Summer Camp Tents

[Owl62]

Does your troop use tents provided by the summer camp, or bring their own?

 

Since mosquitos are bad in our part of the country, most of our troop started bringing their own tents about 4 years ago. The 9X7 tents provided by the camp are not screened. Some of us tried mosquito netting but it is a bit of a hassle.

 

Most of our adults have personal walk-in screened tents that are about 10X8 and many of the Scouts bring their own screened tents too. For some the reason to use their own tents was due to the mosquitos, some for privacy, and some just like to use their own. I use my own for all of these reasons.

[eagle90]

We use bring our own troop tents (Eureka Timberline Outfitters) to use at Summer Camp. The are in much better condition than the tents available thru the camp. Some adults bring their own tents for comfort reasons.

 

[John-in-KC]

Our Council camp is more hotel than camp for housing...

 

Tents are on platforms, there are cots.

 

I do not think the Reservation Director would look kindly on a Troop striking the council tents.

[EagleInKY]

Ditto John in KC. Many of the campsites in our camp are not conducive to tent camping. They are on slopes or the ground is so rocky, rooty (is that a word) and hard-packed, you'd have a tough time finding a place to set up a tent.

 

I have seen a few instances where a troop had a last minute visitor/addition and they had to set up a personal tent for them.

[anarchist]

Good Gosh...what is so difficult about hanging a mosquito "bar" in a wall tent...takes five minutes, is smaller lighter and less expensive than bringing troop tents.

 

Many (most?) camps here 'bouts use canvas or nylon wall tents on platforms and advise to bring netting ...its no big deal...privacy? at summercamp? (sounds boring!)

 

lather up in deet and enjoy the mosquito song.....buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzz whine buzzz buzzz!

anarchist

[msnowman]

Our Pack and Troop both use the tents provided by the camp. Like another poster above, these are on platforms and have cots. However, many boys and leaders bring their own personal tents and essentially pitch that smaller tent inside the flap tent from camp. They use the provided tent like a fly and sleep inside their own personal tent. Two boys can still share that tent, they just move out the cots and sleep on their sleeping pads on the platform. That way we aren't striking the provided tents while still reducing mosquito access to the buffet.

 

YiS

Michelle

[OneHour]

90% of the summer camp we attended thus far, we use the camp's canvas A-frame tents. The parents/scouts put together mosquito netting frame (if they do not want to string the netting up) out of pvc frame. It worked well or as good as personal tents. I don't know about anyone else but those "stinking" canvas tents bring this "je ne sais quois" about them. I do believe that it's part of BSA's summer camp memories that shouldn't be missed! I still remember my days as a Tenderfoot camping in the canvas tents at Camp Strake in Houston. We live in SE Texas, the capitols of mosquitoes. As Anarchist pointed out, netting and a dab or two of insect repellant work well, well ... maybe not in areas where there are salt-water marsh mosquitoes.

 

A couple of other points that we prefer the canvas tents are: 1) there is a lot more room for the scouts to make a mess with! 2) There is actual standing room. 3) If it is hot which is common down here in SE Texas, you can always roll up the sides and have a great breeze, whereas a regular dome 9x7 tents will be stuffy and hot. 4) You can set a cot up inside the A-frame. 5) You don't have to set up and take down the tents.

 

1Hour

(This message has been edited by OneHour)

[yellow_hammer]

I was a scout about thirty years ago. We camped often and went to summer camp at Comer in north Alabama. While there we slept in the canvas tents. I think it is part of the experience.

 

In all the camping we did we never had mosquito netting and I don't recall using any repellant. Were mosquitos just not as big of a problem back then or am I remembering the good and forgetting the bad?

[Eagle76]

Two unrelated comments, not serious enough to start new threads.

 

OneHour said:

"I don't know about anyone else but those "stinking" canvas tents bring this "je ne sais quois" about them. I do believe that it's part of BSA's summer camp memories that shouldn't be missed! I still remember my days as a Tenderfoot camping in the canvas tents at Camp Strake in Houston."

 

Several years ago, going on Tiger safari with my son, I entered a Scout camp for the first time in over 25 years. It was like I was transported back in time, to every other Scout camp I had known, and I was on familiar ground again. This common experience gives all Scouts a certain bond.

 

anarchist said:

"lather up in deet and enjoy the mosquito song.....buzzz buzzz buzzz buzzz whine buzzz buzzz!"

 

I've heard that only female mosquitos bite, but they make no sound when they fly. Male mosquitos buzz, but they don't bite. So if you are awakened by the buzzing of mosquitos, you can just roll over and go back to sleep. But if you hear nothing....

[Eamonn]

Eagle76

Why did I think about Her Who Must Be Obeyed, when I read your posting?

Eamonn.

(Ducking)

[DugNevius]

female mosquitos are the ones that bite but having spent many summers in upstate Maine i can testify, they DO make a sound.

[SWScouter]

Okay, just curious, don't male mosquitos have to eat too?

[Eagle76]

Well, gosh darn it, now you made me go Googling.

A search on "mosquito male feeding" led me to this site (oh, and it's 'mosquitoes':

http://www.wordsources.info/words-mod-mosquitoesPt1.html

 

Where amongst many interesting tidbits is this:

 

Among mosquitoes, it has been established that only the females desire and extract blood.

 

 

Although I travel incognito,

I cant deceive the smart mosquito;

While others also have corpuscles,

Mine are the ones toward which she hustles;

My blood is thin and I have asthma;

She doesnt care, she wants my plasma.

Mosquitoes seem to love the rind of me,

The front, the sides, and the behind of me;

Ive tried to think why theyre so smitten,

And as I think, once more Im bitten.

 

-Dick Emmons

 

 

Male mosquitoes drink only sugary fluids such as flower nectar. Both in the wild and in the laboratory, mosquitoes will visit certain flowers and will feed on fruit placed in their cage.

 

Since they vigorously probe the flowers of some plants, and can distinguish between different types of sugars, they play a role in the pollination of certain plants.

 

The females will also drink sugary fluids, but when hungry females are given a choice between sugar water and blood, they will always choose blood.

 

If males are offered the same choice, they will always drink the sugar water.

 

Since male mosquitoes do not suck blood, they also do not transmit diseases. Like the males of many other insect families, they are important for just one reason, and then they become superfluous.

 

[Owl62]

Our council camps do not encourage personal/troop tents at summer camp, but they do not discourage them and do allow them. Many campers bring their own tents.

 

Many of our council summer camp tents (and in other council camps I have attended) are not in the best shape (I know, I know - give more to FOS so they can buy new tents). Most are not even erected properly and when we use them we often have to strike them and put them up properly. Seems like they just slap them up any where and way. Sometimes they set them up on inclines, and I saw one put up over a small ditch with the two platforms with one long edge each down in the ditch. We were asked once by some camp staff why we put up our own tents when there were seveal unoccupied camp tents in the site. We just told them to look at the camp tents and they looked and walked away without comment (they had helped put up the camp tents - by the way, the tents were set up much the same way the next year).

 

I attended one camp where the camp provided tents for the Scouts but not the Scouters. We had to bring our own.

 

Mosquito netting is in my opinion a bigger hassle than it is worth, but it does work. I have two of them, have used them, and prefer not to.

 

Personally, I have taken my own 8X10' tent the past 4 years to 2 different camps and much prefer it to the summer camp tents. Sometimes if there are extra wooden tent platforms, I set the tent up on those. My tent, my cot, my footlocker - no hassles with the camp over their equipment. I am very particular about my camping equipment and prefer to use my own for alot of different reasons. One is that I know it is in good operational condition and will serve me well.

 

Our unit Scouters almost always bring their own tents (we kind of set up an adult patrol site separate from but kind of located in the center of the all Scout patrol sites on almost all outings. Both the Scouts and Scouters prefer it like that.

 

We have one Scout who always takes one of the troop owned Eureka 2-man Timberline tents and lives in that all week - he says he likes it. Makes him happy so why not? Some of our Scouts take larger personal tents and two of them will share those. Some do use the summer camp tents - we leave it up to them. About half of our Scouts use camp tents, the other half use troop or personal tents. Our council does not provide cots so everyone brings their own if they want one. Our troop, like many in our area also usually take hammocks and if the mosquitoes and other insects aren't bad, we sometimes sleep in our hammocks.

 

Like most troops that attend summer camp, we pretty much have it down to a well established routine for all but first year campers.

 

For those who want to experience summer camp tents - have at it. I did that for years but since summer camp is also my annual summer vacation, I prefer to take my own.

 

 

[eagleSM]

We use both.

 

The boys set up their tent line right in front the Camp provided tents (canvas A frames with wooden bases).

 

Our Timberlines are used as the boy's primary sleeping quarters.

 

The camp-provided A frames are used for storing equipment; backpacks, good clothes, dirty clothes, momentos, etc.

 

They use the camp provided cots as tables for their merit badge paperwork.

 

In our neck of the woods, bugs aren't as much a problem as are the four legged masked bandits. They have learned that despite the fact we all teach "no food in tents", that if they search enough "open" A-frame tents that they will find food. They can easily enter an A frame canvas tent at night; unlike a Timberline.

 

As SM, I sleep much better at night knowing that somebody else's child has at least some protection from critters with canines who roam the night looking for peanut butter crackers...

 

eagleSM