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Restoration of overgrown blown-in campsite, solo bike and hike, part 3 - the fire

3,148 views · Published 19 October 2012 · 10:15 · Indexed 27 September 2026

Channel: Wintertrekker · 2012 · Howto & Style

In Part 3, I restore a fire rock ring to the site, intended to be permanent fire pit. I show and explain my preferred method for an open sided rock circle. Part 3 continues from Parts 1&2 (see links below).

This series will document the "before and after" view of resorting a Park back country campsite long since out of use due to being grown in and covered in blow down. I accessed the area by mountain biking in part way, then switching to hiking on a trail and then bushwhacking in the final section.

It is rare in Parks that a person gets the opportunity to open a new campsite or re-open an old grown-in/blow-in site. It is illegal for an unauthorized person to carve out any new backcountry campsite in our regulated Parks. However the Park has in its management workplan to re-open a campsite on a lake that had been lost in years past due to lack of maintenance and significant spruce budworm damage and blow down. Due to budgets and staffing they had not yet been able to do the work. But I volunteered! They already know me well and had a trust relationship built based on my skill set for knowing attributes of a good back country campsite, professional ecological knowledge of low impact principles, and fire safety for the fire pit restoration. It was only under the Park's authorization that I did the initial work. Park authorities flagged out the location for the restoration.

The video series will be a little long in time, but my intent is to show what is involved in decision making. The forest composition and structure here is classic post spruce budworm outbreak with mass mortality followed by blow down. Not pretty. But it provides unlimited amounts of firewood!

Safety considerations for hammock and tent sites is job 1, and fire safety for selecting the fire pit location, which is one of the skill sets needed to restore a campsite. Unsafe old trees had to be avoided, and the lean direction on these hazard trees is important to assess. I had only light hand tools so I did not do any large standing tree removal, only dead stuff and a minor bit of weeding in the understory to clear the area for hammock, tarp and tent pads.

Part 1 showed me accessing the site and assessing the blowdown situation. Part 2 showed site clearing and hammock and tarp setup.

Link to Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X2tkW7FSNzQ
Link to Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmSBSbMfNUs

Restoration of overgrown blown-in campsite, solo bike and hike, part 3 - the fire

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