Codger_64
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Understatements are a bane aren't they?
But often easier to deal with than theology vs. science arguements!
:thumbup:
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How Important Is a Campfire to You?
- Thread starter Evolute
- Start date
But often easier to deal with than theology vs. science arguements!
:thumbup:
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- 4,527
A local channel puts a burning log on 24/7 during the Christmas season, and it is quite popular. I loved putting it on during finals- it was very calming and soothing.
Food taste a lot better on an open fire.
It blew me away that one time that we went camping and the other couple would refuse to cook on a fire, and used a Coleman stove instead of the fire we kept going.
My daughter has been helping to feed the fire since she was 2. Spending time around the fire is another way to spend time together, and create a bonding moment between people- old friends, new acquaintances, old and young family members. It is a great mesmerizer, and allows one to be lost in thought quite easily. It is a great feeling to be around a fire with a group of friends and nobody is talking for many minutes, just lost in the tranquility. I am going solo hunting this fall, and one of the things I am looking the most forward to is the nights in front of the fire by myself.
This is the reason:
Evolute- you should foster an appreciation for fire by photographing it, I am a crappy photographer, but it starts to become a zen moment trying to find the uniqueness of fire in each shot.
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I'm about evenly split as far as camping with and without fire. It all depends on my objectives and circumstance. If I'm fishing or hunting, I usually hit the sack once it is to dark to continue so I can be going again once the light returns. This generally doesn't leave time for a fire. Additionally, I live in a dry area, and I remember watching an out of control fire (set by some less than careful individuals) climb one side of a mountain wondering if it would stop before it rushed down the other side. (The mountain created a rain shadow. On my side vegetation was relatively thin, on the other the ground is always covered with dry maple leaves). I'm a cautious person, and I try not to set fires when it is imprudent to do so.
That being said, I like to have a fire when the situation permits. I can spend hours looking at the colors ripple through the coals as the breeze ebbs and flows. I like how Kris put it...
Of course there are two additional things you should know about me before you put any weight to anything I say:
1. I like the smell of a campfire
2. I can also spend hours watching a raisin dropped in 7-Up
That being said, I like to have a fire when the situation permits. I can spend hours looking at the colors ripple through the coals as the breeze ebbs and flows. I like how Kris put it...
I find the same beauty in the ripples formed on a stream, and often think about how no-one will ever see exactly what I am seeing at that moment.
Of course there are two additional things you should know about me before you put any weight to anything I say:
1. I like the smell of a campfire
2. I can also spend hours watching a raisin dropped in 7-Up
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I fully understand the draw of making a fire in every camp. I did that for years. I make fire now on an as needed basis. Part of that need is if someone I'm out there with really wants or expects a fire then, fine, we make a fire.
Sometimes in dry season conditions simply won't allow it, its just too dangerous, like California wildfire dangerous. I don't even use my stove without paranoid level precautions.
In rainy season it is sometimes absolutely necessary, and practically impossible at the same time.
Whenever I have a group out there teaching we make fire. If I'm out there with friends and the friends are the reason I'm out there I'm more inclined to make a fire. Otherwise you end up going to bed at 8:30 and it is just too cool to sit around a fire with good friends to miss the opportunity.
Mac
How important is my campfire?
I have a fire ring at my house. I often have a campfire even when I'm not camping. Watch the sun set over the lake and then light a little fire to keep warm and make smores for the kids.
As for camping, the fire is half the fun.
If it happens to irritate an enviroweenie also, that's just a bonus.
I have a fire ring at my house. I often have a campfire even when I'm not camping. Watch the sun set over the lake and then light a little fire to keep warm and make smores for the kids.
As for camping, the fire is half the fun.
If it happens to irritate an enviroweenie also, that's just a bonus.
I usually "cold camp" ( I like that term... ) as well. If I plan on a fire, it is usually the last morning of a trip, just to practice primitive fire starting. If I am with others, usually there is a camp fire, and I think it is a good tool to teach safety and responsibility to the young uns, and it does have a soothing , reflective effect.
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I have camped in warm and cold weather with and without campfires and I'd 10 to 1 rather have a fire than not.
Being a psych major working on my Master's I could sit and run through a list of psychological pros, yadda, yadda -- but, for me it all seems to reduced to a simple explanation:
A fire seems to make the camping area more inviting, more like a home.
And by that I don't mean to imply that I don't feel at home in the woods. I feel more at home and alive in the woods than I do in any other place of my life (God knows when I'm at work in the office I feel like a dog in Michael Vick's back yard, and it's even worse now that I've had to cut my woods time to zilch because of school). What I mean is that a fire seems to turn the area from a part of woods into "My" part of the woods; a bubble within a bubble. Just that much more isolation (or maybe insulation if you feel like I do) from the hustle and bustle.
Being a psych major working on my Master's I could sit and run through a list of psychological pros, yadda, yadda -- but, for me it all seems to reduced to a simple explanation:
A fire seems to make the camping area more inviting, more like a home.
And by that I don't mean to imply that I don't feel at home in the woods. I feel more at home and alive in the woods than I do in any other place of my life (God knows when I'm at work in the office I feel like a dog in Michael Vick's back yard, and it's even worse now that I've had to cut my woods time to zilch because of school). What I mean is that a fire seems to turn the area from a part of woods into "My" part of the woods; a bubble within a bubble. Just that much more isolation (or maybe insulation if you feel like I do) from the hustle and bustle.
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enjoy fire and firemaking so much, i have a huge firepit in my backyard. make a fire there 2 or 3 nights a week every week of the year.
i'm also one of those that likes the smell of woodsmoke on my clothes.
fires while camping depends almost entirely on safety of area. if its safe to do so, always have a fire.
i'm also one of those that likes the smell of woodsmoke on my clothes.
fires while camping depends almost entirely on safety of area. if its safe to do so, always have a fire.
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Mixed views.
I usually tend to avoid them because of the effort. Modern stoves, clothing, and LED lamps means they aren't as useful to me as they once were. By avoiding natural fibres I don't need them for drying stuff out or to remain warm. They are poor as a source of directional lighting compared to lamps and so much slower to regulate. And aside from a novelty factor for cooking over are fairly inconvenient for making food and drink compared to modern methods. Add to that I think the calorific effort of making and maintaining one vastly exceeds the effort of carrying gas or liquid fuel. Plus, some of the places I go making a fire isn't an option because there is nothing to burn. I can usually get my fill of cooking over a fire without leaving my garden, or by using something like the below on day one while I gear up to strike out.
I appreciate some notion of romance with fire although I can't express it to myself in words. I figure there probably is something innate about that dating from a time of scary wilderness and the need to foster some notion of a mastery of it, even if that notion was in a great many instances not much more than an illusion fire on keeps the lions at bay and and all that. Or perhaps just and ancient grounding in a fear of the dark and unknown huddle round the fire 'cos you never know what's out there kinda thing. Whatever, the legacy certainly exerts an effect on me, it's just than in most instances my practical self overrides that effortlessly.
The romance of it is something that I make use of with women. I do like to have a fire when I'm out with my woman, sometimes. What I don't enjoy is getting that effect on my own or with a group comprised only of males. I suspect that puts me out of step with many of you but for me it is the same as taking alcohol in that regard. As an Englishman it is a vandalism to my culture to say that, but after spending a lot of time with Gambians that would ask me what's the joy of just sitting with other men and drinking? I changed my outlook. I'm the same about sitting around a camp fire with men for probably the same reasons. It's usually just a time for guys to tell stories, relive dreary anecdotes, and BS each other. There's no joy in that.
I also think a camp fire can offer an invitation to others that I probably don't want. I can draw from an urban setting to illustrate that: We used to set up a big fire down on the beach every weekend when I was at the town house. The advantages were many fold. We'd have a big supply of blankets and beer and whatever and people would show up with their entrance fee [bring wood]. So far so good, we'd have folk spilling out of clubs coming down and huge numbers of foreign students. But on top of that there would always be a stream of bums, vagrants, and ne'er-do-well trying to weasel in. Many of which were not amenable to reason and needed to be physically relocated. I've spoken with a few and their train of thought goes something along the lines of fire is free to anyone that needs it, you shouldn't deprive me of warmth, as if I was the aggressor for barring access. Same kind of thing applies when in the woods. Fire is like a dirty great advert saying I am over here, come poke in my business. I'm not into all that.
In sum, fire is good for when I'm with womenfolk and a with a couple of pints of vodka, but for any serious business in which making fire is not an end state in itself I happily go without it.
I usually tend to avoid them because of the effort. Modern stoves, clothing, and LED lamps means they aren't as useful to me as they once were. By avoiding natural fibres I don't need them for drying stuff out or to remain warm. They are poor as a source of directional lighting compared to lamps and so much slower to regulate. And aside from a novelty factor for cooking over are fairly inconvenient for making food and drink compared to modern methods. Add to that I think the calorific effort of making and maintaining one vastly exceeds the effort of carrying gas or liquid fuel. Plus, some of the places I go making a fire isn't an option because there is nothing to burn. I can usually get my fill of cooking over a fire without leaving my garden, or by using something like the below on day one while I gear up to strike out.
I appreciate some notion of romance with fire although I can't express it to myself in words. I figure there probably is something innate about that dating from a time of scary wilderness and the need to foster some notion of a mastery of it, even if that notion was in a great many instances not much more than an illusion fire on keeps the lions at bay and and all that. Or perhaps just and ancient grounding in a fear of the dark and unknown huddle round the fire 'cos you never know what's out there kinda thing. Whatever, the legacy certainly exerts an effect on me, it's just than in most instances my practical self overrides that effortlessly.
The romance of it is something that I make use of with women. I do like to have a fire when I'm out with my woman, sometimes. What I don't enjoy is getting that effect on my own or with a group comprised only of males. I suspect that puts me out of step with many of you but for me it is the same as taking alcohol in that regard. As an Englishman it is a vandalism to my culture to say that, but after spending a lot of time with Gambians that would ask me what's the joy of just sitting with other men and drinking? I changed my outlook. I'm the same about sitting around a camp fire with men for probably the same reasons. It's usually just a time for guys to tell stories, relive dreary anecdotes, and BS each other. There's no joy in that.
I also think a camp fire can offer an invitation to others that I probably don't want. I can draw from an urban setting to illustrate that: We used to set up a big fire down on the beach every weekend when I was at the town house. The advantages were many fold. We'd have a big supply of blankets and beer and whatever and people would show up with their entrance fee [bring wood]. So far so good, we'd have folk spilling out of clubs coming down and huge numbers of foreign students. But on top of that there would always be a stream of bums, vagrants, and ne'er-do-well trying to weasel in. Many of which were not amenable to reason and needed to be physically relocated. I've spoken with a few and their train of thought goes something along the lines of fire is free to anyone that needs it, you shouldn't deprive me of warmth, as if I was the aggressor for barring access. Same kind of thing applies when in the woods. Fire is like a dirty great advert saying I am over here, come poke in my business. I'm not into all that.
In sum, fire is good for when I'm with womenfolk and a with a couple of pints of vodka, but for any serious business in which making fire is not an end state in itself I happily go without it.
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