U-Haul Stealth Camping In -35 Degrees

hey welcome to camping with Steve today it is cold it's about minus 40 degrees Celsius which is minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit as well that's where they both meet up so with the extreme weather I'm actually gonna hunker down tonight in a u-haul van because the price is right at 1995 in town plus kilometers if I don't drive too far and it's a lot safer than going into the river valley to play cat and mouse with the park rangers because it's this is serious weather people do die up here so until I'm a more experienced than this temperature with just what I can carry in a backpack I'm gonna be in here for now so eventually I'll get it down but it's so hard to carry all that gear that you need for these temperatures in just a backpack and looking conspicuous so I'm gonna throw all this together and we'll get back to setup I got moving blankets that I'm gonna hang up in here and I think a magnet will hold them on so I'm gonna run into the store grab magnet just any cool I ran into a subscriber here he was honking at me yeah these moving blankets should give us some insulation in here and I know this is not a typical normal camping video so apologies ahead of time but they do rotate through a stealth one and a strange one than a project build and then kind of a normal one so stay patient if you're not into this sort of thing but otherwise I think I don't want to be a bail on this video obviously we'll get these these moving blankets up I'll get this whole thing set I got these little ceramic bar magnets and I'm trying to use them to hold this on and they're not all that strong but where there's a will there's a way pinch these in here will get this will be some nice good insulation and it'll help block out a lot of the the front of the cab so nobody can see the hunkering down that's going on in here got some of it set up here it's actually working out fairly good I haven't closed off this panel here yet because the engines running and that's letting some of the heat through and this one all closed off a little later because that's my in and out door to get in and out unfortunately they don't have a little door between the presses back so it's it's gonna work I'm gonna move on to a different location here and get this more permanently set up we're gonna scope for an actual spot to set this up tonight most of these super center parking lots like Walmart and stuff some are friendly many are not this one is not but there's no thrill in this if you're allowed to just park at Walmart so I got to show you a few other potential areas that are always good for looking for a spot to park in the pinch and you know I've known people that have I don't know them personally but I've heard of people that will rent a van like this and take it on vacation like an RV you know get a big one and throw up full bed in the back and get it all set up and it costs a fraction of renting an RV and you got an awful lot of space enclosed so that's I know I'm not the first person to do this either so I'm just figured it would be a fun one for today I'm gonna hit the industrial area and I'll point out a few things about the industrial area well this is your typical business park business slash industrial area and it looks like it does fit in place here but the problem is in the evening this place is completely deserted all these work vehicles pretty much take off so this is gonna really stick out and these are patrolled areas extremely patrolled and for some of these vans just give off that burglars from home alone vibe so we're gonna move on to where somebody may be actually using this to move so this moment used to be camper friendly but you can see they're not so keen on that anymore so we're gonna take my u-haul elsewhere and continue looking but this is a hit and miss some of them don't mind some of them do a hotel parking lot can be a viable option and I've haven't done this in years so I haven't really been up to speed on the stealth parking stealth camping stuff but I did successfully park my RV back in the day for up to two months at this hotel and that was actually so strange they never knocked on the door once but I think my best bet is an older kind of moderately dense residential area with a bunch of construction going on that type of thing so I'm gonna look around for that and then I'm gonna park this get out walk around does not cause too much suspicion and then I'll return to the vehicle and we'll get set up and hunker down and cook some food all that good stuff okay now I have found a spot in a residential neighborhood normal residential neighborhood lot of houses here apartment building right back there empty lots houses for sale houses sold so that's awesome I am parked right here beside this vacant lot and I'm gonna get out of the car crawl into the back it's all blacked out but once this traffic subsides the people driving past I'll get that a little more comfortable inside Wow does this take me back to those days living in the RV where I was looking for a spot to park didn't want to freak any people out in the neighborhood but just needed a spot to park so it is a trip down memory lane here guys [Music] we're gonna get into here should make a world of difference okay inside things are pretty much insulated that should definitely help I don't have a reading on the temperature yet but I'll get one fairly soon here we're running the mr. buddy heater [Applause] that'll get some warmth going fairly quickly I put down this mat from home so that I don't cause any problems with the rubber coating on here cuz I got the all insurance special on this guy but it still is a hundred and fifty dollar deductible and I don't need that type of stuff so the propane at this temperature will actually have trouble vaporizing so you could pretty much at minus forty four you could spill it out of there and it wouldn't have apparate it would just sit there like gasoline so that is definitely inside here because otherwise it won't work at all and you can see it does have some trouble vaporizing at the moment there's little hisses and stuff but to have the the light here running off of the power pack I gotta make sure my olive oil doesn't freeze on me I can see it already wants to so I have a thermometer tonight so we're gonna see what the temperatures are like inside and outside and the way I have the window is covered up you can't really get in and out and take a peek but I'm using this side door as the main in an outdoor I'm gonna go outside and take a peek to see what we've got as far as visibility and of course I have my carbon monoxide detector with me as well now this mr. buddy has a little oxygen shutoff and I do have the windows cracked because we would run out of oxygen for sure in the middle of the night so well take a peek outside and this is neat I think it's the aspect that probably it's frowned upon but I didn't see anywhere in the rules on the fine print of renting this thing that you can't camp in it and will battle the elements tonight and see how it goes so there's some sunlight coming through I'll put on another blanket nut should help Chris walking around with a camera on doesn't keep it low-key but I've tried to keep the heat down as low as possible I'm dressed for this despite how it looks I've got a couple layers of thermal pants on a bunch of oh no yeah we're running into heat problems I think it's a vaporization issue cuz this cylinder is having some issues and so is this so my bananas frozen for the morning unbelievable see could get this back in business hard to say I'm gonna keep working at this and hopefully get this place real real warmed up I was trying to avoid all the frost on the windows in the morning and and all the inevitable ice buildup because there's no insulation but we're gonna have to heat this thing up for anything here to work properly okay so we got that figured out this one there's two regulators on it and you can tie into either side that one seems to be having an issue there could be ice buildup in there or that type of thing so we'll have to take a look at that regulator eventually but carbon monoxide alarm I never leave home without it great for camping and you go start cooking some food here this is my butane stove it's the probably the worst thing I could be using because butane doesn't like to flow unless it's above zero it's warming up in here a bit it seems to work so that's good and my olive oil I'm gonna get this started before this olive oil is completely solid so it's touch of olive oil I'm throwing in some stewing pork today not be for once hard to believe and as you can see there is never any need for a cooler or ice or anything out here this has just been from sitting in here against the against the wall it throws up on me and we'll get into the rest so while that's cooking I'm going to enjoy my step to today and being in the vehicle just having one then I'm getting this empty out here right away because I don't want molten liquor take it or anything not intoxicated clearly because it got a play by the rules somewhat when I'm in a vehicle parked on a public street yep not even slightly frozen so cheers to all the step to people I'm thinking something better than normal Granville Island Lyons Winter Ale because you know it's winter and wish you guys were all here having one with me but until then we'll just have to do this over your YouTube having a beer together I like these winter ales there they're a thicker beer it's it's warming warms the soul this cooked up nicely and I'm gonna throw in some vegetables and while a vegetable and a fungus some mushrooms and onions the two culprits that always cook down to basically nothing never seems to matter how many mushrooms they throw in you get a tiny little spoonful at hand [Music] to let those cook up and then it'll be on to the next part of it it's these things honey garlic noodles from the sidekick sort of thing so it'll form together you're like a nice pasta it pasta pasta I always get called on that a nice and noodle dish so that's what it's going to be it's cooked up nicely you can see how miserable this little famous I have to keep warming up this butane cylinder with my hand to keep it going because it's just a little too cold for the butane but once you finish off this for the disc according to directions on the package noodles put in some water a couple of cups and I am using this bottled water I do have a canister that I refill with water and actually I refill these a lot too but I find when I have my water spread out into these little ones there's less of a chance that'll freeze which it has but I could keep a few in the sleeping bag with me at night so that I get water in the morning and of course it's not a good recipe without its little portion of rich Creamery butter that is a pretty lousy looking flame so yeah heat the cylinder up bring this to a boil and then we'll chow down well that cooked up okay I'll have to admit that I get some mushrooms in here yeah and yeah there is obviously some processed food involved in my style of camping like these ready to go noodle packages but there is a convenience factor because I can't bring the whole spice cabinet with me in hey I'm gonna start prepping some meals I guess I'm slowly getting a little bit healthier nothing no beef this time no red meat I don't know now that's good and you know one of those larger vans would have been more convenient I could have actually put a regular bin in the back and the TV and all that but I didn't trust the doors cuz there's no passageway from the front into the back so you're pretty much hoping that nobody closes that latch on the back or steals it drives away while you're in it could be could be trouble for sure nice warm comfort food that's what that is oh yes you know I'm gonna finish going down here try to keep everything from freezing on me and then we'll do some temperature readings because it's coming up to about the coldest part of the night I can tell you it's pretty comfortable in here it's probably 70 Fahrenheit 20 Celsius so it's it's a comfortable temperature but outside I know for a fact my phone actually the screen has seen better days but it's it is telling me - 35 tonight Celsius and in Fahrenheit that is getting down there so we'll see we'll see what it actually says on the thermometer getting ready to hunker down a good meal always does that to me but the thermometer I have it in the drawer well I don't want to go outside and draw any more attention but I've got the thermometer just in the side passenger door and I'm gonna pull that out and see what it's reading now it's probably 11:30 at night right now and they're calling for the lowest temperature to be around 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning now keeping in mind there's also the heat coming off of this I will pull it out and see okay it's actually not working well it doesn't like the cold no no it's up to see minimum minus 50 degrees Celsius I don't think that's right and that would be minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit that's what that shows but there's no way that's correct or else I'd be in trouble here but in here in the live temperature readings we are oh I think that thing wrecked my thermometer here yeah this is this is having some issues but it's reading right around I guess 13 Celsius now thirteen point four so that's rising nicely and that's in Fahrenheit will be naught C minus 50 Celsius so yeah it's around 60 degrees Fahrenheit in here I can assure you it's not minus 50 outside but it is cold so I think somebody just wore a tie just the pedestrian walking by by the sounds of it but the the best spot to park is obviously where there's not a sidewalk right beside you but those are often in really nice neighborhoods where there's a ravine on one side and that's a whole bunch of problems on its own so I'm gonna call in to bed shutoff lights hit the hay I'm gonna turn the heater down a whole little bit I would be interested to see how much frost builds up overnight on the inside if it's anything like the ice fishing town yeah I know everybody says you strip down to your bare minimum but that's the stop the sweat from building up and I don't see any sweat becoming an issue here so guys [Music] good morning I found the point at which that power pack won't work it's about minus 30 and the light goes off so I've got the windows open it was a reasonably good sleep I spent colder before this sleeping bag probably should have been a little bit more substantial than just the one but it did the job so it's perfectly doable to camp out in one of these things with a bigger one and a little more time you can make it a lot fancier in here a lot nicer but I I'm gonna just go to McDonald's for breakfast because bananas frozen eggs are cracked I was gonna poach a nice egg I don't know I just need a hot coffee and that's I gotta use the restrooms too I've got an emergency bucket here but I like to not use that as much as possible so we're gonna head to McDonald's I think I got a coupon I hope so and I gotta grab a coffee in a sandwich and well first of all use the restrooms but we'll start this up because there is some frost on the windows of course which is to be expected I was expecting worse than that but I had the heater on pretty low last night so they didn't give up too much condensation but yeah there's chunks of ice on the on the roof here that I got to get this thing chiseled off before I bring it back or else I'll lose my I'll lose my cleaning v or something I don't know McDonald's is the perfect crime hi there like to get back GOP makeover day no thanks could I get a sausage and egg McMuffin meal with coffee to drink and to cream and one sugar [Music] thank you good this morning that really shows how difficult it is in these temperatures because I had all the luxuries of propane heater a reasonably good sleeping bag caught a vehicle and it was still a little tricky in a lot of ways and you know there are people out there with you know piles of blankets in this weather and that's about it and soaking wet blankets after being out in there so it shows you that you know I I go out and I do this in it as an adventurer but I could see it getting pretty pretty old after a while anyway beautiful wife and I have decided we got bit of news we're not renewing the lease on a little house that we're renting in Edmonton and we are in the process of looking to buy an acreage around the Edmonton area and that should be more useful in terms of the projects I build you know if we could have a little forest on there I could or a little wood somewhere I could build some you know shelters and stuff like that so that's hopefully what we're gonna be doing here within the next few months and we're gonna be traveling around and doing a little bit of a break from this cold weather gonna head somewhere a little warmer and do whatever type of camping so those are things that are lined up in the in a short-term future here and [Music] [Applause] you know when I have it the kid McDonald's did not have all-day breakfast you know how many times when we were teenagers did we go rushing to McDonald's and I think they stopped the breakfast at 10:00 or 11:00 or something but after after a big party on a Friday night we were not getting there in time for what we were really craving McDonald's practice so 24-hour breakfast these days here what an age we live in now I'm going to unload some of this stuff out of the van and got to get this back to the rental place by 1:00 p.m. with three quarters of a tank of gas cuz they're pretty sticky on that point so I've got a few hours here gonna sit home unload this stuff then return this and hopefully beautiful wife's the SUV starts because it's been parked there for 24 hours now in this weather so we made it back to you Hall and the car started so that's awesome news hey I was not expecting that so I brought jumper cables just the case but thankfully we didn't need them I've got no idea how cold it actually got last night because my cell phone is the screen is shattered because of the cold no it's because I'm clumsy and I drop it but there are also a few shout outs that I wanted to give to a few people that I had screenshotted but I can't get into them to see it until I get my screen replaced cuz it's a another thing on the list to do so thanks for watching guys we got a really good one planned for next week it's building kind of an interesting structure for camping in and will possibly get back out to the igloo again in some colder weather for a longer stay I know it's it's always kind of odd what you're gonna get on this channel so thanks thanks for watching and if you did this is your first time there's it's always something strange so if you like that type of thing please subscribe and I gotta get this thing returned because it's been about 24 hours and well worth the 1995 plus fuel plus kilometers I don't know what the total bill is but I didn't go too far maybe 30 bucks or something who knows till next time you're camping with Stevie

Channel: Steve Wallis

Views: 4,356,763

Rating: 4.8357782 out of 5

Keywords: camping, steve wallis, camping with steve, hunker down, stealth camping, winter camping, winter stealth camping, van, van camping, cold camping, urban camping, van life, boondocking, winter, cold, canada, steve wallis camping, u-haul, u haul camping, u-haul rental, cargo van, camping in a blizzard, blizzard, extreme cold, frozen, heater, step 2, beer, moving van, moving van camping, rental van camping, van dwelling

Id: c5B-9YiU5Ao

Length: 28min 58sec (1738 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/johnnapp]

This was a good one!

​

#alwaysboondock

[u/BlueHighwindz]

I've never seen this guy's videos before, but this seems like the set-up to a found footage horror movie.