The Tipi

Our tent arrived today. Weeks of painstaking searching through catalogues, pondering over different sizes, materials and features, drawing and cutting models of equipment, and a substantial transfer of money (groan...) resulted into this neat box being delivered to our door, about 27x27 cm and 70 cm long, for about 13 kg of weight. Our home for the next three years or so, hopefully.

Planting the pegs, with the measuring string.

The Tentipi Safir 9 is a huge thing,not something that normally two campers would chose for an expedition, but we are not going to be out there for a week or a month, and we have more equipment, more carrying capacity (hurray for horse power) and all in all different needs from the usual campers. We needed something we could call home, not just a sleeping shelter. We also wanted someting where both the Shuttles could be stored at need without making the living space totally cramped. And we wanted to be able to cook inside, and be able to rely on the quality of the materials. And after being cursed with two severely windswept gardens for years on end, we wanted something hopefully storm safe. And it needed to be practical to put up and bring down in a short time. We don't ask much, do we?

Unfolding the tent.

The traditional tipi developed as a shelter in zones of very high winds, heavy snowfalls and freezing temperatures. Its conical shape allows the snow to slide down, and the wind tends to press it to the ground rather than lifting it. It also creates a chimney effect that allows to have a campfire inside and push out the smoke from the top. Native Americans who used the tipi could spend the all winter in theyr lovely tents in confort.While I hope to be out of snowy regions by next winter, wind resistance will often be a point of interest on our route.

Spreading the tent flat.

Even at the first trial the Safir 9 went up remarkably easily: for all its sturdiness it is still constructed in a way that allows for very easy assembling, an important point for people who will march all day, set up a tent in the evening and be off again the next morning. Muffin did most of the job, as the pictures show. It is important that tasks are divided evenly among the various members of a camping expedition. Much perplexity was created by the sickening scantiness of the instructions: while the tent is a thoroughly well made product the little sheet of instructions that goes with it is laughable. But she managed, a proof that either Muffin is a genius (which I do not exclude, of course) or that the tent is pretty self explaining.

Tipi is up

It is currently fully assembled in the meadow, surrounded by a veritable forest of pegs, all the storm lines spidering out and around it like the shrouds of a ship mast. If there is good place for testing wind resistance it is certainly our meadow, but the day is calm, if rainy. We will sleep outside tonight. The pale dun colour of the fabric gives to the interior of the tent an inviting warm glow even in this dismal weather. The hood covering the chimney is half lifted, like a winking eye. No better day to put the conforts of our new home to a severe test.

Checking on the air intakes, very important point.

Never trust humans for the important tasks.