For me the story was also a bit weird. “Just take the tents out of the water”. Ok…
These are alternative ways to keep the tents dry ... which entails that they were never soaked in the first place.
> A tent that’s been in a lake
The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the campsite was in the lake at high water.
> sounds like a throwaway to me
Do you have any experience with this? I've been on trips where tents and even sleeping bags ended up in a river. They don't dissolve ...they can be dried in the sun. And a tent with a wet floor can be wiped down.
> “Just take the tents out of the water”.
Those words don't appear anywhere. Try looking at the actual words and not just your mental images.
But I guess a synthetic ultra light tent will do better.
I also assumed the tents were already there when he arrived (complete assumption, but the term campsite conjures up a place with tents already there), and so must be of the more heavy more stationary kind.
Anyway, the point is, I also had this question: Where do you go when you mess up your tent like that? How can a dam in a layer of water make it dry? Don't you need a dam and then pump it dry.
This is going too far, I just wanted to defend the question. Maybe it's a cultural difference.
[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=de+waard+tent&ia=images&iax...
You've never been camping. Ok.
In England, we can’t just pitch up a tent in the woods, we need to pay for a campsite where there’s other tents.
I suspect, from their description, this person is from a different country again, where camping may happen in large open steppe with lots of other yurts.
Also, this is about a campsite a few inches of which is in a lake, and people moving their tents. But apparently paying attention to the actual context is optional for some people.
I also feel it was unnecessary to dismiss their experience as “not camping,” just because it was different to yours. It turns a learning opportunity for us all into a needlessly toxic argument.
> I think you’re viewing this through your own cultural lens where camping can be totally solo (in the woods?)
Again, your notion of my experience of camping does not come from anything I actually wrote ... that's quite toxic.
And recognizing the mere possibility of camping solo in the woods (which has nothing to do with anything in this thread--the OP was in a group on a lakeshore) has nothing to do with a "cultural lens".
That's the last I will say about this trivial matter.
Allow me to correct myself: I meant to say I believed you were referring wild camping, away from a commercial site (either alone or part of a group).
> None of this is responsive to my comment that you are responding to ... I find that quite toxic.
You find it toxic that I won’t join you in an argument that only you want to have?
> Again, your notion of my experience of camping does not come from anything I actually wrote ... that's quite toxic.
I just woke up an hour ago. Did you find that toxic, too?
Tents are generally made of a very wuick-drying, thin synthetic.
And like the other person said, this does make it seem like you’ve potentially never been camping but i don’t want to gatekeep the definition of “camping”. My version is carrying everything I need on my back for two weeks and walking 10-15 miles each day to the next campsite (read: “patch of dirt”, preferably near fresh water). Other people “camp” in RV’s though, so.
"A campsite is a designated area where individuals can set up bedding, sleeping bags, or cooking equipment, such as stoves or fires. This definition encompasses any location that allows for sleeping or cooking, regardless of whether it includes a tent, lean-to, shack, or other structures."
I would note that camping also involves sitting in campchairs talking, reading, singing, etc.
And
> I’d call your version hiking/walking/backpacking depending where I am.
The hiking/walking/backpacking is what nerdsniper does between campsites:
> My version is carrying everything I need on my back for two weeks and walking 10-15 miles each day ==> to the next campsite <==
Despite his phrasing, he of course is not saying that hiking == camping.
It appears that you are confused with West European camping, which is where you drive two days to the south of France (most of which stuck in traffic), pay large amounts of money for a patch of perfectly flat grass where you are allowed to park your car and set up your tent. In a grid pattern with hundreds of other tents. Where there is a building nearby for toilets and showers. And a swimming pool plus live entertainment for the children.
OP appears to be talking about camping in nature.
I think some people are interpreting “campsite” as the literal space occupied by the tent’s ground sheet while you are interpreting it as the broader area - which in an organised institutional arrangement might be called the “campground”
To use an analogy, think of being in a partly flooded parking space vs parking lot
It makes sense that someone with the former interpretation - the tent ground sheet submerged by a few inches of water - would understand that the tent got soaked.
"A campsite is a designated area where individuals can set up bedding, sleeping bags, or cooking equipment, such as stoves or fires. This definition encompasses any location that allows for sleeping or cooking, regardless of whether it includes a tent, lean-to, shack, or other structures."
And here's the Wikipedia description, which notes that the English "campsite" is equivalent to the American "campground", but that is broader and neither is so absurdly narrow as your words:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campsite
> would understand that the tent got soaked
I already refuted this nonsense ... there is no reason to think from the OP's description that the tent got soaked.
> To use an analogy, think of ...
I don't need any help with thinking, especially from bad analogies that are flatly contradicted by the OP's description. What's the parking lot analogy to building dams?