Summary
➡ The author goes on a camping trip where he sets up a camp, cooks a meal using a portable stove, and deals with bugs. He also goes on a bike ride, collects firewood, and tries to start a fire with a Zippo fire starter kit, which fails. He then uses a volcano stick to successfully start the fire. At night, he uses a mosquito repellent device to keep the bugs away.
➡ The writer went camping and tested a device that successfully kept mosquitoes away. He slept well in his tent, woke up early, and packed up his campsite in the rain. He emphasizes the importance of extinguishing campfires completely to prevent forest fires. He records his adventures to share with his YouTube subscribers who can’t have these experiences themselves, but notes that it takes a lot of time and effort to create these videos.
Transcript
I spent the last 40 hours videotaping pretty much everything, even me cooking. So you’re going to want to sit back, you’re going to want to relax, and you’re going to want to check this out. So it’s Sunday, it’s Sunday afternoon and I had it out of my house at about 10:00 in the morning because I’m making a video on how to self recovering your vehicle, how to pull yourself out of a jam if you’re all alone and stuck in mud or stuck on rocks or stuck anywhere.
So I plan on heading out of here at the end of the week and I’m going to be on the road for about three, four months or I don’t know, but I’m going to be on the road for a while. So I’ve done a lot of repairs to the vehicle and I want to check it. So I took it for 100 miles up the highway and I am way, way off the grid in the woods.
I’m up in the white mountains of New Hampshire and I’ve made videos from here before. It’s a pretty badass spot, but I am completely, totally and utterly alone. There’s zero cell phone, zero wi fi, but it’s a beautiful spot. And when I tell you this is secluded off grid, that entire body of water doesn’t have a single boat or person on it or around it. I am up in the mountains, in a valley with a large body of water and I come here a lot.
It is off grid, no joke whatsoever at all. Let me show you where I am. Let me show you my camp spot because you’re looking right at me. I’ve brought a few people up here, but when I need to think and do testing, this is where I go. That’s my little camp spot with my little lagoon, and there’s even an old bug out building that I discovered right behind me.
You can’t see it unless you’re standing right on top of it. And I will show it to you. So you can’t see me from any direction whatsoever at all. And this is looking down, I’m right there. My truck is right there, and you cannot see it from the sky. This is the perfect location, and I use it when I want to get away from Wifi and other people and pretty much everything.
And it does the job perfectly. As soon as I get to the campspot, that’s when the work starts. I have to break out the off grid trek solar panel, plug it into my trucks that way there. While I’m sitting idle, my refrigerator, my auxiliary battery, stays charged up using the sun. It works out really well. And off grid trek makes the best solar panels, so that’s why I use them.
Then I take the max tracks on the back of my truck that I usually use when I’m stuck in sand, mud, or something like that. And I use these as a leveling device. The truck’s not on perfectly solid ground, so these make the truck level. That way, while I’m sleeping, I don’t fall out of the tent. You see what I’m saying? Pretty ingenious, right? I didn’t invent it.
And then it’s time to pop the top, and that’s what I’m doing. And setting up my tent takes minutes, a couple of minutes, actually. Not even. It’s up and good to go, just the way it stands. Well, once I put these in for the little awning, but then after that, it’s up just the way it stands. The only issue with this place is at night, it comes alive with the owls.
And I’ve been sleeping right over there and been woken up by a beaver chewing on sticks in the middle of the night, like, right next to my truck operator. So that’s all you got to deal with. It’s a lot of black bears around here. I’ve seen them absolutely everywhere. And there’s a lot of moose. Moose and black bear. And you can see fresh bear track right in the lagoon directly in front of me.
So they’re around all the time. They don’t usually bother you, though, so you have to pay attention. You have to be aware of leaving food, debris, et cetera. Now it’s the summertime. It’s June, but I’ve already started processing wood because it doesn’t matter where I camp. I have a fire going. Just because I’m a city boy. Need a fire going. You know what I mean? So, so far, I have tested out this one up mountain bike rack off the road, and I didn’t scrape it.
I didn’t lose the bike. Everything worked out well. And while I’m up here, I’m going to be getting footage for a video of the ten best flashlights that you should have for EDC. I’m going to do a video on that. I’m going to do a video on self recovering your vehicle. And I’m gonna do a video on that little green bag that’s on top of my truck. That’s something new I’ve added.
You see, it’s very cool. Besides the mountain bike I have added for this road trip, I have added the ability to have an electric mountain bike or a standard mountain bike with me on the truck and another mode of transportation on top of the truck that I never had before. So you’re going to want to stick with this. It’s going to be exciting. And like I said, this video is going to show you everything that I do, everything that I go through to be off grid by myself, out in the woods alone.
I’m at altitude right now. I’m like 1500ft up. I live exactly at sea level on the Atlantic. So sometimes it takes me a bit to catch my breath. A lot of snakes, a lot of frogs, lot of newts. There’s a newt floating in the water. There’s a newt coming up for water. It’s loaded with newts. Sam. There’s one there. There’s one there. Water. Little newts. So a lot of birds.
And at nighttime the owls go absolutely ape shit. So you’re going to hear all this. This is going to be a great video and you really should watch it and share it. It kind of breaks my heart that guys like myself make really well edited, incredible footage videos and people don’t care. People don’t care. There’s no tits, there’s no ass. There’s nobody eating a box of cereal without milk as fast as they can.
You know what I mean? But I’m still going to make them. Everyone else is still going to make them. And hopefully people watch them or not. It doesn’t matter. At any rate, I wish you could smell what it smells like right here. This is a huge beaver pond in a mountain pass. I have mountains on either side of me. Walk with me. This is right next to where I camp.
The first couple of times I was out here, I never even noticed this. But this is very cool. So we got to walk through these literally tick filled marsh grass. I’ve already had a tick on my neck the second I got here. Let’s walk through this. So there’s the truck. See it right there? The first couple of times I was out here, the first couple of times I was out here, I pulled in at night, so I didn’t really see this.
And I left in the morning, but I never noticed this. It’s an old cabin that was covered with a tarp, like a bug out cabin. A bug out cabin. How cool is that? And then a couple of storms ago last year, this giant tree fell on it and basically took it out. But this was completely tarped up in the middle of all this massive boulders in front of it.
I didn’t even notice. It’s benches made out of birch tables. And it stood here for years and years and years because this was old when I first saw it all in one piece. And like I said, last year, this big girl came and took it out. You see all that? That would be me with my dewalt, 20 volts chainsaw. There’s enough fallen wood here every time I come here to sustain you through the night.
That was a big, big tree, and she just snapped right in half. Bam. See you later. I’ve had moose walk through here in the middle of the night and freak me out. And there’s lots of snakes around here because of the grass and the water. It’s a deer track. Moose track. Moose track. I love this spot. Look at the trail from the water. It. It. Yeah, that’s from the beaver.
Right up here. Right down there. Chances are we’ll get him on film tonight because he always comes around. So with the truck set up and a tour of the camp done, it’s time to cook, and I’m going to make something gourmet. Well, gourmet for the trail, at least. But before I do anything, I have to hook up the spigot to my lifesaver. Five gallon jerry jug, which is an absolute awesome acquisition.
You pump it up, you pressurize the tank, and it allows you to have running water on the trail, which is beautiful. And not only does it pressurize the water, giving you a virtual kitchen sink, but it also filters the water incredibly well. Incredibly well. After seven years of overlanding, I use the jet boil genesis because this thing allows you to cook with a full pot of water like you would at home, and a frying pan, all off of one little foldable unit that fits in that bag.
You can see sitting right there’s almost taking longer than usual. I find that strange because it’s already warm out. This is a great setup. Jet foil. You can cook with this and cook with the frying pan at the same time. They give you this nice little case. They give you the plastic cover. They give you a shield for the wind. Works out incredibly well. Everybody uses those fancy partner grills that are $500.
I’ve used them. They suck. The bugs are here, so I’m going to break that bad Larry up. Okay, there we go. It drop those bad boys in. Put the COVID on slightly. A jar. This goes in the fire. Everything goes in the fire because there’s bears. Always have your spork ready. Stay sporky. Yeah. That’s way more water than I would have ever needed. So what I’m going to do is when those are ready, I’m going to strain the water into this pan and use it to clean the pan because I don’t believe I have my bowl with me.
The truck wasn’t packed, so I don’t have my bowl. So I’m going to have to eat straight out of this way more water than I could have ever needed. And I’m not even going to heat this up. All right. It going to kill that. The lid’s got a strainer built right in, which is beautiful. Going to strain a little out for our homies that aren’t with us anymore.
Ooh, that pan is really hot. You shouldn’t touch it, dog. That pan was hot. And just fyi, some of the people that actually know me, I would be talking like this and singing and if no cameras were running. I’m doing this because it’s so many people asked. So I figured I might as well. Maybe it’ll be. There we go cooking where all the porcupines are. Plum tomato sauce.
Lovely. Okay, I’m going to let that cool down and that is that. I don’t think you need to watch me eat. I’m not that other dude. I keep looking to the south and I just noticed an enormous storm cloud just moved in above me. That’s good because it’ll drop the temperature, but it’s bad if it’s going to be a huge thunderstorm right above me. The tent’s good as long as the doors are closed.
The tent’s good to go. The ebike’s good to go. All this is good to go. Like to wrap that up, but it’s still hot. These are delicious. The storm never materialized, so I decided to inflate the tires on my ebike and take a ride. The one thing I didn’t notice or really pay attention to was the fact that I was at the bottom of a mountain with the altitude, humidity, and riding straight up.
I had to pull over because I thought I was literally going to have a heart attack. Oh, that was difficult. Because it was difficult. I’m not just a pussy. All right, cool. Yeah, this is a good downhill. All right, cool. I’m going to feel much better about myself. Sweet. When I turned around, it went back down. I hit 30 miles an hour. That’s how steep of an incline it was.
And it made me feel much better about myself because I just thought I was an old, fat, out of shape dude, which I am, but I pretend I’m not. So night is getting very close, and I’ve already gotten firewood, but it’s time to go get some more, because that’s how I roll. You find just a little more firewood, because you’d be amazed how quickly dry wood burns. You know what I mean? You’re amazed.
You’ll be amazed. Let’s go this way, shall we? Have my chainsaw with me. Biting flies. Nice. Biting flies that don’t care that you’re wearing bug spray. I think this will do. There’s a landslide here. Look at them. Like a Google car. I got a camera and a camera. Oh, yeah. Let’s see if this wood is any good. It. Oh, hell yes. There we go. Okay. This is very landslidey dirt.
Very difficult to walk up of. Whoa. See what I’m saying? It’s very difficult to walk on this left handed, biting flies harassing me. It’s funny, but my soft, womanly skin allows me to detect ticks. Three ticks. One was on my lower back just now, but I felt them a mile away, and I was just chasing the beaver through that, which Dr. Fauci would recommend not to go in there.
You see what I’m saying? So in order to find firewood, I climbed up this incredibly steep embankment that looked like it was a washout, but I still climbed up there, because what could go wrong? That’ll work for now. You know what? There’s a real asshole flood. Oh, look at this. I feel the earth move. Whoa. Under my feet. This is. I don’t know if you can tell, but this is incredibly steep, and it’s very landslidey.
Very landslidey. I’ll take landslide for 100, please. What is the place that Richie from Boston goes to get firewood? Let’s process this bone Valley bone saw piece of art. And it works like a machine gun. Now, with way more firewood than any three people would possibly need, I settled in and waited for nightfall, which came rather soon. And recently, I had purchased two of these Zippo fire starter kits.
One to test and one to give away. It looked like a nice little setup. I always liked Zippo, so I figured I’d give it a try. This was the result, using the supplied ferroceum rod, tinder, and striker. I kept at this, and you can see the sparks are. They’re enough that it’s lighting up during the day over and over and over and over. And then finally, the ferroceum rod began to melt.
It began to melt, but I still stayed at it over and over and over and over. As you can see, no love, no joy that Tinder wouldn’t start no matter what I tried. So I finally gave up, walked over to my EDC in my truck, and grabbed a volcano stick. Now, five years ago, back in 2017, I did a video on the best fire starter for your EDC or get home bag.
And those little red sticks to the left, those are volcano sticks. The volcano stick that I used in this video right now is from 2017. So it’s old, but here’s what the result was. Literally, with one strike of the ferroceum rod, the volcano stick was a fire, as it should be. And like I said, the volcano stick was five years old. So, sadly, the Zippo fire starter kit is junk.
The ferroceum rod melted, and the fire starting tinder that they supply, the whole point of the kit does not light. I do not recommend this. Do not buy it. So, around 09:00 it started to get dark out, and I’m stoking the fire, getting ready for nightfall. The temperature is still up there, and the rainstorm never showed up, which was good. But the sky was still dark, so no moon, no stars, and not a whole heck of a lot of wildlife noises that I was hoping for.
Now I use permethrin and Ben’s bug spray to keep the bugs at bay. But even with that on, the mosquitoes still dive bomb you and bounce all over you, and it’s obnoxious. It’s like being married all over again. And I happened upon this little radius zone mosquito repellent thing. That’s a cordless little device. You insert this little chemical package, and it creates a zone that the mosquitoes stay away.
And I wanted to see if this thing worked. So when the bugs got really bad, I plugged it in and gave it a shot. So, even with my clothes covered with permethrin and Ben’s bug spray all over me, now that it’s dark out, the mosquitoes are absolutely relentless. So I turned on the thermocell radius, and a mosquito hasn’t buzzed my ear. In the last 3 seconds. So I don’t know, but I’ll let you know.
So I’ve tested two things tonight. The Zippo fire starter, and that failed miserably. This we’ll see. Because the mosquitoes are driving me bad shit. Because they keep buzing, buzing in your ear. Even with a roaring fire going, they’re killing me. So I turned this little guy on, and we’ll see what happens. I got it at Rei. We’ll see. Could be a gimmick. I don’t know. At any rate.
Well, I’ll tell you what. After I turned this on, the mosquitoes completely stopped. And you can see that I am in the dark next to the water, a perfect place for mosquitoes. And this thing did its job. So we got one passing grade for one out of two items tested. I’ll leave a link in the description so you can pick one of these up if you were so inclined, as well as everything else I show in this video.
So there’s that. So with nothing left to test, with the fire dying down and the night sky overwhelming me with absolute darkness, it was time to hit the rack. So I climbed up my ladder, I jumped in my allucab expedition three and called it a night and slept pretty well. 06:00 a. m. I slept like a rock. I haven’t slept in months, and I slept like an absolute rock.
Yeah. So once I’m awake, I amble down my ladder. I take a last look inside the tent before I close it up. The rainstorm I had been anticipating all night had held off till the morning, and it started raining pretty heavy. But I still had ample time to shut down the campsite, load up the truck, and get things ready to go. The only downside is I had a thing on top of the truck that I wanted to test, and I was not going to do it in the rain on a mountaintop because what could go wrong? A lot of things.
And I wasn’t up for it. Not at 06:00 in the morning. Even though it was raining, even though the fire had been out for about 5 hours, I still got water from the pond and doused the fire and made sure the ashes were completely extinguished. That is a thing. You do not want to be the person that started a forest fire. Don’t be a dick. Poke it with a stick.
At any rate, I took a last look at the pond, started up the truck, and headed back out on the trail. Now, this YouTube channel you’re watching right now was spawned or a spinoff of my other YouTube channels. And the reason I decided to start recording my activities, my adventures, et cetera, was because so many of my subscribers don’t have the ability to do this because of their age, their health, their economic status, et cetera, et cetera.
And I like to try to bring as much of this to these people as I possibly can. So for those people that enjoy this, I’m glad. I’m really happy. It helps make a difference. But I’ll tell you what, recording all of this editing, it is such an enormous block of time. It takes so much time and energy and effort to make these. And sadly, this genre does not stimulate the american imagination anymore.
They’re too worried about movie stars and nonsense. So for those that watch this to the end, I appreciate it. But it ain’t over yet. Even though the fire was out and had been out for several hours, I still have to check to make sure there’s no coals or embers. You have to do your due diligence. I took a little water from the pond and dumped it on the fire, and then I just stood back and drank it all in before it was time to head back into the Wi Fi soup known as Boston.
This is a great place to clear your head. It’s a great place to get away from everything, and it’s a great place to unplug. And sadly, people do not unplug often enough. We live in a whole new world, totally different than it was 20 years ago. And it’s sad that if you do things like I do, you’re labeled a prepper, a survivalist, an overlander instead of just an american.
At any rate, if you enjoyed this video, do me a favor, give it a like a share and subscribe. Leave a comment below and I will return the faith. At any rate, I am out. .
See more of JailBreak Overlander on their Public Channel and the MPN JailBreak Overlander channel.
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