Martin Pine Redux!

In this episode of the podcast, Tim and Pamela are joined by special guest Martin Pine, an outdoor adventure enthusiast, to discuss essential camping skills and equipment. The conversation covers the importance of tarps for shelter and comfort, the advantages of using a ridgeline for setting up tarps, and the essential knots every camper should know. The hosts also delve into the topic of dehydrated meals for backcountry trips, sharing their favorite recipes and tips for efficient camp cooking. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Welcome to the Super Good Camping Podcast. My name is Pamela.

SPEAKER_01: 0:03

I'm Tim.

SPEAKER_00: 0:03

And we are from supergoodcamping.com. We are here because we're on a mission to inspire other families to enjoy camping adventures such as we have with our kids. Today's guest is an outdoor adventure favorite of ours and factored heavily in Tim's return to backcountry camping. He likes camping, hiking, canoeing, tripping, bushcraft, and winter camping on crown land as often as possible. He's pretty handy around a dehydrator, knows a thing or two about plants and animals that we all care about, and he's a pretty awesome igloo builder. Please welcome one of our favorite pneumophilists, Martin Pine, or aka Pine Martin. Yay, welcome.

SPEAKER_02: 0:37

Thank you. That's a wonderful introduction. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01: 0:39

Thank you for coming by, man. So this is our second chat with Martin. I've been so excited about this. Yeah, let's do it. All right, cool. So today we're going to try to take a shot at tackling a handful of topics that you're really good at, at least way better than I am. So you can, you can be the expert and I can ask the dumb questions. Tarpology, but, but it's, it's such a big thing. Like what kind of, so, okay, let's start with what types of tarps do you prefer to use? And then, and then I guess kind of what, what sort of sizes, like what's a, what's a good size to take into the back country? Do you take one, do you take two, like one for your tent, one for your cooking area? How does that play out for you?

SPEAKER_02: 1:26

Yeah, okay, well, so, topology is a big subject, and I always tell people that if there's one piece of equipment that you need to bring that's gonna, significantly improve the quality of your camping experience more than anything else it's the tarp you know when we start off most of us we just have a tent and then when it rains we live in our tent right and we spend all our time in our tent when there's any kind of bad weather right yeah but if you have a tarp you get to live outside and then your tent is just your dog house it's just where you sleep right so a tarp is actually an important piece of equipment because it keeps you dry in the rain it keeps you out of the cold wind when it's cold and windy it keeps you out of the driving rain, when the wind is driving the rain horizontally, it keeps you in the shade when it's really hot out there and shade is at a premium sometimes because you're not always in a big leafy forest. Sometimes you're in a more open area, especially if you're camping on an island or something like that. Or yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

especially if you're doing river stuff like you're running down the French River. Or if you're

SPEAKER_02: 2:29

doing desert camping or something like that. You can be pretty exposed to the sun and so a tarp is critical. And also in cold weather, in the The air is very cold and really, really damp. And it's nice to have a fire. And if you know a thing or two about how to rig a tarp and how to build a modest fire, not a big bonfire, but a modest fire that's not going to melt or sear your tarp or burn pinholes in your tarp, then you can create a real microclimate, a tiny little bubble of really warm, dry air, even though it's just, you know, raining around you and the air is saturated with moisture and it's damp and cold. So a tarp is one Wonderful for that. But as a consequence, what kind of camping you're going to do is going to dictate what kind of tarps that you want. So if you're going to be camping in the desert, you want a tarp that's going to give you shade. And that means you need a dark tarp, a really dark brown, you're not going to get black, but a dark brown or something like that, or a very, very deep gray, even a deep red or something like that. You want something that's going to block light. But if you're camping in Ontario, so we both live in Ontario, if you're canoe camping in Ontario or something like that, and you're gonna be mostly concerned with rain, it's gonna be overcast, it's gonna be gray skies, it's gonna be kind of dim and stuff like that. If you wear a dark tarp over yourself, you're gonna find it kind of gloomy. And so I want a nice, bright, cheery tarp. So, you know, something light and beige or bright yellow, canary yellow or something like that. It allows light to go in and reflects light inside, right? So you create a nice, warm space. So with respect to kinds of tarps, you have to sort of think about what you're going to be doing it for. So if you're going to be in Ontario, get something that's going to give you the right coverage. We'll talk about what we need for coverage, but you want something that's the right color. Also, dark colors attract bugs. And if you live in this part of the country, bugs during bug season are hellish. Dark colors, you know, dark blues, browns, you know, grays, all the camo colors, all the tactical colors that some people, you know, the macho colors that people like, they attract bugs. Whereas a bright yellow tarp is actually going to reduce that. So it's bright, it's cheery, and it discourages the bugs somewhat. So that's what the first thing I talk about when it comes to talk about what kind of tarp to get. what kind of camping are you going to be doing? So I'm going to assume for the purposes of this discussion that we're mostly talking about canoe tripping. Is that a safe bet? Yep. Yep. Okay. And then what kind of tarp you want? Well, you want something that gives you good coverage, but if you get too big a tarp, let's say you're going, you know, two or three people or you and your partner and you're, you know, your 50 pound dog or something like that, it's got to cover all of you and whatever gear you're going to have, right? You're probably looking at something in the neighborhood of 10 by 10, at least, or maybe 10 by 12. All right. You can go with a square tarp or a rectangle angular tarp. But if you get a tarp that's too big, if you get one of those monsters, you know, that like, you know, 20 feet across or something like that, then what you've got is a giant sail. So you're getting a lot of coverage, but you are getting an awful lot of sail. So when the wind comes up, you're going to have to guy that out really, really strongly. You're going to need lots of guy out points. You're going to need lots of guy out lines. And even then, there's a good chance that it's going to billow and you're going to rip out guy lines and you're going to get more flap the bigger your tarp is. So the other thing I tell people is, look, don't limit yourself to only one tarp. Buy different kinds of tarps. Buy different size tarps for different purposes. And when you go on a trip and you're going to be out there for a while, let's say it's not just an overnight, or you're going to be out there for a week or something like that, It's better to have two smaller tarps than one big one. First of all, a big one is harder to rig. You need more span between trees and things like that. Smaller tarps fit into more areas. It's nice to be able to set up your tarps sometimes so that they're kind of at 90 degrees to each other, blocking the wind and the rain because, you know, wind changes during rainstorms and windstorms. And so, you know, you initially set up your tarp against the prevailing wind, but then during the course of the storm, it starts to turn or a couple of days later, there's a different rain coming from another direction. If you have two tarps, you have more versatility. So you can block wind and rain from different directions. And if you have a second tarp, you can do things like protect your gear. I want to store my gear over here. I want it to be dry, but I want lots of living space where me and my partner or my friends or our pets or dogs are going to be with us and so forth. So you want a nice dry area for yourselves and another kind of storage area where your gear stays dry. For instance, your store of firewood. If you've been in the woods for days and it's been raining and it's going to rain for more, dry firewood is precious. But you don't want to stockpile dry firewood under the tarp with you. It takes up a lot of room until you process it and break it down. But you can go into the bush and find standing dead wood and just throw it under the tarp. It'll slowly dry under there and then you can go under there and process it. So you have a place. that is a kind of dry area, a wind-free area where you can process wood. And there's a million wood chips everywhere and bits of twigs, but your living space is tidy, clean. It's where you have your fire. It's where you cook. It's where you eat. It's where you have a kind of convivial experience. So I always recommend two tarps over a big one. And if you can't afford a second tarp, well, then you want one that will give you good coverage. So, I mean, typically something like eight by 10 is plenty for most couples. Uh, I have one that is, uh, I believe 10 by 14, which is a really big one. Um, and that's when I'm going with, you know, a few other people. Uh, and then I have an eight by 10, which is, you know, just about perfect, uh, for me and one other person. And it's small enough that I can still take that solo because it's not such a big span. And what you're looking for in a tarp is not the cheap blue poly tarp that you get at Canadian tire. Um, that's what you can afford. That's what, Right. Yes, exactly. Yeah. But the problem with those is that they don't have webbing loops as guy out points. They have those metal grommets and they're not reinforced where they are. So they tear out a lot. So they fall apart. They flap a lot. They're very stiff. They don't pack down small. They're huge. They're comparatively heavy compared to almost any other tarp that you can get. And they make a heck of a lot of noise. They make that rustling. It sounds like you're inside of a potato chip bag you know there's that crinkling you know plasticky noise right so they're noisy so they're not peaceful and also they tend to be blue and blue is like a really drab color to be under you know that that it filters that blue light through and it's it's kind of ghoulish under there you don't want to be stuck you know for two days uh under one of those those tarts so i always encourage people look get the best pack you you can afford get the best sleeping bag, the best tent that you can afford, but invest in a good tarp, right? So go out and get something like a good tarp by Rab or Didi Hammocks or something like that. They're made out of a good quality material. They will be light. They will compact really, really quite small. I have one tarp that's eight by 10. It's only a little bit bigger than a Nalgene bottle. And it's really, really light. And that includes all of the guy lines and my ridge line with it. So that's what you're looking for. You're looking for something that's light, something that's compact, obviously something that's waterproof. Something like sil-nylon I think is ideal. It's the ultimate in light and compressible. There are other materials that are lighter. um like cuban fiber um but or dcf uh but the problem is it doesn't compact as well right so something like sill nylon if you can afford it is really ideal and then as i said you want web loops you don't want grommets you want web webbing loops all around the edges of the tarp as many as possible and if you can have a webbing loop right in the middle of the tarp right square in the middle of the tarp that really helps to uh when you're setting up your tarp and there's a big wind that's blowing against the side of it. It prevents it from billowing in. You can anchor the center of your tarp out away from you. And so it creates room inside the tarp for you. So you don't have that wind wall behind you blowing against you. So those are the things that I recommend. Multiple tarps. Think carefully about the color. Go for light and small. More than one tarp if you can. Um, webbing loops all around the edges and preferably a tie out right in the middle of it. Um, and make sure that those webbing loops where they attach to the tarp are reinforced. There should be a bit of fabric that's sewn in there, well stitched in so that they cannot pull out. Um, if a tarp has lots of guy out points, it's unlikely to get torn or ripped, right? The more tie out points you have, the totter you can make your tarp. And when your tarp is like really drum tight, it doesn't matter what wind hits it because the wind glances off of it. It deflects off of it as opposed to pushing it in like a sail. And that's, now you've got like the, you know, the strength of a Volkswagen pushing into your tarp, your guy lines are going to rip out. And if your guy lines don't fail, then it's your tarp that tears, right? So you want a tarp that's, that has lots of guy out points to keep it taut. So as to protect your tarp. And also it's easier to rig it when you have lots of guy out points, you have more options.

SPEAKER_01: 12:10

Right. So, okay. So perfect, perfect segue that leads me into, so you mentioned use a word Ridgeline. So Ridgeline, So I know that there are multiple different ways and you're going to run into different tree configurations or lack of trees or whatever it is. What are some of the ways to rig it in a square pattern, in a kitty corner with a ridge line underneath? And then it always makes me think of a tablecloth turned sideways. I don't know. Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 12:45

right. Yeah, I know what you mean. I know exactly what you mean. Okay, well, before I mention Ridgeline, let me contrast that with what most people do when they string a tarp. They have a tarp, and there's four corners. And the first thing they do is they tie a line to one corner, and they attach that to a tree, and then they go to the opposite corner. And they attach a line to that corner, and they tie that out to an opposite tree, and then they do that to the other two corners, right? And, I mean, that works, but the problem is you are pulling really, really hard on those corners. You're applying an awful lot of force there, and there's not a lot of support in the middle of the tarp. And that just presents an awful lot of strain on the fabric, right? And so if you have a cheaper quality tarp, um it's more likely to tear if you guide out that way so the alternative that many people have hit upon i discovered this years ago and i've been doing it ever since because it seems that every other form of of guying out your your tarp is inferior in my estimation is to use a ridge line so all ridge line is is you tie you don't touch the tarp you just tie a line between two trees right um at about about as high as you can reach typically Okay. And so you tie a line at one tree and you walk over to the other tree and you tie a line there. And then you're going to drape your tarp right over that. And then you can use what are called prussic loops, two little loops of rope, paracord or something like that. And you fasten the two center points, the two center edges of the tarp. across that. So it's like it's hanging from a clothesline. It's like you're putting a sheet over a clothesline. And you're attaching it with clothespins at the edges. So it's only attached at two points, at the edges. And then you guy out the wings, the two wings of your tarp. And there typically what you're creating is something like an A-frame. An A-frame that's raised up well off the ground so you can walk right through under the ridgeline, under the tarp. So that's one way of doing it. That's one way of using a ridgeline. Another way of using a ridgeline is to actually use those same Prusik loops, but instead of draping the tarp over the ridgeline, you literally suspend it using those Prusik loops under the tarp. And if anyone's unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, you can just look up on YouTube. There's all kinds of videos by all kinds of people that show this particular configuration of string the tarp with a ridgeline and Prusiks. So what's... And if anyone's listening... Sorry?

SPEAKER_01: 15:15

What's the... What would be a pro or a con or a different advantage to stringing it over versus stringing it underneath?

SPEAKER_02: 15:24

Okay, so if you're stringing it over, then when the wind blows, that tarp is getting pushed into the ridgeline. One wing of that tarp is getting pushed into the ridgeline. And so the ridgeline acts as superior control. support along the length of the middle of the tarp, which is a great thing. If it's suspended below, then really the tarp is anchored at only three points. The two center edges that I mentioned, and then Usually right in the middle of the tarp, you have a loop where you can attach to the, right? So now it's suspended. It's literally hanging underneath the clothesline, so to speak, okay? The advantage of doing it under is that it's easier to make changes and reorient your tarp than when it's not hanging over the ridgeline. So for instance, supposing I need to reorient my entire tarp, okay? It can be difficult to do if it's draped over the ridgeline. But if it's hanging underneath, it's easier to do those. And one of the reasons that we use this ridgeline concept with the Prusik loops is that you can slide the tarp along the ridge line. You can move it to the left or the right along the ridge line as needed. So let's say that you set up your tarp and then you realize, oh, we need to move it to the left or to the right because the wind is changing and I've got my little fire pit under the tarp, but it's too close to the center of the tarp and there's too much smoke gathering under the center of the tarp. I'd like the fire to be closer to the edge. Well, I've got a choice. I can move my fireplace over or I can just slide the tarp over, right? So it's easier to slide the tarp and that's much harder to do if you have uh anchored your your tarp by the four corners to you know to three or four different trees or something like that that can be difficult to do uh because the trees are not going to move right they're they're they are where they are right but your ridge line allows you to have one access along which you can slide your tarp back and forth from left to right however you see fit. And it helps sometimes when the wind is coming at a certain angle and the tarp is kind of billowing and rustling and rippling on one side, you can sort of tug it in one direction, up or down, and make it taut again. So the thing with tarps is they're fussy, right? There's always a lot of fussing. The wind changes direction, um the the the lines slacken and relax after they've been the tarps been strung for a while or if it's been raining your cordage gets wet and it gets relaxed and stretching so you have to tighten it right so this thing is called tarpology because there's a bit of an art and a bit of a science to it you do in fact have to learn to fuss but i actually find it enjoyable and there's a certain sense of proficiency and accomplishment that comes from stringing a tarp quickly and efficiently in the pouring rain, and then your gear is dry right away, and knowing how to fuss with it so that when the wind changes direction and the smoke is not going where you want it to go under your tarp or something like that, there's a real sense of accomplishment there, right? But tarps are fiddly, so you have to learn a bunch of knots, right? So the ridgeline knots... Typically, you anchor to a tree using any knot you care to. And then you string your ridge line to the other tree and you use something called a trucker's hitch, which a lot of canoes will know because you often use a trucker's hitch to tie down your canoe. It creates a kind of ratcheting effect and you can really, really reef on that line and get it nice and taut. Well, you want your tarp to be nice and taut, you know, as close to drum tight. And if you have a ridge line that's really, really tight like that, That's great. But as the line relaxes over time, you need to retighten it. Well, you don't want to have to undo your tarp and redo it. You don't have to undo your Ridgeline entirely and redo it. If you use a trucker's hitch, you can tighten it up again and raise that tarp when it starts to sag and come down from all of the lines having relaxed, the fabric itself having stretched and relaxed, the weight of the water on the tarp and on the lines and all that. So the Ridgeline method is really great for that. It eliminates, the Ridgeline method actually eliminates a lot of the fuss. And even when it doesn't eliminate the fuss, it makes the fussing easier. So I always recommend use a ridgeline for your tarp. It allows you to configure your tarp in more ways and it's easier to fuss with it when you do need to fuss with it and you will need to fuss with it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:52

Yes, you will. And just for the record, I remember one of the first lessons I learned, I don't think anybody told me, I think I sort of figured it out on my own, was the first thing you set up is a tarp and the last thing you take down is a tarp. Otherwise, my

SPEAKER_02: 20:09

absolute rule.

SPEAKER_01: 20:10

Yeah. Potential for being wet or sunburnt or whatever.

UNKNOWN: 20:16

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 20:16

Yeah. So you mentioned

SPEAKER_02: 20:17

that that rule has saved me quite a lot. Actually, that rule has saved me a number of times. Yeah. A freak storm came out of nowhere and I would have been soaked if I had sort of said, OK, I'm going to get rid of the tarp first. You know, and the fact that the tarp was up last meant that I could pack all my gear under my tarp with all hell breaking loose around me, everything getting soaked. But my gear was getting put away dry. Because I was dry and I had this nice dry cocoon under the tarp and everything was great. And then the last thing you put away is the tarp and it can be soaking wet. You can just put it in a stuff sack and attach it to the back of the outside of your pack. It doesn't have to go in and soak everything inside your pack.

SPEAKER_01: 20:53

Yeah. And because it's the last thing, if it goes away wet, when you get home, it's the first thing that comes out and gets spread out to dry. I actually think it was probably a freak storm. I seem to recall paddling. the storm was coming from behind us and i had no idea and we got there started setting up the tent blah blah blah and then boom the skies opened up it's like if i had a tarp up so next time yeah

SPEAKER_00: 21:16

yeah so you mentioned the trucker's hitch notch are there other knots that you'd recommend uh

SPEAKER_02: 21:25

yeah so i mean part of topology is knowing knowing your knots and The nice thing about knowing knots is that it's one of the skills as opposed to a piece of gear. It's one of the skills that's going to improve your camping experience because you use knots all the time. If you're a canoeist, if you're a paddler, you're using lines all the time. You've got lines to tie down your canoe. You're going to have lines to tie up your canoe on shore to lash your canoe and stuff like that. Or maybe to lash your paddles into your canoe when you're portaging, things like that. If you're using a tent, well, we all know that there are guidelines on tents and it's really nice to learn, you know, how to do a taut line hitch and stuff like that, right? When you're in camp, you want to string up a clothesline to, you know, hang your stuff, right? Very often people hang their stuff under the tarp So if the ridge line is under the tarp, you can just hang your wet socks and underwears to dry and your towels and stuff under the tarp. But you can also string a line elsewhere to dry out in the sun and stuff like that. So we're always wanting to tie things up. Cordage is one of the most useful sort of multipurpose pieces of gear that you can have on a camping trip. And if you know lots of knots, then sort of increases your capacity to perform these little tasks. efficiently. And one of the most frustrating things is when you have like tied a big old granny knot because you don't know how to tie knots, right? There's that saying, right? If you don't know how to tie knots, just tie lots, right? And then you need to undo those damn knots, right? And so you're in there with your teeth undoing these knots. And when you know knots, you can tie knots that are quick release, that are just really easy to undo. Just a little tug and it all comes apart, right? So practically all of the knots that I teach when I teach tarpology are quick release knots so that you can string your tarp up and When you need to strike your tarp or adjust your tarp or whatever it is, it's very, very easy. So most of the knots I will use are quick release where possible. So I use a trucker's hitch as I indicated for my ridge line. I make that a quick release trucker's hitch. The knots that I use around stakes and around trees to guy out the wings and edges of my tarp, I use something called a stake hitch, and it's a quick-release knot. But let's talk about specific knots that are really valuable sort of general purpose. One is it's a fixed closed loop. It's a loop that's not going to open and close and tighten on you. It's a fixed closed loop. It's called a bowline. B-O-W-L-I-N-E. Some people pronounce it bowline. It has nothing to do with bows or ships or anything like that. It's called a bowline. It's just a closed loop. You can make it any size you want. There's a couple of ways of tying that knot, but it's very, very simple and very effective. So it's a good way of just attaching a line to something, but for two reasons. Imagine a piece of rope that has a little loop in it. So it kind of looks like the little letter P or something like that, right? And I need to tie... this this rope to a tree well how do i do that well i have this tiny little loop that looks like a little p that's no good i can't tie it right but what i can do is i can pass that loop around the tree and then i can take the whole length of my line and i can create like a little loop and pass it through the closed loop and then i can put a stick in that it's called toggle and tighten it up and cinch it up that is in fact how i anchor my ridge line at the first tree I use a bowline with a toggle holding the line through. And then I will go over to the other tree, and then I attach my trucker's hitch. And that's a quick-release knot, because when I need to go, I just pull on the stick, and out comes that knot. Out comes that wrap around the tree. And the bowline stays on. So it's one of those knots that you tie, and then you don't have to keep retying. It just kind of stays there on your ridge line or on whatever cordage you have. So a bowline is a really, really useful kind of... all-purpose one. The Ridgeline is good for canoeists who need to tie down their canoes, and it's great for the Ridgeline. It's kind of complicated to describe, so I'll just refer people to some YouTube videos. Just look up Trucker's Hitch. There's tons of how-to videos. One of the knots I use the most, but tie the least, is the Totline hitch. And the Totline hitch is the knot that I use to affix guy lines to my tarp to the corners and edges of my tarp all right so my guy lines are always on my tarp i don't take them off at the end of the trip they just they are always on okay so i i attach my my guy line um to my tarp and i use a taut line hitch a taut line hitch is is a closed loop but it's not fixed it's adjustable which means you can shorten and lengthen that rope so I've got the taut line hitch attached to a web loop of my tarp, and then I take the other end of that guy line and I attach it to a root or a log or a tree or a shrub or wrap it around a rock or whatever it is, or around a stake that I pound into the ground, whatever it is. And when I need to adjust that line, when I need to snug it up to make it taut, if the line's relaxed or I've got some flap or something like that, I just... open up that loop close to the edge of the tarp where I've attached it, and that shortens the line overall, shortens the overall length of the line. So the taut line hitch is a hitch that allows you to make the line taut, hence taut line hitch. And you never have to take it off, right? When you tie that knot onto your tarp, it stays on. So I say that's the knot I use the most and tie the least. You tie it and you forget about it. It's never going to come off. You're going to leave it there. you know, potentially for years until you need to replace your guidelines for some reason. Another really valuable knot is, it's called a bend. So hitches are knots that allow you to attach to something. A bend is when you need to conjoin two different ropes to each other or two ends of a rope to each other, okay? So a bend is how you join two pieces of, two ends of rope. And the knot I would recommend there is called the sheet bend. It's a very, very simple knot. And I mean, if you can tie a shoelace, a shoelace is about five times more complicated than most of the knots that I've already mentioned here. I mean, arguably the trucker's hitch is the only thing that's about as complicated as a shoelace, but everyone can tie their shoelace. Everyone can do it with their eyes closed. Everyone can do it in the dark. Everyone can tie someone else's shoelaces, even though it's opposite and reverse from how you do it, right? If you can tie a shoelace, you can tie any knot because a shoelace is a compound complex knot, right? But people are intimidated by knots because they don't get to use them a lot and they don't use them every day. And so they don't get the facility that they get with a shoelace, right? But all of these knots are really, really simple to use. And if you really want to be sort of good at knots, just watch TV with the length of rope and just do a sheet bend. Do a clove hitch. Do a bowline. Practice a trucker's hitch. And just while you're watching TV, just do the knot over and over again. At first, you have to look and concentrate and think about what you're doing. But eventually, you don't have to look. You can just let your hands do it. It becomes completely automatic. And that's a nice feeling because, you know, if in the night you need to make an adjustment and... You don't have to go and get your headlamp because it's kind of dim and dark out and turn on the light. You want to just be able to reach over, grab the knot in your hand, and you can just do it like you would do a shoelace. So every knot in principle should be as easy to do. and perform it as a shoelace, in the dark, behind your back, whatever. I mean, there's all kinds of fun exercises, you know, tie a bowline behind your back and then test your friends to see if they can do it. And when you can do knots with your eyes closed or behind your back, then you know you know that knot. You understand the logic of that knot, and you're not going to forget it because your muscle memory takes over. Like, it's happened to me where I go, how do I do this knot? And as soon as I take it and I start, oh, yeah. my, you know, my muscle memory kicks in and my hands remember how to talk the knot, right? I mean, it's kind of an amazing thing that that happens. But if you have to describe how you tie a shoelace, it would be really, really hard. And if you have to think about it, it's kind of hard. But as soon as you touch your shoelaces, you know what to do. So I would say those are the knots that I would recommend the most. The trucker's hitch for a ridge line, the bowline, it's kind of a multi-purpose loop. The taut line hitch as an adjustable loop that allows you to tighten and slacken lines at will. And the sheet bend for joining two pieces of cordage together. That's really good. And the nice thing about that is that the knots that I've just described are really, really easy to undo. They're easy to crack. I don't like a knot like a granny knot that's an overhand knot and an overhand knot on top of that. When you reef on that and you tighten those knots up, you're going to need your teeth or a knife or something to, you know, or tweezers or something to pull that apart. But most of the standard camping knots don't require any of that. They're all easy to crack with your fingers. You don't have to fuss and get in there with your teeth and struggle.

SPEAKER_01: 30:42

So the one that joins the two pieces, sheet bend?

SPEAKER_02: 30:46

Yeah, sheet bend. And there's a reason why it's called a sheet bend that might matter, actually. The sheet bend is called the sheet bend because sailors used to have to raise the sheets, the sails, right? Yep. And they would need a lot of rope. And sometimes the rope would fray and they'd have to cut it and they'd have to splice another rope on. But when they couldn't splice it together and they just had to tie two ropes together, they needed a knot that was really strong, that wasn't going to fail, that was going to hoist the whole weight of that sheet up through a pulley. But because it had to go through a pulley, that knot had to be really small.

SPEAKER_01: 31:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 31:20

Right. And that's why it's called the sheet bend. And that's the charm of the sheet bend is it's really small. It's really easy to tie and it's really easy to crack. And you'll thank me because you'll thank me if you learn the sheet bend, because the day is going to come where you need to tie one end of a piece of cord to another because your guy line doesn't go all the way to that tree. So you take another piece of cord and you cut it and you get, and then you go like, what not do I do? And you find yourself doing a shoelace automatically. Well, that's not going to hold as soon as I pull on, it's going to come apart. Right. Uh, and if you tie a granny knot, you'll never be able to undo it. But if you do a sheet band, you'll have a knot that's really, really secure, but that you can undo effortlessly when you need to.

SPEAKER_01: 31:55

Yeah. That's since we're done talking, I'm, I'm looking that up. All right. Uh, The one other– well, and we've discussed this before lightly, what sort of got me back into– one of the things that I watched early on in my whole YouTube exploration was you doing dehydrated meals for the backcountry. We won't spend a ton of time on it, but I wouldn't mind knowing what some of your sort of favorites are and if you've ever had like an abysmal failure because I have–

SPEAKER_02: 32:32

Oh, well, let me think. Okay, so some of my favorites. Well, you know, it's really funny. I have a very unconventional diet now. So I've been on this sort of, you know, ketogenic carnivore diet for a long time. So I don't bring a lot of fruits and vegetables and pasta and stuff like that anymore with me. So, you know, dehydrated meat, fresh meat, eggs, powdered eggs and stuff like that is mostly what I bring with me. I dehydrate bone broth. That is an amazing thing. I recommend this to people. Beef broth, chicken broth, whatever. Broth mixed into a dish of your own making adds an awful lot. And if you make your own bone broth, like if you stew bones and you reduce them, you can dehydrate that. And it comes out looking like a transparent broth. potato chip, basically, like a translucent potato chip. And it imparts an enormous amount of electrolytes, an enormous amount of fat and gelatin. And it's all very good for you. All that collagen is really good for you. And of course, it imparts an awful lot of flavor. So it enriches your food. So that's kind of a hack. It's a way of bumping up the savoriness of your meals. Instead of throwing a bouillon cube in there or an oxo cube or something like that, Dehydrate your own bone broth. It's going to be a lot better. And make your bone broth however you like to make it. With respect to favorite recipes, I don't have any brilliant exotic recipes for dehydrating. I know what kind of spaghetti sauce I like. When I'm in the mood for a pasta or spaghetti sauce, I just cook the spaghetti sauce that I would make at home. And that's what I always tell people. You don't have to go looking up recipes. Whatever you're going to cook at home, cook it at home and dehydrate it. Don't even worry too much about how much oil goes into it. Oil doesn't dehydrate, so it's not going to be as compact and as light. But oil doesn't spoil either. It goes rancid and is oxidized. It's not going to affect the flavor. It's never going to kill you. It's never going to go off. You never have to worry about that. So if you like chili, I love chili, chili con carne. That's one of my favorites. That's one of my staples. That's a go-to. In fact, I have a fridge full of this stuff, and I'll dehydrate that. That's a favorite. Abysmal failures. Chicken. Tried dehydrating chicken. It doesn't work. It comes out really tough and chewy and stringy. It never reconstitutes. The only way to do chicken, as near as I can tell, is to go out and buy that ground up chicken that comes in a tin or put it through the meat grinder if you have a meat grinder or a food processor and grind. And then it will dehydrate into something and reconstitute into something approximating Ground beef. But even then it's a little chewier. It doesn't come back the way ground beef does. Yeah. So chicken is my, my worst failure. One of my best dehydrating recipes though, that was like a real success, a roaring success. And this was my partner at the time came up with this. She made panzerotti. So, you know, you bring the fixings for dough and you bring, you know, your, your kind of spaghetti sauce right and um and cheese string cheese um and little slices of salami um and so the only part of this that was dehydrated was just the sauce but man you can make a panzerotti in the bush in in something like an outback oven which is just a pot within a pot i don't know do you know the pot within a pot system i've seen it before i haven't tried it yet yeah you just take a big pot And you put three stones in the bottom and you take a smaller pot. And then you're going to put your food in the smaller pot, in the pot within a pot. And you're going to put a lid there. And then you're going to put tinfoil over it. And you're going to put that over the fire. And it creates an oven. It's the poor man's Outback oven. It's the Outback oven that before Outback oven got trademarked and turned into a product. But it works really well. And you can bake a pizza. A big, round, football-shaped panzerotti in the bush. And it was fantastic. Fantastic. And it helped that we had a really, really good spaghetti sauce in there that had been dehydrated. So that would definitely be a favorite, a really good spaghetti sauce, however you like it, and a chili. I find the chili con carne just sort of gives, you know, you can spice it as much as you like. That goes a long way. That's a kind of stick-to-your-ribs kind of food. Oh, another failure. Here's another abject fail. Dehydrated peanut butter. No,

SPEAKER_01: 37:07

no,

SPEAKER_02: 37:07

doesn't work. You can go to bulk barn and stuff and they have like powdered peanut butter. Tried it. Doesn't work. But, oh, here's two things, two dehydrated foods that work really well that I didn't dehydrate. They're products you can buy, and I'm not paid to promote anything. Powdered eggs by a company called Thrive, Thrive Life Eggs.

SPEAKER_01: 37:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 37:27

They're fantastic. Every egg is actually two yolks. So when you're reconstituting or rehydrating these powdered eggs, you're getting the equivalent of two yolks and one egg white for every product. equivalent measure of one egg. What is the other thing they make? I can't remember what the other one was. I forgot. Story of my life. That one is a staple. Winter camping, you can't take eggs winter camping. They freeze and it's terrible, right? But if you want eggs winter camping, you'd have to do powdered eggs. And Thrive Life, they're not cheap, but man, are they good. They really taste like eggs, and they're really, really rich. So it's really nice. Unlike most powdered eggs that are kind of, you know, they can be a little bit sawdusty.

SPEAKER_01: 38:09

Yeah, we've had hit and miss. We've had some good ones, and we've had some ones that, man, you've got to be right on top. You have to be exact, like within a couple of drops of what they say. Otherwise, it turns into just mucky crap, unfortunately. Yeah, yeah. Interesting. Oh, I

SPEAKER_02: 38:27

have one other little tip. I have one little tip about dehydrating. And I learned this rather late, but it's a real time saver. So I used to like if I wanted to make a pasta, you know, I would dehydrate a pasta sauce and then I would go into the bush and I'd rehydrate my pasta sauce and I would cook my pasta and then I would mix them together just like I would at home. And then a friend of mine says, oh, you don't need to do that. You can just rehydrate your pasta and the sauce. What do you mean the pasta and the sauce? Just cook your pasta at home and dehydrate it. And then when you put it back in boiling water and then drain it, it's already cooked. All you're trying to do is plump it up and heat it up. You don't have to cook it again. Cook it at home, dehydrate it. And so that was a huge time saver. Like if you're one of those people that uses canisters fuels and stuff like that. You're on a backpacking trip and you've got to, you know, conserve on fuel. You don't want to bring lots of fuel and stuff like that. That's a great trick. It saves an awful lot of fuel and it saves an awful lot of time. You'll cook your pasta in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the fuel. If you boil your pasta at home, dehydrate it, and then just rehydrate the pasta itself, not just the sauce. And you can rehydrate both at the same time.

SPEAKER_01: 39:44

Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah. Um, one of the things we do, we learned it from, uh, from Kevin ride was to, uh, To do exactly that, do all the cooking at home and just throw it in a pot, boil your water, throw the amount of water you need in, stick it in a cozy, walk away for, you know, go process some wood for 15 minutes or whatever, right? Yeah,

SPEAKER_02: 40:04

but I can't believe it took me like years to realize that you could do that with the pasta itself.

SPEAKER_01: 40:10

Yeah, well, it's, and again, with... So I mean, we had the wildfire season from, from hell last year. I am, I'm anticipating with the lack of snow melt off and stuff. I suspect we're going to have a similar one this year. So, so that's the, like we like to do pasta in the backyard. back country, especially if we've got a, you know, it, it, it's, it's a lot of fuel that you can burn in your body when you've got a long, a long day of portaging or whatever. Um, but we're going to, we're going to do exactly that. We're going to do the cooking here this year because a lot of times I will take, uh, I don't get paid by sidekicks to use their brand name, but it's an easy, it's an or thing that you pull off the shelf, right? But that eight minutes of boiling is going to eat a boatload of fuel over the course of eight days. So I'm going to cook it here and take it with me.

SPEAKER_02: 41:00

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't matter if you are... in a forest and you don't have a fire ban in effect or something like that, then, you know, you can burn all the firewood that you can find and there's no problem, especially if you're out on crown land, you're not short of firewood and stuff, you know. But when you're not supposed to have any open fires and you have to use a stove, then, you know, and you're out there for a long time, you end up having to bring a lot of fuel. It makes a big difference. And plus, I'm really... So I'm not one of those camping... culinary connoisseurs who need big fancy meals and stuff like that. I don't focus an awful lot on food. I know I've made videos about dehydrating, but those are how-to videos on what the process is and how it works. But I don't have tons of recipes that I recommend or anything like that. But I have to say the amount of time it takes out there is considerable. if you're not someone who loves to eat. Like some people, they love to go camping because they love to eat in the bush. They just love that experience. I enjoy camp cuisine, but I wouldn't make it the focus of a video, for instance, right? And some people do, and a lot of people do that. There's a lot of camping food porn, right? But I'm not that guy. That doesn't work for me. So I always want to get my meals, to be as easy as possible. I take my time eating them and I'll linger over a couple of cups of coffee and a little bit of scotch afterwards or something like that or before. But I don't like fussing over a meal. I have a hard time with that. So if I can get the cooking time down and if I can simplify the process, I'm always all for that. So that's the kind of camp cook I am. I wouldn't make a good guide for that if I had to cook for other people.

SPEAKER_01: 42:56

Here's some shoe leather. Shut up. Simple is good, especially if you're not doing a base camp type of thing, which we tend to do when we jump in a canoe. We might have a stay day here or there, but most of the time we're on the move. We're off to another lake. We're checking out something else. We're off on a hike, whatever. I don't want to spend... I mean, there are moments like last year, we got a reflector oven and I made pizza in it. I made a roast beef in it. That was like, holy crap, I can do this in the backcountry? That's insane. That was fun. And eating pizza on day four or something like that, that was pretty cool. I will give it that. But yes, for the most part, I don't want to hang around and spend a lot of time making stuff. I'm happy to do it at home while it's... you know, you, it can boil on the stove for whatever, while you're doing something else. And then you stick it in the dehydrator and tomorrow I will go and pull out the vacuum machine and bag it. And, and we're off to the races. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. All right. You know what? There it is. Perfect. Almost exactly 45 minutes. Awesome. Awesome. Uh, good. I'm glad we got that in. I thought when we started getting into knots, I thought, Oh, we're not, we're not going to squeeze this all in.

UNKNOWN: 44:12

Um,

SPEAKER_02: 44:12

Yeah, sorry.

SPEAKER_01: 44:14

No, no, no, not at all. Not at all. That is perfect. That's a sweet spot. When I edit it down, it'll get close to 40 minutes, 42 minutes probably, and we're off to the races. I'll let the young lady do the outro, then we'll do the thank yous and the goodbyes, and then I go cook dinner. No, I'm going to look up that knot in the Thrive Eggs.

SPEAKER_02: 44:36

Sheep end. Sheep end.

SPEAKER_01: 44:39

You go ahead. I mean, right.

SPEAKER_00: 44:41

That's it for us for today. Thank you so much to our special guest Martin Pine for joining us for a second time. Please do listen to his previous episode because it was full of all kinds of information too. And look him up on YouTube and any of the other social channels that you're on Martin. I don't know if there's anywhere else you want them to find you.

SPEAKER_02: 44:58

Yeah, that's right. My name is Martin with an I, but my YouTube channel is PineMartin with a Y, and so my Instagram is the same.

SPEAKER_01: 45:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 45:07

And if you look me up on Facebook, look up PineMartin with a Y, all one word, PineMartin with a Y. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00: 45:13

And while you're there, look us up too. And you can also join our group, which is called The Campfire. And you can find us on YouTube and you can find us on Twitter and Instagram and TikTok. We're on TikTok too.

SPEAKER_01: 45:23

And all the places.

SPEAKER_00: 45:23

We're on all the things. And we will talk to you again soon. If you would like to talk to us, our email address is hi at supergoodcamping.com. That's hi at supergoodcamping.com. And we'll talk to you again soon. Bye. Bye.