Ever wanted to try a tent heated by a woodburning stove? Here is all you need to know.

The light is fading quickly, and the steep sided valley is being swallowed by the incoming darkness. I’ve been walking all day. I’m tired and the temperature is dropping fast. Soon the glen will be bitter cold and the air barley above freeing. 

I push my way through the trees, searching for my shelter. By the time I break into the clearing night has settled on the glen.  Beyond the beam of my headtorch the only light is the moon reflected on the mirror surface of the water. The only sound, the gentle lapping of the water. With my breath misting in the air, I become aware of how alone I am here.  The isn’t another human being for miles. I need to find my tent. My aching legs yearn for rest.

Then my head torch beam picks up something glinting in the darkness, it is one of the reflective strips on the guy lines. Moments later I am bursting through the door of the tent to find myself within the confines of my small shelter. The tent has stood alone and empty for hours, the cold has seeped in, and I sit shivering for a few moments surprised to feel how chill it is.

Then I find my matches. The little vulnerable golden flame flickers in the darkness as the match almost dies. I open the door of the stove and touch the waiting kindling sitting in its interior. The wood catches, the stove comes alive. The transformation is dramatic. The tent is no longer a solitary place, the stove is a living thing.  I can hear the flames breathing in its steel belly. In a few minutes the transformation is complete. I can remove my jacket and enjoy the warmth as the heat soothes my aching legs.

Here, in this empty wilderness, I have a home. Secure and warm I spend the night in the silence of the glen.  This is my Hot Tent kingdom.

If your memories of camping in winter are of an unpleasant nature you will be pleased to know that there is a new kind of camping about which involves none of the suffering involved in using a small nylon tent. The new revolution in camping has come with the development of the Hot Tent. If you have never heard of a Hot Tent perhaps the best way of describing one is a heavy canvas tent, often a bell tent, with a woodburning stove at its heart.

I have been exploring the Highlands by visiting the many remote bothies for years but when these remote shelters were closed by the restrictions of the pandemic, I began to look for an alternative. I wanted have a way of continuing my exploration of the remote are parts of the Highlands throughout the colder months of the year in relative comfort.

I began by trying various light weight tents, but none were able to withstand the rigors of the sort of weather the Highlands of Scotland experiences in December and January. It was only when I met an older couple who were enjoying the shelter provided by their large canvas bell tent and stove, that I realised there was a different way of camping all year round.

I had always thought that combining attend with anything resembling fire could only end in disaster. It was with some trepidation, one dark December night, that I reached into the open door of my newly acquired stainless-steel stove and touched the kindling with a match.  I was astounded to find that it was indeed possible to be sitting only a few feet from the heat of a wood burning stove without the tent instantly catching fire. I was even more amazed what I discovered that once the stove was lit I could sit in my tent in comfort and relax wherever I chose to pitch it.

That first night I was even more surprised when I left the tent wearing only a T-shirt and jeans to discover that outside the warm refuge of my tent the Highland night had plummeted below zero and the ground surrounding my tent the sparkling with hoar frost and frozen solid.

Although the use of these type of tents in British camping is relatively new the Hot Tent is in fact and you adaptation taken from a very old idea. The tent I use is Scandinavian in origin and has been adapted from the tents used by the nomadic peoples of northern Europe. Apart from its comfort, something a man of advancing years like myself is very grateful for, the Hot Tent has other major advantages. Anyone who has camped in wet conditions in a lightweight nylon tent will know that no matter what you do to try to prevent it, eventually the wet gets in. Unless you have the chance to get yourself dry you inevitably carry moisture into the tent every time you enter from the rain. The result is a kind of soggy sensation that slowly robs you of any comfort and warmth. Overtime this dampness will gradually affect your ability to function and may even threaten your safety. The great advantage of the hot tent is, not only is it virtually impenetrable two rain but there is enough room to hang your clothes up near the stove and allow its heat to dry both you and the tent. This means that by the morning you will have dry clothes to wear, and your sleeping bag will also have been saved from the steady onslaught of moisture.

Read more about my adventures in my new book The Hot Tent Diaries

You may have already worked out that a Hot Tent with a stove in it can in no way to be described as lightweight camping. Hot tents are the heavyweights off the camping world. My tent weighs around 16 kilogramme and the stove a few kilogrammes more. This means that hauling it more than a few yards from the road is not easy. This is not the kind of tent that you will throw into a rucksack and carry across the hills for days at a time.

Despite the disadvantages it has in weight I have found that the Hot Tent has given me a new freedom. In the days when I only visited highland bothy’s I could only go to places where a bothy existed. This obviously limited me. Now I’m able to go to remote parts of the Highlands and use the tent as a base camp for my walking activities knowing, that at the end of the day, I will have somewhere warm and comfortable to relax and recover.

My set-up cost me around £3,000, so a Hot Tent is far from cheap. Although you don’t have to spend quite that level of cash for a Hot Tent set up. That might sound a lot of money but when you consider that a Hot Tent offers much of the same facilities that a camper van, it is inexpensive. To me, my canvas tent with its chimney, is far less obtrusive on the landscape than the alien shape of a large vehicle parked overnight. I take a pride in following the Leave No Trace philosophy and leaving only a flattened patch of grass to mark my passing. A Hot Tent will not be to everyone’s taste but for some of us it represents an exciting new way of spending our days, and our nights, enjoying a remote camp.