25 Camping Tricks My Grandfather Used That Make $1,000 Gear Look Like a Scam

A four-hundred-dollar sleeping bag is really three things, and you already own most of them. I'll show you how a thirty-dollar wool blanket and two safety pins do the same job on most nights of the year, and I'll tell you plain which nights they don't. I'm Tommy Whitehorse. I've camped the same hills my grandfather camped for sixty-six years, and today I'm sharing twenty-five of the old ways, from twenty-five down to one. Dryer lint tinder, newspaper in wet boots, a contractor bag lining your pack, three knots that replace a bag of plastic gadgets, red light for your night eyes, a two-stick pot crane, and a tarp pitched low enough to keep the sideways rain out. Each one comes with what the store charges, why the old way works, and where it quits working. I also tell you which gear IS worth every dollar, because the point was never going out empty-handed.