Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary Dave
The wife and I have never tried winter camping, but I've been thinking of trying it. Our trailer is nowhere near as good as your Arctic Fox, Diver, but I'm wondering what you do for your water? Do you keep your pipes "winterized" and just bring containers of water? What do you do for the toilet situation? Also, do you random camp, or look for campsites open in winter.
The only one I know of around here is McLean Creek.
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The underbelly is insulated and heated. In really cold weather, I fill the water tank using a funnel and buckets of water, if the garden hose is frozen. I put a little antifreeze in the grey and black tanks. The water lines are run in warm spaces in the trailer, so we just camp normally, and use the toilet and shower just like normal. I don't use an electric heater since not running the furnace will cool the underbelly off. You do go through a fair bit of propane, and even with my 135 watt solar and 2 6V batteries the furnace will only run a day or two on batteries, so a generator (or power hookup) is almost a must.
It takes about 5 minutes to re-winterize the trailer. Take out the hot water tank plug, and open two valves, and done. We keep a seperate drinking water jug inside because the pipes will have a bit of the antifreeze taste to it for a while.
There are a couple of year-round dump stations in Calgary where you can empty your tanks. I figure worst case scenario, I could fill my turd tote and then dump that into a toilet, but that could be a dangerous (hold my beer and watch this) type of moment.
The only thing our trailer doesn't have is the thermal pane windows. We have just single pane, but I use that clear plastic storm window stuff that you use a blow dryer to apply and it works great to keep condensation off of the windows.
Calgary West campground is talking about running year-round, which is great since I store my trailer there. Maclean creek is open year round, and so is Mt. Kidd. There are a few places in Banff open as well.
I noticed that hooking up the trailer is a little more tricky as the latch tends to get a little sticky for the ball hitch. And plastic parts get brittle of course.