It’s been a long time since I last wrote here. Even though I’ve been doing a lot of daytrips with my family, I’ve been to busy to write here. But last weekend I finally got out on an overnighter, and I had a really great time.

For a while now I’ve had my eye out for the Gstove Heat view, a camp stove from a small company in Norway. I’ve wanted to try hot tent camping for a long time, and when I found the stove at a 40% discount I decided to buy it.

Last weekend I tried it for the first time, with my first time doing hot tent camping.

My wife was out of town, and my son preferred to hang out with grandpa this weekend, but both my daughters joined me for this trip.

We drove to the campsite south of Asa that I had stayed at with C in June. It had rained on the way up, but when we got there the rain stopped. It was calm, and no one else was there at the beginning. Soon though a car came by with two guys in it. They walked around for a couple of minutes and the vanished again.

I set up the tent and the stove on the same spot as I had set up my tent last time. This time I used the bigger Helsport Nordmarka tipi, since I was going to use the stove to heat up the tent.

I stared to chop up some firewood and got the fire going. It wasn’t long until the stove was burning hot. We made lunch and hung out in the tent. It was chilly outside, but inside the tent it was almost t-shirt weather.

A mother and two kids arrived at the campsite, and after a while a dad and two other kids arrived too. The families knew each other, and was going to sleep in one of the huts/shelter at the camp site.

I was surprised to see other people, as I’m out camping a lot, but rarely see anyone else doing anything more than day trips. But autumn is my favorite time of the year to be out, with the crisp fresh air, absence of bugs and the beautiful changing colors of the forest, and the mother seemed to feel the same.

We walked around the camp site a bit, but most of the time we just hung out in the tent, eating snacks and enjoying the heat from the stove. As usual, with trips like these, we had packed a lot of food and goodies; different cheeses, salamis, pepper steaks, bifteki, pita bread, potato chips etc.

When evening came, we lit the oil lamp and kept feeding the stove. I really like window in the door of the stove, and it gives out a really ambient cozy light from the fire.

We made dinner, and kept chilling in the tent. M, my oldest daughter, had brought her iPad and downloaded a few movies on Netflix and watched them. C and I killed time by snacking and putting firewood in the stove.

When it was time to sleep C was all winded up, but eventually calmed down enough to sleep. I stopped feeding the stove, but it wasn’t completely burned out before we went to sleep. I had brought a Carbon-monoxide alarm though just to feel a bit safer.

When C had fallen asleep it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep too. I woke up a couple of hour later though, when M accidentally threw her arm in my face in her sleep. After that it took a couple of hours for me to get back to sleep again.

I slept like a log for the rest of the night, but woke up at 08.00 by the sound of C loudly singing the kids song “Björnen sover” (the bear’s asleep) in her sleeping bag next to me. Well, papa bear wasn’t sleeping after that.

We got up, got the stove going and made breakfast. Pita bread fried in a lot of olive oil with a cheese and salami and some hot coffee for me, and hot coco for the kids.

After breakfast I let the fire burn for a while, to drive out any remaining moisture from the tent, before we finally desired to pack down our camp.

It looked like it was about to rain, and I packed down quickly, as I was happy to pack down dry gear, which is somewhat rare in these parts.

After this trip I’m really glad I bought the stove. It’s heavy, and definitely not something for hiking trips. But for car camping trips like these, or canoe camping trips with no portages it’s perfect. The quality is superb, and it really adds to the comfort to have a source of heat in the tent.

I think I’m going to save up to get a Tentipi Safir 5 BP for these types of trips. A canvas tipi would really take the comfort to the next level. I really like hiking, but I think can get used to these comfortable, food heavy camping trips too.