The Hexa Pot is a collapsible cooking pot made from biodegradable paper.The idea is that you don’t need to lug around an metal pot when you go camping. Just take one of these. If you need to boil water to make it potable, such as during a natural disaster, whip this out of your bug-out bag and start heating up the water. You can bring the pot to a full boil, even though it’s made out of paper.

Link -via Tech Crunch

Caught in a snowstorm, the trekkers veered off course and decided to set up camp on the slopes of Kholat Syakhl – at 5pm on February 2, judging from their photos and diary entries. They went to sleep. Then something horrific occurred, the nature of which we can but guess at. Some have suggested that it was an avalanche, but others aren’t satisfied with this explanation. Only one thing is known for sure. Whatever it was, it was serious enough to make the skiers leap up in the middle of the night and escape from their tent by cutting it open from the inside. Some didn’t even bother to put on clothes or boots as they ventured outside into the bitter cold.

When the bodies were finally recovered, some had unexplained wounds, and the tongue of one woman was missing. Read about the investigation and the various theories about what happened to the campers, at Environmental Graffiti. Link

The students created a 1,900-square-foot inflatable tent which is radiation-proof by layering radiation-shield materials like Demron. Demron is currently used in protective safety suits. In fact, the workers cleaning up Japan’s nuclear  Fukishima  plant are currently using them. The tent, which can house four to six astronauts, also uses a gold-metalicized film to reflect the UV rays. According to the university, it’s airtight material is made from a “polyurethane substrate” which keeps the air in, allowing for an atmosphere that the astronauts can breathe.

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But they are far from the traditional camping trip – decked out with wardrobes, shelves and electric lights, the bubbles look more like a movable hotel room than a regular tent.

Launched this year, the structures can be now be hired out at sites across France for around £400 pounds a night.[...]

He explained: ‘Having a night under the stars or seeing the sun rise and set is not something that many people experience anymore.

‘A normal tent or camper van means people miss out on these things.

‘So I designed this eccentric shelter with the aim of offering an unusual experience under the stars while keeping all the comfort of a bedroom suite.

Link via Geekologie | Photo: Solent News and Photo Agency

Summer 2010 is not over yet, and some among us are still making plans to head to the woods. We cannot wait to sleep out under the stars on a cabin deck or rocky slope above timberline. Even now in late July, backpackers among us are spreading out provisions on the bedroom or living room floor, pondering which items are essential, and which must be left behind. To save on weight, should I leave the ultra-light, self-inflating sleeping pad at home? Should I follow the advice of best-selling backpacker-author Colin Fletcher (1922-2007) and cut my toothbrush in half as he advised in The Complete Walker? Lots to think about! Though the need for reducing weight on back country trips cannot be regarded lightly, it is unfortunate that backpacking equipment has tended as a result to favor minimalist, spare, and humorless equipment designs.

Car campers never have to worry about how much equipment to carry. They usually don’t need to search Google.com, looking for backpackers’ forums that discuss whether a mountain mummy bag should be filled with down or if synthetic stuffing is okay.

Though I have designed backpacking equipment since the early 1980s, neither Northface nor Coleman has phoned me asking for advice. Is it because my designs don’t seem serious?

Granted, the experience of lying on one’s back communing with the stars seems like an opportunity for feeling spiritual and transcendental, and for mulling over the path of one’s life. Do I really want to be lying in a silly-looking sleeping bag at that moment? Would my caterpillar bag and tent combination – which do not weigh an ounce more than similar, conventional-looking equipment, take all the seriousness out of my wilderness experience?

When I was a Boy Scout pup tents were the rage.  Later in life I thought up a tent that would literally look pup-like. A matching sleeping bag would look like a spotted dog, and be sized for adults and children (child’s size is shown above).

Today I find there are sleeping bags marketed that are similar to my Midnight Mummy (1983), having rudimentary legs’ or leg-like projections, as well as arms. But I have never seen a bag like The Meditator, shown below. Have you ever tried to sit up in meditation posture under the stars on a freezing night while inside a sleeping bag?

Car campers never need to worry about bringing along a bulky, heavy item like my Earth Bag. Admittedly, this bag is thermally inefficient. Yet its outer ripstop nylon covering looks beautiful with its green land masses and blue water areas. The bag serves as an awesome reminder of the precious, lovely planet we live on. And it is conveniently shaped to allow for stretching one’s legs wide on a hot summer night, or for two people to engage in romantic activities.

Yet some would say this perfectly round bag, either in Earth or Plain styles, typifies American wastefulness.

There are currently available several sleeping bag models that can be paired and zipped together. However, I have never seen any of my designs, above, on the market. Two Half-A-Heart bags could be zipped together. Two Footsies bags could be zipped together at their bottoms. The Tickling bag includes arm “tunnels” that connect three separate bags, making it possible for occupants of outer bags to hug or tickle the middle occupant. No one would get much sleep at night in this bag! Another bag style, one that admittedly needs further design study, allows for an entire family to be zipped together and to enjoy their collective warmth.

Bags can be designed with a theme. Here, the concepts of reptiles, snakes or ocean creatures have been applied to sleeping bag styling.  Quite possibly a parent might hope that their grouchy, ill-tempered child – who dislikes family camping trips – would be cheered up by sleeping in an interesting bag. On the other hand, such a bag might not amuse the child at all!

No doubt, unusual sleeping bag styling – mostly for children — is no longer the novel idea that it was when I began creating these in 1983. There are many such bag types available now. A bag similar to my Mummy Bear bag is now available. Perhaps some of the models that I have imagined have not yet been conceived nor test-marketed for good reasons! The Great White Shark bag would likely be criticized in serious magazines like Parenting, on the assumption that it would traumatize a child. Facing one’s fears is a good thing, but perhaps it is not advisable at all times, or for all ages. For example, forcing your daughter to confront her fear of sharks by making her sleep inside the body of a soft, cuddly shark might simply add to her fears! Yet, on the contrary, she might end up later in life as an undersea diver and world expert on shark-human interaction!

Visit Steven M. Johnson at his website..

canopy rafts are extraordinary things. they’re basically enormous nets attached to an inflatable frame and are dropped onto trees from airships, resulting in a viewing platform like no other which can also be used as a base from which to hang using climbing gear. the raft above is the solvin bretzel, a new design by gilles ebersolt which due to its pretzel-inspired shape is both safer to use and more effective than older versions. researchers can spend days at a time on the raft (hence the tent) and due to its extremely light weight the trees are left unharmed.

deputy dog shows us several other ways scientists can get to the tops of forests to study the ecosystems that sustain the majority of our planet’s species. Link

(image credit: Pyot Laurent/Ocean Vert)

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by whitespace.