@Raftergirl said:
I’ve tried the group dinner/meal thing a few times. Sometimes it worked well, other times it didn’t.
I tried them too but I find that if you have a small group of friends, then each person can . make their own meals but we can share the stoves (ex: jetboil to heat water for all) and someone always brings something the others want, even if it is chocolate covered fruit.
I actually cook & bake stuff on kayak trips so I really want my own stove & kitchen. I’m not a fan of jetfoil stoves. The BYO system was a change from the way prior trip leaders in my outdoor club did meals on flat water canoe & kayak trips. I was worried at first about how it would be received. I got no negative comments, only positives. Now I’ve noticed other trip leaders doing it that way. Maybe we just have really disorganized or picky folks, but after going on some small group trips and watching the meal time disasters & whining I just decided to do it differently when I started leading trips. So far it’s been a big hit.
Now, on the other hand, I’ve been doing group meals on rafting trips for 20 years. I’d say they were mostly successful. We have had trips where we had several duplicate dinners, and one entire 7 day trip with nothing but variations of chicken salad for lunch. The worst trip was when the trip organizer/leader forgot the fuel for the stove. She didn’t realize it until we were at our first night’s camp. Luckily my rafting buddy always keeps a stash of the green coleman fuel canisters in his dry box just in case. We figured that we were good as long as we were careful & conservative. It worked out ok, but the big coffee drinkers were very grumbly about the limited fuel for morning coffee.
When on one trip, Shawna set my Jetboil MiniMo on fire and she left my back-up Whisperlight home, I was glad that Ken and Maria had brought their own stoves.
I also now double-check the gear list before all following trips like the MLK trip down the lower Colorado (Walters to Fishers).
I like the Jetboil for bag-foods or chocolate or whatever. Plus I can actually cook in the MiniMo pot though I also bring a MSR Whisperlight stove and S2S x-pot for anything that needs to be cooked. Nice thing about a kayak is the amazing capacity for my junk. Plus I have a fry-pan bag made for a coleman frypan but it holds my Jetboil frypan, my S2S x-pot and the needed cutlery for cooking and rests against my stern bulkhead.
But I am more of a "man-Food’ kind of guy when camping so “hot-fast-filling” is more of what I want.
Robert is a cook and we have to wait a half-hour for his coals to be right, while he is chopping and preparing and all when all I want is something hot in my tummy!!!
@Raftergirl said:
We have done the alum thing a few times on the Colorado and it works well.
I did the 5-gal bucket thing with alum but had no idea if I had an inch or a foot of water on top. The videos and websites implied 2" so I repeated with a couple 1-gal pickle jars. Left one to settle normally as a control, then used alum on the test jar.
In 20 minutes, I had a mound of dirt on the bottom barely an inch high and mostly-clear water the rest.
So I have a dedicated Nalgene bottle for my alum-water-mix and a 1 gallon clear-bag with spout for the water.
I fill the clear-bag with dirty water, add a cap of my alum-mix, stir and walk away. When I come back in a half-hour, I can filter from that bag or I can transfer from that bag to an empty dry-bag to filter as I settle more water.
Cool. Show & Tell. Here’s my paddling kitchen.
When I go out with Maria and Shawna, I need the frypan as I tend to make them fried eggs for breakfast. Otherwise the frypan is to heat up last night’s leftovers (unless the dog gets them).
I use the S2S x-pot because I try to save the camp-meal-bags and MRE for a solo or when I am in a hurry like waiting for the shuttle. My normal dinners are a knorr pasta meal with dried veggies and dehydrated beef and mushrooms.
I dehydrate the additives then put them and the instructions in a vac-seal bag.
Thus my cooking needs are far less than what I carry.
I have downsized to the smaller S2S x-pot and added a mixing bowl. All fits easily into that one bag.
Good thing a kayak has more room than a backpack.
How do you like the S2S X-Pots? I had a lady bring one on a trip and melt it the first time she used it. Not sure how she managed to do that, but it was a mess. Then again, this poor gal has bad kitchen karma anyways. On the last trip she came on up in Grand Teton Nat. Park, she had borrowed one of those see thru bear canisters and couldn’t get it open. She was starving and couldn’t get to her food. It took two of us to get that goofy canister open.
I only bring the little fry pan if I know I’m going to use it. Otherwise it stays home. I actually use it at home to make perfect 4 inch pancakes. I have added & deleted things to my kitchen over the summer, and I think I have it pretty well where i want it now. I love having everything organized in the little duffel bag. makes it easy to carry from kayak to camp.
The secret to the S2S x-pot is to read the directions!
On the bottom of the pot base is a ring with the comment to keep the flame INSIDE that ring. Most problems occur when people put the pot on a large 2-burner stove or a campfire or such. These are made for a small back-pack stove like the Jetboil (with pot stand), whisperlight, gigapower or the like. Those large Coleman will melt the things.
Second thing is to clean them well or the mice will chew through the silicon.
third is to extend the pot to the max. If you don’t the heat will become trapped in a fold.
I follow those and have never had a problem, (save the mouse thing).
The think I like is that the S2S folds almost flat and nests inside my frypan so there is no lost space.
it makes me happy to see this much interest in camping out of my yak/canoe.
i’m looking to put together a trip on the Huron river north of Ann Arbor Mi. around memorial day and only have myself and one other interested but that is always subject to change due to work schedules etc. anyone interested?
self support BYO of course with hiking a possibility. it will be a paddle down river trip on a slow moving river with some small portages for damns etc. i haven’t done this section as of yet but it is listed on the web if you want to research it
There are quite a few forums devoted to canoe and kayak camping already… www.bwca.com, canoetripping.net,
myccr.com. Regional boards such as Northeast Paddlers Message Board and www.adkforum.com. Likely there is one for Michigan too.
There are a lot of bwca com members that paddle in Michigan.
@Sully said:
it makes me happy to see this much interest in camping out of my yak/canoe.
i’m looking to put together a trip on the Huron river north of Ann Arbor Mi. around memorial day and only have myself and one other interested but that is always subject to change due to work schedules etc. anyone interested?
Why not post this in the Wilderness Tripping forum which according to its description is to “Meet others, discuss locations, gear, and more!” or better yet the Getting Together & Going Paddling forum
You might find more people interested in tripping there than here in the Fishing From Kayaks and Canoes forum.
ok i will check out these other forums thanx to all
Guardians have a ton of choices to make while picking a day camp for their youngsters. There is the expense, the area, and the ideal results whether it is an instructive encounter or absolutely sporting camp. It’s simple for guardians to underestimate security, however, all things considered, a parent’s main goal ought to be to get their youngster free from any and all harm toward the finish of the camping experience.
Yeah I think a designated gear and gear setup forum would be useful. Because lets be honest, we’re all here for the gear.
I did that stretch a number of times in the '80’s with the Boy Scouts. Memories for a lifetime.
I agree, that would be nice.
I am planning a kayak/ canoe trip in GA with some friends and am looking for some info. This will be my first kayak camping trip, but I kayak quite a bit. nothing over a class III really. I live in the Atlanta area and kayak the Chattahoochee quite a bit. The only thing is I don’t know where i could pull over and camp for the night. I am willing to experience other rivers for this trip that are nearby. If I knew of a solid area that I could camp, then I could build a trip around it. Is there anyone here familiar with the Georgia area and have any info to share?
I use the websites for state parks and state forests and also try to buy a national campgrounds guide every couple of years. The large format state map books by DeLorme are also a great resource for finding camping areas.
