Insane Clown Teepee Tent

 UPDATE: Just ordered my winter sleeping bag! the only bag still made in the U.S. and lots of room for full lotus padmasana meditation!

I just got back from throwing up an "insane clown" teepee-tent - in honor of Matt Taibbi's book Insane Clown President

My teepee-tent is 12 feet tall but has about a 7 foot high interior - at the center - and just a 6 foot by 6 foot cob brick wall at the ground level - just 2 bricks tall - so only less than a foot.

But enough to block out cold air along the ground. Then I put in the stove-heater chimney. I tested it out and discovered the smoke-exhaust cools down to fast - so I got condensation that will build up as creosote. Oops. Maybe when it is colder, the pressure difference will cause a better draft.

Still I extended the chimney more and put up a tripod to support it - just cuz I don't like smoke - and put a 90 degree elbow on it to keep rain out. But if there is a wind in that direction it will cause blowback! Oops.

Thankfully I have a 2nd rocket stove - I can use.

All the heat runs of sticks!! The gasification.

So the teepee-tent is not well insulated. I used 9 "two-string" bales of straw plus clay - along the foundation about up to 4 1/2 feet high.

Then I threw the Army pup canvass tent over the top of the 12 foot teepee! That did not go over too well (pun intended). Still now I have a "smoke hole" if I want to use one.

But not wanting rain, etc. just to go in - I then threw the orange "family size" dome $50 tent - the cheap kind that break after a few uses - I managed to throw it over the top of the army pup tent.

So I have a family dome orange tent hovering 12 feet in the air - going down to about 5 feet up - and so I dubbed the whole thing:

Insane Clown Teepee-Tent for obvious reasons.

So then I am finishing a clay fire wall so that sparks down hit the straw so easily and also the clay will hold heat from the stove-heater.

But still with straw everywhere I will have to keep a close eye on the open flame - but then you cover over the flame once it gets going - for the gasification to kick in, and then a charcoal burning fire.

And so it is supposed to snow up north next weekend - in a week and half. So I'll probably go back up next week to finish the clay and use a scythe to harvest straw - from the land around - for more insulation.

Also I used my 30 degree limit (freezing) sleeping bag for the door to the teepee tent and now I'll buy a winter sleeping bag.

Then I'll put my tent-cot inside so I'll be off the ground for sleeping, so will not lose heat from the frozen ground conduction.

So right now it's a fire trap - and will always remain very hazardous. So I'll harvest more clay to put around the outside for insulation - and to help contain any fire.

I have a moat around the tent - when I harvested the clay for the ground wall - because if I dig any hole a few feet down then it fills in with over a foot of water! Pretty cool having a wetland-forest for easy water supply!

But civilization is such a nice luxury compared to sleeping in a tent - when it gets almost done to freezing. haha. But luckily the Flicker visited me again last night - when calling literally right next to my tent! I guess it was hoping I would provide nice big juicy caterpillars like a few weeks ago!

Nope it is too cold now - hardly no birds. I did hear the coyotes again with the neighbors dogs barking in response.

voidisyinyang voidisyinyang4 days ago

First thing the colonialists do is kick the indigenous natives living off the land - can't have self-reliant people not needing money! If they can't live off the land then they HAVE to get jobs! Perfect then a cheap slave labor force for export crops that destroy the land - to make money! So then huge tracts of land remain empty - which is becoming illegal in Brazil, Venezuela, etc. for rich people to sit on big empty land. Of course if the peasants try to take back the land then complaints to big daddy U.S. genocide is called in - and suddenly it's a Communist Invasion and we need to kill off all the peasants who no longer want to be colonized. Much better to buy off some local peasants living in the slum cities - desperate for jobs - to have them as U.S. mercenaries trained in terrorism. If some pesky U.S. "citizens" complain - who stupidly believe in "democracy" - then just fund the whole genocide operation "off the books" by smuggling CIA drugs into the U.S. - heroin, cocaine, etc. - and make a trillion dollars a year easy money to buy weapons, train soldiers, etc. Paul Wellstone was discovering this CIA scam and he would not support the 2nd Iraq genocide invasion while he was investigating Colombia - the largest U.S. "Aid" recipient in the Western hemisphere and so the largest human rights abuser - murdering union activists - as the so-called "drug war." So then Wellstone got threatened by Cheney and then Wellstone got plane-crashed - the standard CIA assassination tactic for political leaders who want fall in line for the "protection" development racket of World Bank IMF loan sharking, etc. Now with the Empire Imploding - 900 military bases abroad - trillions "lost" by the Pentagon - and U.S. corporate elite hiding trillions in tax money abroad - while the FED prints trillions on dollars to support the Wall St elite with welfare money - and the working poor get blamed, half of people 65 years old have NO SAVINGS. Yep it's all over - but if we throw in a dozen huge televisions in every suburban bar-restaurant and blast sports gladiator events while getting everyone drugged up - then maybe no one will notice the real political economic truth of the U.S. empire. haha. Hilarious. General Smedley Butler said War Is a Racket! But that "meme" somehow has not gotten much corporate-state media coverage unless you're "branding" yourself a populist for "hopism" or "freedom" - and so say the opposite of the truth like Drumpf or O-Bomba. People actually fall for that b.s. since it's shoved down their throats - you have two choices - sports-action-porn movies or - what's the other choice? political lies that dumb people down so badly. In other words people are complete nerds about sports factoids and sports statistics but complete idiots when it comes to actual democratic information about the real flow of energy resources, taxes, etc. haha. That's o.k. since it's all been a scam since Plato and Archytas said how music represented justice as harmony - the economist Michael E. Hudson points this out - he did his B.A. in music. Archytas lied about music theory - so that a logarithmic distribution of harmonic ratios was called "justice" and was the secret basis of logarithmic math, as the foundation for logarithmic based science and logarithmic distribution of wealth derived from that logarithmic based science. That's why Galileo got funded by the aristocracy since he bragged to the rich elite how science would cut down on labor costs. And so it has - productivity has gone way up while wages have gone way down - and so why not use slave prison labor? And why not completely wipe out ecology - because we have such amazing technology we don't need Nature anymore. haha. running out of water? Just use nanotechnology from Sandia Labs - we can filter the oceans right? Of course it will all be privatized and water will no longer be free or a human right. Clean air? Sure if you can afford it. How about looking up the weather? Nope - that will now cost you as the national weather service is being sold off by Drumpf. Aristocratic b.s. fascism never ended. The real problem is much deeper - it is built into the wrong mathematics from the wrong music theory. even our western music is mass mind control. Modern humans, being left-brain dominant, are controlled subconsciously by our lower emotions - without knowing true love. 90% of human history was based on the original human culture of African - the San Bushmen with no warfare, living ecologically, and knowing the secret of true spiritual happiness. Now the San Bushmen are shot from helicopters - if they try to live a traditional lifestyle. Oh well - there are a few spiritual healers holding out around the world. All this technology is fun but still is quite superficial in terms of the truth of reality. What happens when dreams are more real than being awake and the dreams are from the future? We can listen to the truth but we can not see it - this is called N/om.

Great winter camping info here!

 That Marmot CWM Membrain -40 bag looks great, and I am sure you will be happy with it.  (on the website it looks like it has a slim taper - does it have a zip in extender option?).  I have a similar type of bag with an older model of the Mountain Hardwear (forget model name) that was -37 (which I round off to -40).  It is a big girth bag so I have lots of room.  It also has the coated finish material like your Marmot, and has the same fun times for stuffing it down for packing (I have a good compression bag for it).  But IMO that finish is well worth it, as you say the frost just wipes or shakes right off.  I use an oversized bivy over mine (Integral Designs Bugaboo), and that moisture makes it through the coating of the bag onto the bivy bag where I want it.  I shake the frost out of the bivy in the morning. 

It is a nice feeling when you know that you can handle anything with a -40 sleeping "system" (system includes under pad insulation, bivy, etc).    I always recommend that folks get the maximum deep cold bag that they can afford.  The over-bags, if they are sized big enough, are a great option to extend over a -20 to -30 bag.    Every winter I have several nights colder than -30C.  Its not unusual even in March to have a 0 to -5C day, and have it dip to -30 to -35 at night.  In January one can count on it being colder than -30....and I live in southern Canada!

The nice thing about a bivy or well sized overbag is that you can also unzip the inner bag to vent when it gets too warm. 

While sleeping by a fire is a good survival skill and well worth practicing, you need woolen outer layers to deal sparks and embers.  You will also have smoke, and unless you can find entire trees to stack up into a big fire (which means more firewood collection time and effort), you will also be up tending the fire, loosing sleep.  My recommendations are to rely on the sleeping system 100% for warmth, not a fire.   The shelter keeps you out of the wind and keeps the snow and rain off.  It is so so nice to not have to be tending a fire in order to sleep.

The sleeping hoods are a really good idea, and the secret is the shoulder insulation.  I am still looking for one. 

Good advice in the posts on being careful on used military surplus bags.  Sometimes they are being sold because they are done.  Those old Canadian military double bag systems that came with the separate hood were great.  They could be had brand new a few years ago...I don't know if that is still possible.   If you can find a new or lightly used set, go for it. 

On a tight budget, you can use an over-quilt concept, by unzipping an old bag to the feet area and draping it over an inner bag.  Tuck it in around you, and leave it fluffy on top and that will prevent  crushing the inner bag loft.  Wear sweaters and fleecy LJ's and socks and loose balaclavas, etc.  heck wear your wool pants if you are cold.  Sleeping in clothing is fine.  The back packing hammockers are pushing their limits by sleeping in their full clothing and using over quilts to tuck around them.  Their clothing is probably half of their insulation.  The only issue is having it reasonably dry before retiring (but it need not be totally dry - moisture moves away from your body to outer layers).   If improvising with layered bags, don't neglect the under pad insulation.  2 pads are better than one.

Good luck in your search!