GiraffeCamp

Thanks! I've always opened it up like that when I'm too hot or sharing on an air mattress, but I've sometimes been too cold that way. It's hard to tell if that was from another person pulling the covers off or my own moving around. I think it will be different on a cot! And the extra laying over the side will probably function quite well at trapping in heat. I think based on my own experience, the two-bag method is what I'll try first. I don't move much when cold and on the cot. Insulating the bottom is probably my biggest opportunity for improvement. I'll take a moving blanket for that.

The insulation going under the hammock and not between the hammock and person is making perfect sense now. Never considered it but I'm following! Perfect!! I have a little fold-up picnic-style floor mat but can't imagine it gives much insulation. I can afford a $5 second layer. Would it matter which order they're put down in? I'd think moving blanket closest to the ground, thin plastic one above it. I'm totally following. What about keeping your body heat trapped inside the bag?

I am extremely grateful for it. And the baseline of what's normal in cold weather is exactly what I came here to learn. I appreciate it immensely. Thank you!

Extremely helpful!! Thank you!!!

I remember the first time I learned how to tie a scarf for functional use. It had always been a fashion accessory before that moment. There's a certain level of knowledge that just has to come through experience. This is very helpful! And hilarious that you assume I likely have a base layer, wool layer, and fleece layer when I have none of those things. My water-resistant coat doesn't even have a hood. 😆 Now I know what to look for and how to assess them. Thank you! Ah! Super useful info! The food and fire advice is particularly insightful. Thank you!! I'll be sure to enjo

It looks like I'll be car camping in temps around 10-20F overnight. This will not be a common thing--maybe once every few years at most. I don't want to spend much on something so rare but do want to make sure I actually have what I need. I suspect the underlayers available around me won't touch it, but I have no way of figuring out what is normal. Would you please give me the essentials run-down?

I think this idea of priorities and money investment is misguided. People have predictable needs: connection, physical well-being, honesty, play, peace, autonomy, meaning. If those in your community are consistently choosing a sports team, it probably means more of their needs are met there with less effort. I know sports parents talk regularly about the sense of camaraderie and teamanship, about the active sharing of values, about the positive physical play, about the time hanging on the sidelines bonding with other families. Cub Scouts, instead, often feels like assisting in

I'm happy to do so and want to clarify that my experience is in shooting sports in general; I do not have experience with BSA being any different.

It is my experience that there are many demographics of people who are hesitant to attend firearms training programs because they believe those programs will be led by someone who will not accept or respect them and their circumstances/motivations/needs. I know from extensive personal experience that this includes women, people of color, those who are not heterosexual or gender-normative, those who have strong liberal political opinions, sometimes those who are either end of the socioeconomic bell curve, and those with disabilities. It is also my experience that explicitly stating that t

I follow now. Back then, most of those boys' dads had been in the military, most probably drafted or signing up under the impending threat, and they had their own profound traumas and little empathy for the discomfort the boys felt over nude showering when they had to face and move through the same discomfort in the context of death and destruction, not recreation. They feared their sons being left behind, beaten up, or ostracized by a culture requiring conformity and thought the pain of shame preferable to the violence that their expressions of vulnerability and individuality could inste

I'm not sure if we're agreeing, disagreeing, or neither. If a kid told a leader, then or now, that he felt intensely uncomfortable showering in front of others, would you have a problem with that leader troubleshooting to get him to the shower? "I don't care if you go first or last, if you and a buddy take turns holding up a towel for each other, if you shower with your swim shorts on and reach under to get it all clean, whatever you need to do. But it isn't healthy to swim and not shower because you can get rashes and infections, and that would be particularly difficult if you got it in

He used the words intimidated, forced, embarrassing, and trauma to describe his experiences of public showering over the course of his pubertal years. He did not believe he had an option to shower in his swim trunks or to change under a towel, behind a curtain or towel held by a friend, or in a private corner, for example. That might be his own lack of imagination and nothing to do with the overt culture. However, that culture did not educate and empower him to live in accordance with his own values so there is room for improvement even if the showering issue isn't institutional. Others l

I completely agree. It isn't the presence of showers, it is the coercion and shaming that is the problem in Skeptic's experience.

But my argument is not that a place or occasion has had abuse so should be avoided. My argument is that his experience of feeling coerced and shamed into exposing his nude body against his will was wrong, no matter the date or context, and that we should not be using coercion and shame to get a child to violate his own healthy values. It doesn't become OK because the context was a shower and a period in time where a lot of people were similarly coerced, and that similarly doesn't make every occasion of nudity abuse, that doesn't mean that all such occasions are equal to sexual abuse, and

It seems more like the normative and widespread summer camp experience for a region. I agree that it is definitely not legal vultures or foolish over-reach to condemn it. I believe the same can be said to the original topic: what seems to be overreach can on investigation be clear abuse. I think that minimizing and normalizing the possibility of abuse from communal showers because of their commonality turns a blind eye, in part, to the rampant abuse some, like those in this article, endured under exactly those conditions and other common and seemingly benign occasions. I see no reason to