Camping the way WE do it!

SITE LAYOUT ... TENTS ... PITCHING TENTS ... GADGETS

Choosing the site for your camp is very much a matter of personal taste and circumstances and has been outlined here, but once you have decided where to go and how you are going to get yourself, your girls and all the equipment you need to the site, you need to consider how you are going to set your camp out.

The basic requirements for a workable campsite (excluding lightweight camping, of which more later) are sleeping tents for the Guides and Guiders, store tents (ideally one for food and one for pots, pans and other equipment, but it is possible to use one large tent for all storage), lat (toilet) tent(s) and screening for washing if there are no toilets and washing facilities, a first aid tent, some means of cooking food - altar fires, camping gas stoves or trangias, all dealt with in more detail on the cooking page - and plenty of pots, pans, kettles etc. The girls usually provide their own sleeping bags, groundsheets/cord for tying bedrolls, individual pot bags with dish, plate, mug, cutlery etc.

Site Layout
Assuming you intend to visit the site, there are several factors you need to make note of before deciding exactly where you are going to site your tents. Check which direction the prevailing winds come from, and whether there is any form of windbreak or sheltering hedge; make a note of if/where trees overhang the camping field - they may provide some shelter, but trees drip long after rain has stopped, may drop leaves, twigs and even branches in high winds, and are NOT a good place to be during a thunderstorm! Ideally, try to choose a corner of the field which has shelter from the winds, is level or nearly so, with short(ish) grass, and which catches the evening sun - you may well want to sit out after supper especially in the summer months. Of course, if you are on a popular camp site the ideal places may well be already taken and you may have to settle for what is available!

Guide camps are traditionally laid out in a "U" shape, with the tents laid out along the sides of the U, the kitchen area at the top and the entrance to the camp at the "open" end of the U. We usually put the girls' sleeping tents (patrol tents) along one "arm" of the U and the Guiders' tents and First Aid tent along the opposite "arm," with the store tents at the top. (See diagram below of the layout of this year's camp.)

Typical camp layout - adapt to suit your own needs and circumstances!

Make sure you pitch your tents with sufficient space between the guy ropes to enable you to walk round them last thing at night, in the dark, to check that everything is secure and OK, without tripping over tent pegs, and keep the kitchen area and particularly the fire well clear of tents and preferably downwind, although of course the wind direction may change and you can't rearrange your whole camp once pitched.

Tents
Guides traditionally sleep in Patrols in the big green canvas "Icelandic" tents. Once pitched they are safe and snug and, particularly if storm-lashed, virtually weatherproof. If pitched with flysheets they are even better, but the flysheets are difficult to get on if your Guides are small! One thing the girls MUST remember if the tents don't have flysheets is that they must NOT touch the canvas if it is at all damp, and certainly not if it is raining, as this will cause a leak; any drips should be guided down to the edge of the roof GENTLY with the tip of a fingernail - poking at a drip will cause a flood (I Speak From Experience!!) Equally, the groundsheet(s) should lie on top of the Sod Cloth (see diagram) and must not poke out beyond the tent walls or once again they will get wet.(NB. all this reference to getting wet goes with an English summer.....if you live in drier climates, lucky you!)

There is a lot of jargon attached to camping - teach the girls the proper names for things before you go, then with luck your instruction to "get that brailing peg in properly" will not be met with a blank stare. One can always hope.

Brailing pegs are small pegs used to fasten down the bottom of the side walls of the tent.
The Main Guys are the four main ropes which support the tent; they are not permanently attached to the tent like the other guy ropes but are fastened to a dolly which fits onto the spikes at the top of the main poles . The main guys are held by the largest pegs.
The Corner Guys (4 or 8 depending on the tent) hold the corners in place
and the Side Guys fasten the sides of the roof down : they use middle-sized pegs.
If a tent is Storm Guyed the main guys are crossed at the sides to make the tent even more stable in strong winds.
The Sod Cloth is a strip of hessian or plastic fastened along the bottom edges of the side walls and which tucks under the groundsheet to keep moisture out. It is hung up to dry out when the tent is aired each morning before the sides are brailed up tidily.

Icelandic tents require a fair bit of maintenance and attention (apart from any repairs which may become necessary) : they will need airing daily : each morning, unhook the brailings from the pegs and hang the sides up for the sod cloths to dry - hook the brailing loops over the corresponding wooden toggles on the upper ends of the side guys. When all the canvas and sod cloths are completely dry, roll the walls up INWARDS and secure with the ties provided; the tent will remain quite secure with the guy ropes in place. Remember to let the sides back down again before the evening sets in, and earlier if it looks like rain - and don't forget to reattach the brailings to the pegs. You will not be able to brail the tents if it is actually raining - just loosen the door flaps to let a bit of fresh air in, but not the rain.

Each night, and occasionally during the day, check the guy ropes. If they are made of natural jute they will shrink when wet and will actually pull pegs out of the ground, so loosen them if rain threatens and in any case before you go to bed, and check the pegs are secure. Conversely, man-made fibres usually stretch when wet, so tighten these guys before going to bed. You just need to check what the guys are made of and act accordingly.

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A lot of Guide units are now moving towards using frame tents for sleeping in : these do have the advantages of being lighter and easier to carry and put up, and are considerably cheaper to buy, but it remains to be seen if they will outlast my unit's WW1 bell tent and 1943 (it's date stamped) ridge tent, both still in use for stores.
The most popular style of frame tent seems to be the dome tent, usually with at least one porch. Dome tents are easy to put up and easy to move once erected - simply un-peg and lift as a whole then re-peg in the new position. As frame tents usually have a flysheet, the problem of the girls accidentally touching the canvas and letting the rain in should not arise, and with a sewn-in groundsheet flooded tents should be a thing of the past. The outer porch area of the tent is useful for storage of the girls' gear and means more room within the main tent. My unit uses four-man dome tents for the girls and leaders - (three to a tent - they like to spread!) and ridge tents for stores.
For lightweight camping with Rangers and Senior Section Guides, dome tents are a must and are usually combined with lightweight cooking on trangias.

How to pich an Icelandic (ridge) tent
1. Select a suitable site for your tent; it should be as flat as possible. Remove any pebbles, stones and anything else you wouldn't want to sleep on!

2. Unpack the tent from its bag carefully; check that dollies / main guys, all poles, pegs & mallets are present.

3. Assemble the ridge pole and place it exactly where you want the centre line of your tent to be.

4. Knock in a brailing peg at each end of the ridge pole.

5. Now assemble the upright poles; you will need these to measure out where to put the pegs for the main guys.

6. Stand at one end of the ridge pole, facing outwards from where the tent will be. Put your feet with the heels touching the brailing peg, one in line with the ridge pole and the other at right angles to it.

7. Hold one upright pole with its end in between your feet, as close to the ridge pole as you can get it. Lower it carefully onto the ground so that it cuts the angle made by your feet in half. Knock a large peg into the ground at the far end of the pole, ready for one of the main guys.

8. Repeat this process another three times, once more at the same end of the tent as the peg you have just knocked in but placing your feet facing towards the other corner, and twice at the far end of the tent. Your pegs should mark out a large rectangle if you have measured correctly.

9. Remove the poles and put them to one side where you can reach them easily - you will soon need them again. Unfold the tent canvas and spread it out (with the doors still laced) roughly where your tent is to be pitched; the ridge of the tent should be parallel with the brailing pegs already in and the bottom of the doors roughly at the brailing pegs.

10. Carefully put the ridge pole in place inside the canvas (depending on your tent, you may have to take it apart again.) DO NOT STAND ON ANY PART OF THE CANVAS.

11. Insert the upright poles with the tent still on the ground and put the dollies and main guys on the spikes at the ends.

12. Unfasten the main guys, run the sliders down and drop one guy loosely over each of the four main pegs, with a Guide in attendance at each one.

13. Now get ready to lift the tent : you will need all the help you can rally! One Guide needs to be at each of the end poles and at least one at each end of the tent to see to the main guys. At a given signal, lift the tent steadily, with hands well apart on the uprights and keeping the ridge pole straight - if you have anyone tall enough to reach, enlist their help to steady the ridge pole too. (If your tent has a centre pole, you will need someone inside the tent to lift that also - she must take care not to stand or kneel on the canvas.) As the tent rises, someone will have to adjust the main guys to allow it to rise evenly and with all the poles straight. Make sure you keep the bottom ends of the uprights against the brailing pegs put in earlier.

14. Once your tent is up, tighten the main guys to hold it up straight - if you have done everything correctly, your tent will stand with just these four guys. (Make sure the guys are not tangled or twisted round the dollies.)

15. Make sure the doors are laced - if they have come apart, re-lace them. Loop the ends of the door laces over the brailing peg previously placed at the foot of the poles. Hold out the front corners and the roof corners of the tent and peg out the bottom corners with brailing pegs so that your tent is a perfect rectangle: the canvas should hang smooth and wrinkle - free whilst you are still holding the corners of the roof out. Do not put the guys over the pegs until the pegs are in place - NEVER hammer any peg whilst the guy is over it.

16. Now unfasten the side guys. Peg out the guys for the front corners first - choose the angles which make the tent hang neatest. Stand with your back to the tent when you knock the pegs in; the pegs should be placed so that the guys follow the line of the slope of the roof.

17. Peg out the side guys, keeping the pegs in line and equally spaced. Keep checking that your tent is still hanging square - don't be tempted to over-tighten the guys.

18. Put in brailing pegs around the bottom of the tent walls. (Brailing pegs go in vertically - all other pegs at an angle sloping away from the tent.) Loop the brailings over the pegs - some loops will require twisting to keep them in place.

19. Stand back and inspect your tent : is it up straight? Is the canvas reasonably taut? Are the guys and pegs evenly spaced and in straight lines? Open the door - are the posts still vertical and in line? If anything needs adjusting, do it now! If you want to storm lash your tent, this is the best time to do it :

20. Now you can move all your belongings into your Patrol Tent and start making gadgets!

How to pitch a dome tent
Compared with pitching an Icelandic, pitching a dome tent is quick and easy:
1. Again, select a suitable place to pitch you tent - as level as possible, dry, no stones etc.
2. Unpack the tent from its bag and check that everything is there. If you are lucky, the maker's instructions will also still be in the bag!
3. Unfold the inner tent and lay it out on the ground exactly where you want it to go - check that the door is facing the right way - and groundsheet-side down.
4. Peg out the four corners tightly : your pegs will probably be metal, so use a rubber mallet.
5. Peg out any other loops, eyes etc. which may (or may not) be around the bottom edge of the inner tent.
6. Assemble the poles - these will probably be shock-corded so it will not be possible to get them wrong, but if the cording has broken and the pole sections have come apart, make sure your poles are of equal length (you may have a third, slightly shorter pole to hold up the flysheet.)
7. Thread the main poles through the channels/loops in the tent, crossing them in the middle : it is a good idea to tie the poles together where they cross, and you will usually find the inner tent has tapes to tie it to the poles at the top.
8. Flex the poles and place the ends of them in the metal eyelet holes you will see in the tapes at the corner: your tent should now be standing up well.
9. Throw the flysheet over the inner tent (make sure the doors are aligned correctly and are zipped up!) and insert any other support poles.
10. Peg out the flysheet evenly, adjust the guys and peg them out too. All done - and it didn't take too long, and at a pinch you can put one up on your own!

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Gadgets
Gadgets are those little things which make life at camp so much easier : loo-roll holders - so you're not struggling with soggy paper - bedroll racks - to keep your stuff off the grass, benefiting both you and the grass - washstands and drainers - after all, you have to wash the dishes! - washing lines and drying racks - coat hooks - pot stands - grease traps - the list is endless. The one thing they all have in common is that we make them all out of nothing more than wood and string.

Before you can start to make any gadgets, you need to know a few basic knots and lashings - a clove hitch, reef knot and half-hitch will get you through all of these, plus square lashing, snake lashing, West-Country lashing and tripod lashing. There is an excellent animated knots site at 42nd Brighton Scouts which will teach you how to tie the knots quickly and easily, or you could be brave and venture over to my new knots-and-lashings page. Whichever you choose, you need to be fairly confident of these basic knots and lashings - otherwise, start with the grease-trap which doesn't involve any string!

Three very simple but essential gadgets - Toilet roll holder, grease trap and pot stand

Two different sorts of wash stands, for hand washing and for washing dishes

A useful coat or bag hook, and a bedroll rack which shouldn't collapse (if you make it properly!)

Two different ways of stringing a washing line from trees

How about THIS for a fancy camp gadget?
Our "Welsh Dresser" made entirely out of wood and string!

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