After putting off buying a hot tent for a very long time, we finally pulled the trigger in October and purchased one – well, It’s actually an old canvas tent which we converted into a hot tent, but it’s a hot tent now! With winter fast approaching, we were excited to try it out in Algonquin at New Year’s Eve and Family Day weekend. Unfortunately due to covid we were not able to get out either of those times. But just when we thought our chance to get out winter camping was gone for this season, everything finally opened up the middle of March so we seized the opportunity and headed north.
Since we aren’t the only ones itching to get out camping this winter, it was tough to find an available site, but one morning I opened the reservation site and I spotted a site open for a Saturday night at Mew Lake in Algonquin. I decided to book that date while keeping my fingers crossed that the camping closure wouldn’t be extended. As luck would have it things remained open, so we were all set.
Since it was late in the year and the park had received a ton of rain in the previous week, the site was a sheet of ice when we arrived – it’s a good thing we all had ice cleats for our boots. We even joked about wearing skates on the site since the rink was not open. It took us about an hour to set up the tent as well as all the items inside. When we were happy with the set up we headed out for a hike to Mew Falls. These falls are beautiful every time of the year and I love that it is such an easy hike, which is especially great after setting up camp.
Once back on our site our friends had arrived and Hayden went off playing in the snow with his friends. We decided to get the stove stove going as the temperature was dropping and we wanted a nice warm place to hang out. We spent much of the evening in the tent telling stories and catching up. I had brought our reflector oven to try out as well, so I cracked open the cinnamon buns package and started cooking those in the oven. It didn’t take long for the entire tent to start smelling like a bakery.
After hours of laughing we finally headed to bed. We had to decide on how we wanted to sleep for the night. Do we get up every couple of hours and add wood to the fire, or just let the stove burn out and start it in the morning. We decided to get up every few hours to check on the fire as we wanted to really test out the warmth of the stove and get a feel for how to manage the heat properly. It was definitely a challenge, however, we did have warmth in the tent the whole night (with some periods of warm and cold temperatures).
As the sun started to shine on our tent the next morning, neither of us wanted to move and get up to stoke the fire again. I cooked breakfast on the fire and we used our hydro to boil the kettle for hot drinks.
We eventually started the pack up process, and what a process it was. Trying to get the 10 inch nails out of the frozen ice sheet was more than a little bit of a challenge. Eventually we managed to loosen enough of the nails to get the tent down and packed up. We emptied the stove contents into the fire pit and let it cool down before and finished packing up. During our tear down process I opened up a package of lactose free ice cream freeze dried sandwiches that I purchased from OTG Meals. Well, these are AMAZING. We all had a sample from this package and we all agree they are yummy.
With all the gear loaded, we said goodbye to Algonquin for now but hopefully next year we will be able to use our tent a few more times.
If you are looking to start hot tenting, be sure to check out some amazing resources online, such as the Winter Camping Adventures Facebook Group. Algonquin Park also hosts some really great winter events during the year which can be found on their website.
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A successful weekend in the hot tent and the weather looked great. There will be more good times coming.
Sounds like fun family time. One day we will get to camp again….darn Covid!
I was happy to finally get out when we did. Hopefully next winter we can really get it out more.