Do you cook inside your tent?

[Berserker]

Do you cook inside your tent?

No. I did boil water once in my vestibule when it was raining just to see how the logistics worked out, and I was not comfortable with a flame that close to my tent at all so have never done it again.

In light rain I just cook outside. In heavy rain I either cook at a shelter (if camping near one), or under a small cuben tarp pitched up high as a "hang out" area for when it rains.

[rafe]

No. That's asking for trouble in all sorts of ways.

[seattleboatguy]

In heavy rain I either cook at a shelter (if camping near one), or under a small cuben tarp pitched up high as a "hang out" area for when it rains.

Hey Berserker, how big does a "hang out" tarp need to be in order to be of practical value on a rainy evening?

[Berserker]

Hey Berserker, how big does a "hang out" tarp need to be in order to be of practical value on a rainy evening?

I normally hike with a buddy, and he usually carries his tarp. It's a Zpacks rectangular cuben tarp, and I think it's a 6'x9' weighing in around 6 oz. We have gotten many comments as to how good of an idea it is from folks hiking in the rain that have passed us in camp over the years.

[futureatwalker]

Two words: carbon monoxide

If you cook inside your tent, you risk carbon monoxide poisoning. It's odorless, and lethal. Indeed, a few mountaineers died this year on Everest, presumably because of this.

(I may be getting this wrong, but carbon monoxide is produced by incomplete combustion (and is normally produced to an extent by non-alcohol stoves). Carbon monoxide has a high affinity for the hemaglobin in you blood cells, so it binds to it instead of oxygen. No oxygen = no brain activity, so you rpaidly lose consiousness and die.)

Please don't cook in your tent. If you absolutely have to, make sure it is extremely well ventilated.


https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15138958

[nsherry61]

1) In longer daylight months, I generally cook dinner an hour or two or three before stopping for the night allowing me to quickly stop, drop, and roll over to sleep wherever I please, without having to deal with water for cooking, cleanup or the like. . . choose the best view instead of the best nearby water source, for instance. As a bonus, it also reduces both food odors that may attract unwanted wildlife and reduces the likelihood that I will camp in an established location where it is more likely that I will encounter unwanted domestic or wild life.

2) If it is raining or snowy and cold, and I am in camp, I will generally cook under my tarp since that is what I generally use for shelter instead of a tent. And cooking under a tarp is pretty easy and safe with whatever stove you are using . . . with most tarp pitches anyway, not all.

3) If I am using a tent, and the weather is bad, of course, I will cook in my vestibule, assuming I am using a stove that has well controlled flame like a typical canister stove. I have never cooked with alcohol or esbit inside my tent because they are more dangerous and both produce noxious fumes that need to be well vented. I would probably cook with Esbit in an open vestibule if that was my fuel on a trip with inclement weather and a tent. I have cooked with white gas in vestibules when mountaineering in decades gone by, but these days I use canisters for ease, weight, and frankly safety inside my shelter.

[Leo L.]

Right back from a few days out in bad weather: I had my usual setup with an Esbit stove and a small aluminium bottle to heat water.
I did all the water boiling for dinner&tea in the tent vestibule, and looked thoughtfully on this setup the whole time, seeking for problem spots.
Honestly, I did not find any.
The flame stayed well away from the rainfly.
The excess heat of the flame made the tent cosy.
I would not be afraid of Carbonmonoxyd (CO), as this only appears when the flame is burning half-choked (too little Oxygen), which is not the case when having a free, open burning flame.
The smell of the burnt Esbit may be a bigger hassle than CO. The smell proofed to be to much to bear when the flame is blown out - so this is the point where I fully open the vestibule for a minute.
I will keep my way of boiling in the tent vestibule (NOT inside the zipped-up tent).

BTW, me and my GF spent weeks, if not months, cooking (really cooking) in cold weather in the tent in Greece and in a closed van in US+Mex, using a gas (regular Benzin) stove. Even used the stove on lowest possible yellow flame as camp light.
Yes, it was smelly. No, we didn't die.

[nsherry61]

. . . No, we didn't die.

Yeah, but you will some day. ;-)

[Leo L.]

That for sure.
But not sure when, and of what.

I think a good part of why Americans/WB-members mostly vote against cooking in the tent is, that so many of you are using Alcohol, which seems to be really dangerous if spilled, soaked up by (tent) cloth and lighted up, which might end up in a catastrophy.
Remember that I had such an accident myself when, as a kid, filling up dad's Zippo with white gas, spilling a good portion of it over my trousers, and, being an innocent kid then, test-lighting the lighter. Barely escaped.