Propane, which boils at -44F, should work fine for non-arctic conditions. That said, I’ve never actually seen a propane lighter.
Butane, OTOH, boils at about +34F; that’s the stuff you find in common cigarette lighters and refillable microtorches. If you’re going winter camping, you’d best keep your lighter in a pocket on the inside of your jacket so it will be warm enough for the butane to vaporize when you need to use it.
As for lighters instead of matches, get WATERPROOF matches. Try wetting everything and see how good those lighters work!
Also stick stuff you don’t want to get wet in plastic zip lock bags. Like matches and toilet paper. For back-up, have a magnesium lighter and a survival kit.
I’m an old Boy Scout and I can say that while the nature of wilderness survival, backpacking and camping have changed over the past 30 years, it hasn’t changed so much that all equipment and techniques are obsolete. The basic skills still apply:
[ul]
[li]Learning what clothing to wear appropriate to the weather. [/li][li]Learning how to build a fire (Ok, not eco-friendly, is still a valuable skill in bushcraft and wildness survival, especially if you get lost)[/li][li]Water purification (Knowledge is power and having more methods at our disposal, including boiling and filtering will always be helpful)[/li][li]Setting up a shelter (It doesn’t matter if it is old style canvas, new style pop-up tents, or making your own lean-to, getting shelter and knowing how to get it is still important)[/li][li]Plant and animal identification[/li][li]Being able to tie basic knots (Cordage may have changed but the skills needed have not )[/li][li]Using a knife (still an important skill no matter what type of knife you need)[/li][li]Basic navigation skills (Still important to know how to find North if you are lost, how to look for landmarks, etc.)[/li][/ul]
Equipment that I would still use on a camping or backpacking trip that I used years ago:
[ul]
[li]Wool blanket (Its light and will stay warm when wet)[/li][li]My Coleman Peak 1 camping stove (hey, it still works great and you can find feul anywhere)[/li][li]My old internal frame backpack (Its light, durable and still travels well)[/li][li]My Eureka Timberline backpacking tent (Still very light and easy to setup)[/li][li]Map and compass (GPS is cool, but batteries can run out, especially on extended trips)[/li][/ul]
Equipment I would buy because it is better today than it was back then:
[ul]
[li]LED flashlight (for the weight and the amount of light you get, you can’t go wrong with this, plus they make one’s that mount on your head that weigh nothing. How useful is that?)[/li][li]Hiking boots (My old leather hiking boots are just way too heavy. Modern boots are light and durable)[/li][li]Paracord (This stuff puts anything I used when I was in Scouts to shame. It is incredibly durable and packs small)[/li][li]Wicking shirts (Anything that can pull the sweat away from my body would be awesome[/li][/ul]
My background – I was a Boy Scout years ago, and I’ve been a Boy Scout leader since 2004, and have been on nearly a hundred overnight campouts (in tents), including several week-long canoeing and backpacking trips.
While I agree that new trails are rarely blazed today, existing trails have to be maintained and cleared, and the blazes (which are painted on now) have to be periodically replaced.
We still use mantle lamps, though they are virtually always propane today instead of the Coleman fuel (a liquid petroleum naphtha product) that was common when I was a Boy Scout. They are absolutely prohibited in tents, though, for the reasons you mention. (For that, we use LED headlamps.)
Our troop uses nylon tents for most campouts, but canvas tents on wood platforms are still used at most Boy Scout summer camps.
Most lighters are butane, not propane. As others have noted, they don’t work well in winter, especially in sub-freezing temperatures. I always bring backup waterproof matches and a FireSteel fire starter.
Only if your idea of “camping” is spending the night in an RV parking lot. Tent camping is not obsolete; it allows you to camp in the backcountry.
Ditto.
This was the first thing that came to my mind for this thread as well.
Agreed.
I haven’t had much luck with the U/V purifiers. They seem to chew up batteries, and you never know if the water is safe to drink or not. If we have to produce our own water, I use a backpacking filter, with iodine/chlorine tablets as a backup. On canoeing trips (where fuel is not an issue), we filter our drinking water, while our washwater is usually boiled.
You can still hang food in a tree, but the current recommendation is to hang it midway between two trees (like a letter “M” with the rope over two branches on two different trees with the food hanging in the middle).
On our canoeing trips, where weight isn’t an issue, we use bear canisters. We’ve also used these rectangular, aluminum, gasketed military medical boxes for food storage.
SteriPEN purifiers and the like are more of a novelty; they require batteries, are delicate and prone to breakage, doesn’t filter sediment or nasty taste, and are of questionable effectiveness (doesn’t clean threads or other areas not in the viewfield of the UV source). Every serious hiker that I’ve known who has used a SteriPEN has had problems and carries alternative means of water purification, generally a manual filter.
Many national and some state parks (including Yosemite and certain areas of Sequoia and King’s Canyon) require the use of bear cannisters or fixed food storage boxes.
Not sure yet if is going to replace my tent altogether but this year I have been using a Hennessy Deep Jungle hammock. It’s very light and extremely comfortable (so comfortable, in fact, that I have been considering throwing out my mattress and hanging a hammock in my bedroom).
A hammock is quick to set up and doesn’t require a flat, level spot like a tent – and has less impact on the ground underneath than a tent.
I carry a lighter and a fire steel. Use an alcohol stove (either a Trangia or a Fancy Feast stove, depending on trip length and weight considerations). I usually dip & sip, rarely filter water but sometimes carry a Sawyer Squeeze water filter if heading into uncertain conditions.
I hang a bear bag. Bears are on the move around here; had one pass through the yard last week and also saw one with two cubs on my favorite bike trail.
Canvas tents with trenches, Coleman stoves and lanterns, etc. – fond memories.
That you need a giant pack and sturdy boots to go backpacking.
I use a 50 or 60 liter pack for long-distance hiking and it usually weights around 25 pounds, fully loaded with 3 days of food and full bladder of water. (I’m not a gram-weenie, but I do go for as light as my budget will allow.)
For a 25lb pack, big leather hiking boots are overkill. I wear lightweight trail runners and have never had a problem.
Fire is your best friend when things go wrong and you are outdoors hiking or camping.
I have a waterproof container that is about the size of a pack of cigarettes on a lanyard. It says + Lifeline on it.
I have the bottom stuffed with waterproof matches and I warmed up some paraffin wax and pushed that on top of the matches for extra water resistance. The paraffin also is great fuel to use with the matches. Pinch off a piece and light it over some dry tender and you will have fire.
Attached also on the lanyard is a Coleman magnesium fire starter with a small saw blade and steel bar glued to it.
After we fall into an ice cold stream I will be having a fire while others are trying to dry out their Bic lighters.
Just a reminder, petroleum jelly is a base of many hygiene products, and a little dab will seriously aid fire starting under dodgy conditions. A smear of chapstick or antibiotic ointment in your tinder, and poof.
Man, I think I’d really like hammock camping, but they’re not allowed in many CA parks. Hanging ANYTHING from trees is disallowed in state parks. I can see why, it would be tough for a ranger to have to police the damaging vs harmless hanging methods. And redwood bark is pretty delicate.
Yeah, we had the old eighty pound tent, too. (It’s actually still around, somewhere, but I have a nice overhead camper now) I can recall that “canvas tent smell” to this day! Good times!
Um, if you say so. My Sierra Designs tent is 25 years old and still in good shape. What I remember from the days of camping in canvas tents is that everything always smelled of mildew. When I see pictures of expeditions in some hellishly inhospitable and remote part of the world, they’re almost always using modern nylon tents. So these tents have been tested under some truly brutal conditions.
I’ll revive this thread rather than start a new one. In particular I wanted to mention old advice that has since become at least partially undone by modern technology. These include:
Using bleach to sterilize drink water: you can still do it but now you have to make sure that it’s not scented bleach or the newer “splash proof” type with added thickener.
Use of cotton cloth as emergency tinder: Almost all spun thread or cloth now has been treated with fire retardant. You can get it to burn but it won’t take a spark. I was astonished to discover that gauze bandages couldn’t be lit with a ferrorod.
Strike-anywhere matches: still available but going the way of the dodo thanks to elevated insurance premiums for shipping an item that’s potentially self-igniting.
Dryer lint as tinder: only if it was a load of all-cotton cloth. Modern synthetics will smolder, char and melt.
Waxed milk cartons or cardboard as tinder: they used to be coated with wax, now it’s modern plastic. (I’m seeing a theme here: flammability of any sort is now treated as a Bad Thing).
Since the thread’s been bumped anyway, I would dispute that one. The few actual working payphones I’ve seen recently were by the ranger station / visitor center in remote parks, where cell service is spotty or nonexistent. I always assumed the lack of cell service was the exact reason those particular payphones are still in service.