Campcraft
Please look at these before coming on your expedition with us.
The aim of this page is to help prepare you before attending a Sam Sykes Ltd expedition. Your instructor will go through how to pitch our tents and use the stoves in detail with you on your training and practice expedition. If you familiarise yourself with the information in this section you will gain more from the training.
How to pitch our tents.
http://www.attwoolls.co.uk/ This is a pitching video of the Vango Scafell 300+ Tent, filmed by Mike from Atwoolls.
Your instructor will guide you on pitching our tents, but this short video will give you an idea on how they work. Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to watch the video and then be able to put your tent up with no support.
Most of the time you will need to put the inner into the tent, on this video it is already in place. Your instructor will explain how to do this. Make sure you don’t stand on this as you spread it out, it will get muddy and you may tear it as you pull it into place.
Please note that we don’t need you to use the guy lines unless it is windy as you are more likely to trip over these, injuring yourself and damaging the tent.
Make sure you leave a space of about 2m between your tent and the others in your group.
How to use our stoves
Your instructor will show you how to set the stove up, straighten out its legs and how to attach it to the gas bottle safely.
You instructor will go through the safe use of the stove, but these are some important points to remember.
We use a small lightweight collapsable stove made by Vango.
Never cook inside a tent or the porch even if it is pouring down, the risk of setting fire to the tent or creating carbon monoxide is great.
Choose a flat spot away from the tent. All long hair must be tied back and loose clothes-e.g. scarves must be safely fastened.
Footwear needs to be worn, you don’t want to spill hot water on bare feet.
All the burners in your group need to be clustered together, and no-one is to step over these.
Have a pan of water on hand before you light the stoves, and make sure that you have everything ready to cook.
If you can’t use a cigarette lighter practice before the expedition. Bring either a box of matches in a waterproof bag, a cigarette lighter or a stove lighter. The stove lighters are great as your fingers are away from the flame.
Wild Camping
Dartmoor Wild Camping Tips and advice - everything you need to know before Wild Camping on Dartmoor or in the UK in general.
One of the most fun and challenging parts of an expedition is to go wild camping. This usually happens at Gold. There are a few more considerations for this to happen responsibly. We operate on a leave no trace policy alongside the core elements of the country, which means if you brought it in you need to bring it out, this includes empty food packaging, toilet paper and sanitary products.
This short video goes through the main points about wild camping, skip through to 3 minutes as the first part is about the firing range on Dartmoor, while useful is not relevant to our expeditions.
We will provide groups who are wild camping with a trowel, a supply of small dog poo bags and water purification systems. Make sure you have plenty of hand sanitiser with you. Your instructor will brief you on their use and will guide you on where to camp.