0°F Camping in the Hot Tent for 2 Nights

It's supposed to get cold tonight. It's 15 degrees right now. It's supposed to get down to zero. Get these guy lines, stake these to the ground, and I'll get the wood stove set up and we'll be good to go. There. The part that takes the longest is just staking this tent down, especially when the ground is very rocky. Sun's going down and it is getting cold. It's very peaceful out here All right, everything's set up. Now I do have some firewood. It's not going to be enough though, so I got to go cut some. It's my new saw I've been wanting to try out. It's from my friend DJ at Bear Essentials. It's looking pretty good. Some nice beech wood. Looks pretty solid. This tree will give me a lot of firewood and it's not far away. That's a really nice saw. All right, let's get to cutting. It'll be plenty for tonight. I'm going to get these logs cut up now. Still got some snow coming down off and on. Let's get this fire going. Keep a lighter in your pocket. It'll stay warm. That way it'll light. And some fat wood. As soon as I stopped cutting firewood, I realized how cold it was. That's the nice thing about firewood. It warms you twice. It's getting nice and warm in here already. We've got lots of firewood stacked. Got a little more outside that still has yet to be cut. This should last me for the night. Fire's blazing in there, keeping me nice and warm, and I'm happy about it. Can't beat it. It's about 80 degrees in here. A little too warm, you might say, but for now it feels great. Once the fire dies down, it'll cool down in here. I'm getting hungry. I'm gonna have some of my deer sticks with cheese. As long as I control the fire and keep it fairly low, it stays comfortable in here. If I let it get away, it'll start really burning. It warms up in here too much. If the flames get too big, I just close the air intake a little bit and let the flames die down. But it's pretty nice in here right now. Currently, it's about five degrees outside and 66 in here. We're gonna have some venison tenderloin. From the deer I shot in the fall, I'm gonna cook this with some onion. Cut up my onion first. I am looking forward to this meal. Simple, but it's good. I love venison backstrap. I'll add a little more oil to that. I'm gonna add a little salt and pepper to this. Looks about good. Very good. I'm very happy I brought the deer tenderloin. Venison is very easy to overcook since it's so lean, so I don't like to cook it for too long. A couple minutes per side, especially when they're cut this thin. Now I'm full. I'm happy. I'm warm. Can't beat it on a night like tonight. Sounds brutal out there. It's windy. You can hear the trees popping because they're so cold. Popping and cracking. It's reading about two degrees outside. About 62-63 in here. That's negative 16 celsius and 17 celsius in here. Yep, it's cold. Heard some coyotes howling earlier way off in the distance. Put my sleeping pad down. It's a little too warm in here for the sleeping bag right now, but once that fire dies down in the middle of the night, it's gonna cool down in here. But it still won't be too bad. Saying 0.8 degrees out there right now. About 67 in here. I have my carbon monoxide alarm. I'll just keep that here. Anytime I'm in a hot tent, I like to have one of those in here with me, just in case. Cold weather advisory remains in effect until noon Tuesday. Very cold wind chills as low as 20 below expected. Well, I'm going to bed. I'll see you guys tomorrow morning. Let's see what's going on out there. It was getting a little hot in there. I had to step outside for a while. It's negative 0.4 outside. It's a little chilly in here now. I just had the door open. I'm about ready for some coffee. We're going to heat some water up. It's not a proper morning without some coffee and pancakes, which is what we're going to have next. Coffee's about done. Add some cold water to that. Settle those grounds. You can see all the grounds. They just settled to the bottom. It's a sunny day today. It's nice because the sun is helping to warm this tent up a little bit. I'm going to melt some snow and get some more water. It's only snow water, but I still like to boil it. Add some oil. Get some pancake mix. Protein pancakes. I'll add a little coffee to that. It's still a little thick and give it a little coffee flavor. Pancake is served. Let's make another one. Some good coffee. Time to eat. We're going to put a little maple butter on them and that is looking good. I love pancakes. I got to get fueled up for some more wood cutting because we're going to need some more firewood for tonight. We're running low. It's supposed to be another cold night tonight. Beautiful day. That sun is warm, but the air is cold. Still in the single digits. I want to go see if I can find some fatwood. I'm running low. We're going to go on a little hike see if we can find any. So we're going to have some coffee before I head out. If you don't know what fatwood is, I'll show you how to find it. I'll show you how it works. I'm looking for pine trees. There's none around me right now, but a lot of times you'll find them scattered in these woods. Find them growing in big patches. Big pine groves. I see some green up here. Hopefully they're not hemlocks. Right up there. It's a good way to find deer in the winter too. First deer tracks I've in a while. Going right into those pines. It's where the deer like to go in this kind of weather. They're protected from the elements more. You can see how much more exposed the open hardwoods are behind me. Then on this side is where the thick pines are. Much more protected from the wind. The deer have this all dug up right here. Not sure why. There's something in here that they want. All the tracks are converging to this point. So looking for a fallen pine tree. These are all red pines. Best fatwood I find around here is from red pines. So this is perfect. You can see how the bark is reddish in color. So this is what I'm looking for. It's a section of a tree that has fallen and these branches coming up out of it. The base of these branches right up against the trunk. That's where the fatwood will be. My saw. So I'm just going to cut this as close to the trunk of the tree as I can. Right here. It's looking good. You can see that deep amber colored wood. Solid. This wood doesn't rot. The rest of this tree is rotting except for this. It's preserved by the pine resin it's saturated in. And that resin is very flammable as I'll show you Another good one. Smells great. Very strong pine scent. Smells like turpentine. You can also find it on the dead branches. Coming off live trees too. But a lot of times they're too high up. I'd rather cut them off the dead ones anyway. The fatwood on these branches is only going to go up so far. 34 inches. So I could cut them off right here. That way I have less to carry. But it's not a big deal. Just put them in my bag and take them to the tent. It's not too far away. All right let's back to the tent. As soon as that sun goes down it's going to get cold quick. So I'm going to go get some firewood now. Got a little bit of firewood left. I still have this log here that I have yet to cut and split. But it's not much. Just follow my tracks right to the dead tree. It's good quality firewood too. Beach makes great firewood. Dense wood so burns relatively long. Gives off a lot of heat too. Some wood doesn't give off as much heat. Cherry for example, black cherry wood, makes good firewood. It smells really good when it burns and it gives off a decent amount of heat. But not as much as other species like oak, beech, hickory. I did a little exploring earlier when I was collecting fatwood. I was looking for animal tracks, deer tracks, coyote tracks, new camping spots, hunting grounds, things like that. It's a nice area though. I like it here. I'm going to start coming here more often. All right so here's the fatwood I gathered earlier. I'll show you how this burns. I'll make a little torch with this. I'm just going to split this one way that way and again this way. And in each split I'm going to take a twig and I'll just wedge it in there to prop it open. And I'll do the same thing to the other one. So that'll open it up some. I've got a little piece here I'll light. It might take a minute until it catches. It'll struggle at first but once it gets hot it'll start burning really good. We've made a torch. You can see it's fairly wind resistant. Burns kind of like kerosene. That's why this stuff is so valuable out here because it's such a good fire starter. Making a fire with this is almost like cheating. You can use this to see at night. Pretty cool. Now if you do want to put it out just put it in water or snow. It's getting cold out there again. Get the fire going. Let's have some more deer steaks. These will hold me over till dinner. Warming up my toes a little bit. So what we're going to make is something similar to a cheese steak, philly cheese steak, except I'm going to use ground venison instead of steak. You're supposed to use ribeye for this, thinly sliced, but if I had a ribeye I'd probably rather just cook the ribeye by itself. My pepper and I've got to find my onion. Slice these onions nice and thin. I'm excited to eat because I am starving. I'm hungry. I'm going to use my firewood as cutting boards. Add some oil to the pan. I'm just going to use half of these for now. Put the other half in this little bag. Put a little salt and pepper on those. Cook these first. Now for the ground venison. Smells good. I'm just going to add a little seasoned salt to that. Kind of just winging it. Coming up with my own recipe here, but I'll be sure to let you know how the finished product turns out. I was going to use provolone cheese for this, but the little store that I stopped at on my way here didn't have any. So American cheese it is. We'll let that melt. I'll toast my bun. Heard a coyote howling earlier. There we go. I'm no chef or anything, but this is pretty good. It's better than some cheesesteaks I've had. It's not much different than a normal cheesesteak. It's kind of hard to give accurate food reviews out here being really hungry in the cold wilderness because pretty much everything's going to taste like a five-star meal right now. I'm happy with it. I'm gonna put some big pieces on before I go to bed. It's another cold night tonight. One degree. It's not as windy tonight though, so I'm gonna have to get up every few hours or so, feed this fire. Keep it somewhat warm in here at least. 26 out there. Negative three celsius out there. 12 celsius in here. I'm gonna brew some coffee. It's overcast now. The wind's picking up. We might get some snow. It almost feels like a warm spring day today. So I was keeping this cold outside. Still have a little bit left, so that's what I'm gonna have for lunch. This is an uninsulated bottle, so I'll be careful when I grab it. It's a little hot. I'm definitely making these again because even though it's just ground deer meat, to me it tastes just like a regular cheesesteak. I slept pretty good last night. I got up a couple times, added wood to the fire. I stay nice and warm inside my sleeping bag anyway. Well, the snow showed up. Well, I'm gonna hang out here for a little while. Hope you guys enjoyed the video. Thanks for watching, and join me in my next one.