View Full Version : "Camping and Woodcraft"
Feral Bill
07-03-2009, 15:11
Ultralighters may enjoy this (http://www.archive.org/stream/campingwoodcraft00kephrich/campingwoodcraft00kephrich_djvu.txt) historic perspective. Go to the second part, bottom of page 108. Thanks to Snowleopard for the link in another thread.
Rain Man
07-03-2009, 15:50
I have this book by Horace Kephart and love it. One thing it teaches me is that all this "ultra-light" philosophy has been around since the early 1900s at least! Kephart is always a great read, whatever book of his it is.
Rain:sunMan
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Ultralight principles and philosophies are nothing new at all. They are just being reintroduced to a crowd that has been inundated with the idea that more is better. I think people are becoming more aware that they don't need to own every piece of gear ever, and that knowledge is more powerful... and lighter.
Hikes in Rain
07-03-2009, 16:36
One of my favorites, as well, as is Nessmuk"s Woodcraft. Some of his lightweight gear lists, using the technology of the times, are quite good!
Snowleopard
07-03-2009, 17:52
My favorite since I found it in a library in the '60s.
When I find some time, I'm making a Royce tent (half pyramid) out of silnylon (vol. 1, p. 86).
I made a double wall version 25 years ago that was only semisuccessful.
Kephart has had a place in my life since the 60's - was raised on "Camping & Woodcraft". He is worth reading and savoring. Far ahead of his time.
njordan2
07-24-2009, 21:02
More is better.
Feral Bill
07-24-2009, 21:20
More is better.
Not when you're cleaning a stable.:)
sasquatch2014
07-24-2009, 23:36
You want the ultimate outdoors man read up on Boone. I have been reading this book lately Boone A Biography by Robert Morgan. The man was the best.
Ultralighters may enjoy this (http://www.archive.org/stream/campingwoodcraft00kephrich/campingwoodcraft00kephrich_djvu.txt) historic perspective. Go to the second part, bottom of page 108. Thanks to Snowleopard for the link in another thread.
From the Preface of "Camping and Woodcraft"
"It is not to be supposed that experienced travelers will agree with me all around in matters of equipment. Every old camper has his own notions about such things, and all of us are apt to be a bit dogmatic. As RIchard Harding Davis says, "The same article that one declares is the most essential to his comfort, health, and happiness is the very first thing that another will throw into the trail." A man's outfit is a matter which seems to touch his private honor.....Yet all of us who spend much time in the woods are keen to learn about the other fellow's 'kinks'."
Horace Kepart would feel at home on WB.
daddytwosticks
07-25-2009, 13:17
That preface should be posted above every thread dealing with equipment on this forum! :)
From the Preface of "Camping and Woodcraft"
"It is not to be supposed that experienced travelers will agree with me all around in matters of equipment. Every old camper has his own notions about such things, and all of us are apt to be a bit dogmatic. As RIchard Harding Davis says, "The same article that one declares is the most essential to his comfort, health, and happiness is the very first thing that another will throw into the trail." A man's outfit is a matter which seems to touch his private honor.....Yet all of us who spend much time in the woods are keen to learn about the other fellow's 'kinks'."
Horace Kepart would feel at home on WB.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Snowleopard
07-25-2009, 21:54
...A man's outfit is a matter which seems to touch his private honor...
Nice find Ol Mole.
Has a duel (affair of honor, swords, pistols at 20 paces) ever been fought by WBers over a gear thread? Flamewars don't count.
I'm not an ultra liter, but I have a lot of ultralite gear. In fact I have so much ultralight gear than I have morphed into a heavyweighter.
Panzer
BOWSINGER
07-26-2009, 12:52
Kephart and his FEATHERWEIGHT KITS.
In 1910 Kephart became aware of the Old World six and seven pound camp kits that had been around for years. He notes that in 1865, the Scotchman Macgregor built the first Rob Roy canoe and cruised with a one-foot square and six inches deep baggage bag. He marveled at ready-made outfits that with the addition of a light rucksack or bicycle pannier and spare clothing and a little food would weigh only about ten pounds.
“Back of this development, I learned, were years of patient, thoroughgoing experiment by scores of men and women whose one fad (if it be a fad) was to perfect a camping kit that should be light, lighter, lightest, and yet right, righter, rightest.”
Now where have I heard that before?
He lists one A frame tent that is 3 feet high, 3 feet wide, and 6 feet long with a 32 inch front extension for cooking space and a 36 inch rounded rear extension for storage. The top is unprocessed but rainproof “swallow-wing” cotton that is woven almost twice as fine as “balloon silk.” The lower sides of the tent are spray-proofed and the tent weighs 22 ounces. Poles, pegs, and lines add 18 ounces and the separate waterproof ground sheet with four more corner pegs, an additional 15 ounces. This 7-pound total outfit includes a 20-ounce “Comfy” eiderdown mummy bag and a 2-ounce Japanese air pillow. The pre-World War I price was about $21.00 plus shipping from England.
A second tent called the “Wigwam” is bigger, 4 feet high and 4.5 feet wide, made of Japanese silk, and only weighs 13 ounces. Using two jointed bamboo shear poles in front and an optional ridgepole, the pole and peg package weigh twice as much as the tent. This 6-pound gear list includes a 20-ounce down quilt.
Kephart opined that these featherweight kits might not be up to wilderness camping. He knew that the tiny tents could leak where touched or rubbed against and worried that the thin tent material will stretch over time. That this new-fangled mummy bag will be too stuffy and the sleeping quilts too cold without a thick bed of straw or hay underneath.
Now where have I heard that before?
But he also thought that this “foreign cult may be worth looking into” and that we could learn and adapt and adopt a lot from these ultralightweight gear lists. He already had suggestions to solve some of the perceived problems. And he had an open mind about what others were doing different.
“I am assured that this midget shelter will stand up in a hurricane that overthrows wall tents, marquees’ and the army bell tent. Enthusiastic campers use it even in winter, sleeping out without a fire when the tent sags with snow… It has stood nine months’ continuous service in Canada.”
Nessmuk would have been proud of him.
I find 1910 featherweight gear lists very interesting. When I get time I will post more of my notes. Bowsinger.
Snowleopard
07-26-2009, 19:52
A second tent called the “Wigwam” is bigger, 4 feet high and 4.5 feet wide, made of Japanese silk, and only weighs 13 ounces.
By my calculations this would take at least 8.1 square yards of material (for a 6' length), say 9 yards. The silk material would then weigh: 13 oz/9 sq yards = 1.44 oz/square yard. This is almost identical to silnylon. Anyone care to try it with Habotai silk? This would be about 15 mm silk(15 momme).
http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/eng/1634599-AA.shtml
It would have the advantage of being breathable and the disadvantage of not being waterproof.
BOWSINGER
07-27-2009, 23:52
Kephart quotes T. H. Holding of London, the silk tent owner: “Such is its toughness that I have seen a pair of the strongest fingers try to tear the material and fail… One has stood some of the heaviest rains, in fact, records for thirty hours, without letting in wet, and I say this of an 11-ounce one… What, however, silk does not a stand well is friction.” Holding goes on to state that a silk tent will wear thin like a silk umbrella, in the folds and pressure points.
Kephart adds that all these extra thin materials work like an umbrella. To be rain proof, they depend on tight weave and tension. Pressure point leakage and stretching is a problem. He recommends adding a waterproof fly, exactly like our modern double wall tents!
It is interesting to note that the COCOON TRAVELSHEETS and MUMMYLINERS made of silk are slightly lighter than the non-woven nylon ones and are rated warmer.
Thanks for the link FB it was a good read. :sun
Another quote from Kephart on light camp equipment, page 110.
"An old campaigner is known by the simplicity and fitness of his equipment. He carries few "fixings", but every article has been well tested and it is the best his purse can afford. He has learned by hard experience how steep are the mountain trails and how tangled the undergrowth and downwood in the primative forest. He has learned, too, how to fashion on the spot many substitutes for "boughten" things that we consider necessary at home.
The art of going "light but right" is hard to learn. I never knew a camper who did not burden himself, at first, with a lot of kickshaws that he did not need in the woods; nor one who, if he learned anthing, did not soon begin to weed them out; not even a veteran who ever quite attained his own ideal of lightness and serviceability."
It seems to fit right in with some of the gear discussions here on WB.