Field Test 5

This is the last major field test before transitioning to production. It was an excellent test. We experienced conditions not encountered before with heavy hail one afternoon high in the Rockies and wind conditions approaching hurricane force one night in the Oklahoma desert. We got experience using an electric cooler rather than ice and there were a few details we had changed to improve setup.

We did not go looking for the winds we were subjected to one night in the Oklahoma panhandle. We went to find dark skies for using our telescope. We got an unexpected data point in our field testing

We budgeted 2 nights at the Okie-Tex star party this year and they were the wrong 2 nights. The first night the sky was hazy. The Milky Way was visible but subdued and we spent only an hour with the telescope hoping for better the next night. The second night had a better forecast, but nature had other plans. Two years earlier we had endured a lengthy storm with wind gusts over 50 mph with little worry as about 8 of us sheltered in the Cumberland talking as the camper swayed a little in the gusts. This year we had 25 minutes of winds over 60 mph as a mega-cell passed over after dark. With lightning building to the west, east, and north, we heeded the warning with about 20 minutes to spare. We dismantled the telescope and boxed it and retreated into the camper. The wind preceded the rain by a few minutes. When the wind arrived, it sounded as if the cover was being ripped off the tent. I went out to see if I could save it and was surprised to find that everything was holding together. The tent strained some to hold its shape, but did hold well enough and came through the storm in good shape. The high winds lasted only 25 minutes, but that was enough. As the wind subsided, everyone came out or their RVs, campers and tents to assess the damage. Because of the speed with which it happened, a lot of stuff was left set up that should have been taken down. Any pop-up canopies that had been left out were gone with several people reporting they watched their canopies rise into the air and depart. A few tents had collapsed and a few telescopes that had not been guyed went over. The consensus of those I talked to, which included a NOAA meteorologist, was that the wind speed was "well over 60 mph". It was a mostly steady wind rather than gusty. The camper stayed dry inside. The wind was blowing the rain horizontally and forced a small amount of moisture under the cover on the windward side a little of which entered the tent, but not enough to wipe up. It was an interesting data point and one I hope not to repeat. We have camped for decades without experiencing winds that high. The rain continued on and off into the night.

The other condition we experienced was a heavy hail storm. It was heavy in that it was long and dense like heavy rain except that it was hail. We were in Mueller State Park in Colorado at about 9500 ft elevation. The hail started with about 1/4" balls coming down like rain. There were pauses with the hail larger each time it restarted. The size grew to 1/2 to 5/8" diameter stones and continued to fall heavily. I was more concerned for the car than the camper. The hail was a little slushy rather than rock hard. That kept it from denting the car, but the impact of the hail was noisy and ice stuck to the tent. In the tent campsites there were reports of a few tents collapsing under ice. The Cumberland held up under the accumulation. After the storm passed, I swept ice off the cover using a long straight pole. An hour later with the sun out, it was just a memory and another data point in our field test.

It is odd to me that after all the back country tent camping we have done we encounter heavier conditions with the camper than we ever did backpacking. We have slogged through thunderstorms and early winter storms with gale force winds carrying packs, but never heavy hail and hurricane force wind. Though it may seem unlucky, we feel fortunate to have endured the range of conditions that the field tests have presented. The design was intended to be robust and that is being demonstrated.

We report on our experience using our electric cooler in another blog article.

For this field test, the camper was wired to use a solar generator so that we could use an electric cooler. It also provided the ability to keep battery powered devices charged, such as our phones and the lights we use inside the camper at night.

While we think ice is easier, having a solar generator and an electric cooler has its advantages. Production campers will be wired to enable their use (in addition to a 120V 30 amp plug) and the choice will be yours.

This trip was mostly spent at altitudes above 8000 ft. There was cold temperatures, rain, and morning frost. We found ourselves doing all our cooking inside the camper. That worked quite well. We used our electric cooktop when we were in campsites with hookups and we used the butane stove otherwise. They both worked great. It was not a great deal different from cooking at home. We used our small electric heater when we had hookups and our Camco Olympic Wave 6 catalytic propane heater otherwise. Both performed well. We had previously used a Wave 3. It worked well enough but we wanted to test the difference using the Wave 6 which delivers twice the BTUs. We enjoyed the extra heat, but we were using twice the propane as well. It's a choice for you to make. The Camco Wave heaters hare very high efficiency (99.9%) catalytic heaters that do a good job and do not produce the fumes associated with other propane heaters.

Alternately, in the spirit of winter camping, you can forgo heaters altogether. We've done that enough times when backpacking, but the Cumberland Camper was designed to let you enjoy tent camping with more comfort.