple pieces in my pocket right now. And I've actually got a couple pieces just laying in the wood pile there. I'm gonna keep these in my pocket just in case something does happen. If rain blows or something happens, plus my body heat and the material on my pants basically is gonna act like a sponge and pull any moisture out of that birch bark. One other thing I do wanna mention is I personally, I don't use matches very often and I never bring a lighter ever. And something that I've been seeing a lot in the comments section is people asking, dude, why don't you bring a Bic? Why don't you bring a lighter? Well, the truth is lighters fail very, very often. And it's quite comical when you watch other people, maybe here on YouTube, or people that you know, friends, family, even struggle lighting a fire with a lighter. You literally have an open flame and can still struggle to light a fire. So that is the reason why I always either use flint and steel, which is two rocks pretty much, banging against each other, into char cloth to light a fire. You guys have seen me do that. Pouring rain, middle of winter, I can still light a fire, no problem. But my favorite method of fire is a good old-fashioned fire steel and a knife. This thing will work no matter what. If it's soaking wet, it's not gonna fall and get broken. It's not going to end up with no fluid. It's always going to work in the snow, the rain, the wind, as long as you can find it. And you don't even have to have a knife to scrape it. You can use a spoon, a fork, a saw, an ax, anything that's metal. Sometimes even certain rocks will scrape off of the oxidized layer here and throw a spark. So this is my method of lighting fire. I don't like lighters. I do pack a couple fire starters just to simplify things for film and video. But honestly, when I'm out in the woods with no camera, fire steel, birch bark, tinder fungus, old man's beard, even the pine duff here that I'm on the ground, wood shavings, fatwood, all kinds of things are out there naturally to light a fire with just a spark. So that is my method of lighting fire. I just wanna mention that because I've been getting asked that a lot even lately when I go out and do overland style videos with trucks, vans, buses, you guys will still see me using a fire steel because it works. Even to light my alcohol stove and to light my butane stoves, I'll throw a spark in there and light it. Now, when I'm hot tenting, I do like to do a mix of the fire steel and some matches with fire starters or birch bark. It just depends what kind of vibe I'm in. But honestly, I could say more times than not, the next morning I wake up on a damp day, my matches, I will strike them and they will crumble. They will not light because they're damp from the oxygen, just the moisture in the air pretty much. So you're sitting there striking your matches and they're crumbling and you're thinking, geez, how am I gonna get a fire going? Fire steel, always revert back to the fire steel. It works all the time. So birch bark is there, firewood's collected. Obviously, I'm gonna get more wood from the natural surrounding area once the fire's burning. But that right there is enough to establish a fire. It's very, very dry. It's damp on the other side, but it's dry inside. And it's got a really good snap, nice pine and spruce dry softwood will take off no problem. And the surrounding area is totally wet. So I'm not terribly worried about embers going off and causing a forest fire. Plus I'm gonna be keeping a good eye on it. So everything seems to be configured the way I like it. I'm gonna clean up a little bit. And then I am gonna start on separate because it is getting later in the evening. I wanna have all of this stuff taken care of before I light the fire.