[teekert]

I guess this person sees the same mental image as me: Tents with wet floor, moisture sucked into everything inside. A tent that’s been in a lake sounds like a throwaway to me. But maybe what you see as a tent is different from what I see.

For me the story was also a bit weird. “Just take the tents out of the water”. Ok…

[jibal]

Even if that were true (and it obviously isn't), what then would be the point of expending tremendous time and energy to "dam it off and keep it dry"?

These are alternative ways to keep the tents dry ... which entails that they were never soaked in the first place.

> A tent that’s been in a lake

The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the campsite was in the lake at high water.

> sounds like a throwaway to me

Do you have any experience with this? I've been on trips where tents and even sleeping bags ended up in a river. They don't dissolve ...they can be dried in the sun. And a tent with a wet floor can be wiped down.

> “Just take the tents out of the water”.

Those words don't appear anywhere. Try looking at the actual words and not just your mental images.

[michaelt]

> The tents were never in the lake. A few inches of the campsite was in the lake at high water. [...] Those words don't appear anywhere. Try looking at the actual words and not just your mental images.

I think some people are interpreting “campsite” as the literal space occupied by the tent’s ground sheet while you are interpreting it as the broader area - which in an organised institutional arrangement might be called the “campground”

To use an analogy, think of being in a partly flooded parking space vs parking lot

It makes sense that someone with the former interpretation - the tent ground sheet submerged by a few inches of water - would understand that the tent got soaked.

[selbyk]

I've always understood "campground" to be a whole area open to camping with dozens or hundreds of campers. A campsite is where your group's claim is staked and the area you occupy including picnic tables, fires, etc--not just the tent.

[jibal]

I'm interpreting the word as what it means and how it is obviously being used. No one takes "campsite" to mean "the literal space occupied by the tent’s ground sheet" unless they are playing some silly sophistic game. Here is what it means (pick your own source ... they are all similar and none agrees with your definition):

"A campsite is a designated area where individuals can set up bedding, sleeping bags, or cooking equipment, such as stoves or fires. This definition encompasses any location that allows for sleeping or cooking, regardless of whether it includes a tent, lean-to, shack, or other structures."

And here's the Wikipedia description, which notes that the English "campsite" is equivalent to the American "campground", but that is broader and neither is so absurdly narrow as your words:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Campsite

> would understand that the tent got soaked

I already refuted this nonsense ... there is no reason to think from the OP's description that the tent got soaked.

> To use an analogy, think of ...

I don't need any help with thinking, especially from bad analogies that are flatly contradicted by the OP's description. What's the parking lot analogy to building dams?

[teekert]

I guess the term "tent" is pretty broad, this is what I see: [0], the cotton does not take being in water very well.

But I guess a synthetic ultra light tent will do better.

I also assumed the tents were already there when he arrived (complete assumption, but the term campsite conjures up a place with tents already there), and so must be of the more heavy more stationary kind.

Anyway, the point is, I also had this question: Where do you go when you mess up your tent like that? How can a dam in a layer of water make it dry? Don't you need a dam and then pump it dry.

This is going too far, I just wanted to defend the question. Maybe it's a cultural difference.

[0] https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=de+waard+tent&ia=images&iax...

[systemtest]

> Maybe it's a cultural difference.

It appears that you are confused with West European camping, which is where you drive two days to the south of France (most of which stuck in traffic), pay large amounts of money for a patch of perfectly flat grass where you are allowed to park your car and set up your tent. In a grid pattern with hundreds of other tents. Where there is a building nearby for toilets and showers. And a swimming pool plus live entertainment for the children.

OP appears to be talking about camping in nature.

[nerdsniper]

A “campsite” is a relatively flat and relatively root/stump-free patch of dirt. That’s it. Also tents are generally not made out of the canvas material you linked that yurts and teepees might be made from.

Tents are generally made of a very wuick-drying, thin synthetic.

And like the other person said, this does make it seem like you’ve potentially never been camping but i don’t want to gatekeep the definition of “camping”. My version is carrying everything I need on my back for two weeks and walking 10-15 miles each day to the next campsite (read: “patch of dirt”, preferably near fresh water). Other people “camp” in RV’s though, so.

[lazyasciiart]

Camping is just the bit about sleeping at night. I’d call your version hiking/walking/backpacking depending where I am.

[jibal]

Of course it's not.

"A campsite is a designated area where individuals can set up bedding, sleeping bags, or cooking equipment, such as stoves or fires. This definition encompasses any location that allows for sleeping or cooking, regardless of whether it includes a tent, lean-to, shack, or other structures."

I would note that camping also involves sitting in campchairs talking, reading, singing, etc.

And

> I’d call your version hiking/walking/backpacking depending where I am.

The hiking/walking/backpacking is what nerdsniper does between campsites:

> My version is carrying everything I need on my back for two weeks and walking 10-15 miles each day ==> to the next campsite <==

Despite his phrasing, he of course is not saying that hiking == camping.

[lazyasciiart]

Of course what's not what? If you're going to attempt to be a pedant, you need to also be precise.

[bee_rider]

Have you tried hammock camping? I only tried it at a campground, so, maybe there are some downsides I missed for the real backpackers. But it was pretty cool to not care about roots, the flatness of my patch of ground, or anything like that.

[nerdsniper]

I have! And i do love it. Hammocks generally benefit from very dense forest/tree cover just in case it’s raining!

[stinkbeetle]

Natural fiber canvas tents take to water about the same as your tee shirt does. Which is to say perfectly fine. Soaking them for a few days or even weeks shouldn't really bother them if the water is not warm and stagnant (like a nice clean lake). The biggest killer is storing them still wet.

[DonHopkins]

That's a dangerous conspiracy theory.

[jibal]

> the term campsite conjures up a place with tents already there

You've never been camping. Ok.

[scott_w]

I think you’re viewing this through your own cultural lens where camping can be totally solo (in the woods?)

In England, we can’t just pitch up a tent in the woods, we need to pay for a campsite where there’s other tents.

I suspect, from their description, this person is from a different country again, where camping may happen in large open steppe with lots of other yurts.

[jibal]

Nothing you wrote contradicts anything I said about camping. Someone else suggested that "campsite" just means the area covered by a tent and its groundcover, which is closer to the "mental image" of the other person who wrongly believes that tents got waterlogged, but is the arch opposite of yours. I've camped in the woods, on open steppes, and in designated camping areas in French and English towns. In each of those cases I brought my own tent, but I've also "glamped" and stayed in existing canvas-sided structures, from Yosemite to Mont St. Michel.

Also, this is about a campsite a few inches of which is in a lake, and people moving their tents. But apparently paying attention to the actual context is optional for some people.

[scott_w]

I’m not trying to dispute your version of events. I’m just offering a suggestion of what teekert had in their mind when they thought of a campsite, to better help you see where the misunderstanding comes from. Given they replied with agreement, I hope I captured it accurately.

I also feel it was unnecessary to dismiss their experience as “not camping,” just because it was different to yours. It turns a learning opportunity for us all into a needlessly toxic argument.

[teekert]

Yeah, this.

[lazyasciiart]

I’ve been camping, on trips that ranged from “park on the side of the road and set up a tent” to “hike four days carrying everything” and also “drive to campsite, walk into permanent managed tent”. Sounds like you’ve only done a more limited range of camping trips.

[jibal]

No, it doesn't sound like that at all, and you have offered no reason to think so. It's the other person who clearly has an extremely limited notion of camping: "the term campsite conjures up a place with tents already there" -- perhaps you have the two of us mixed up. And the OP said that they moved the tents, so ass-u-me ing that they were fixed structures is not rational.

[lazyasciiart]

Why would noticing that someone had "an extremely limited notion of camping" make you suggest that they had no experience at all? And if you are familiar with the form they mentioned, why would you act like you aren't?

[bee_rider]

Thanks for the attempt at a generous reading, but the truth of the matter is I just skimmed the comment and missed that bit. These things happen, no biggie.

[HPsquared]

Tents often are waterproof for the first few inches.