Winter Storm In a Van - Living The Van Life

liquor storm warning in Washington with slopes northern cascades emphasis including the Mount Baker ski area heavy snow expected accumulation of two to four feet above 4500 feet Travel could be very difficult to impossible if you must travel keep an extra flashlight food and water in your vehicle in case of an emergency become dangerous [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] what's up guys it's chad with living the van life up here in Washington welcome to my home for the night I've got my van posted up here in the Mount Baker ski area parking lot the Mount Baker wilderness is experiencing a winter storm warning it's the first of 2019 and it's expected to snow very very heavily and I figured it'd be a good opportunity to bring you guys along for this adventure I've got camps set up here I'm gonna get the solo stove out I brought some firewood we're gonna have a campfire right here in the snow we're even gonna cook a meal over the solo stove and see what we can get into and look at it out here it is freakin unreal right now this is my view basically out my front porch here of this awesome winter scene I mean it's like being up in the Swiss Alps or something or it's like being up in the North Cascades of Washington state super stoked welcome aboard guys getting quite the wind that's blowing in out of the south so I took the snow that I removed from behind the van pile it up along the side as a bit of a wind block to help protect the main part of the camp which is going to be on the other side [Music] [Music] [Music] one cool thing that I just learned by watching YouTube was get yourself a bag of cotton balls a jar of Vaseline take your cotton balls roll them around in the jar of Vaseline zip them up tight in a ziploc bag these are packing great for backpacking or anywhere you're gonna go camping and then make for really great fire starters even a cotton ball by itself actually be surprised at how well it burns then you roll around us and petroleum jelly that thing is going to burn for a while and especially in these moist conditions where it's snowing and it's hard to get perfectly dry wood these things work great [Applause] another cool trick I learned just by observing Jason from primal outdoors build a fire if you guys haven't checked out his channel go on over there and check it out he does a lot of this same type of stuff he lives and travels in an overland trailer behind a f250 and he makes a lot of really great content anyways I was watching him make a fire and learned something from him when it comes to stoking your fire long if you take your fingers and you make just a little window like that and you blow through it you can actually focus your breath right into the bottom of the fire and that helps really really well and getting that first initial hot burn going the solo stove is awesome the Ranger is compact enough to where it fits perfectly up in my yakima rocketbox and it goes everywhere with me and it makes it really convenient to have a fire in a situation like this and here we are in a snowstorm having a nice warm fire originally I was questioning whether I would be able to have a fire under the awning or not but actually I think it might work to my advantage it's not getting anywhere near hot enough to melt the awning or burn it but what it might be doing is actually keeping the awning warm enough to where the snow won't stick to it it will just run off like water I'm gonna get a good bed of coals going in this thing get it nice and thick down at the bottom and then I am curious about being able to cook on it we're gonna try it and see how it works Oh cheers to you guys here's to a cup of whiskey you're gonna come out and enjoy the fire why the coals burned down getting ready to start preparing the meal for tonight and boy is tonight an actual experimental meal I figured tonight it would be kind of cool to do a pizza in a skillet over a campfire I'm not a hundred percent sure that it's going to work but I figured I'd bring you guys along for the adventure and see see what we get out of this so should be pretty interesting the snow is definitely coming down still it's probably about two inches per hour it's about 32 degrees Fahrenheit right now which is zero degrees Celsius the diesel heater as you can hear is burning behind me and keeping the van nice and warm so that when it's time to go to bed it'll be nice and cozy just a little bit more here we'll be ready to cook mmm good good whiskey [Music] this thing is definitely putting out some heat now what I've got here is some mild Italian sausage fresh from the deli yeah starting to hear that sizzle in there [Applause] all right so here's the makings for our pizza I've got mushrooms onion red peppers garlic and Italian sausage what I'm going to do now is in the skillet I'm going to go ahead and cook up the vegetables along with the garlic get those all cooked up the way that I want and then we'll go on to the next step from there go ahead and put the garlic in there okay so we've gone ahead and precooked all of our pizza makings and then from there we're going to take a piece of pizza crust and we're going to put it down in the skillet put the skillet back over the Scylla stove build our pizza on top of that put the lid on it and see if we can slow roast ourselves a pizza to where it's nice and warm and crusty with melted cheese and see if we can enjoy ourselves some pizza while living the fan life up here in a winter storm so far I'm impressed with how things are coming together let's see how it goes from here there we go the skillet now has a pizza cooking inside of it I have no idea if this is going to work I'm a little bit concerned with it burning on the bottom side obviously because that's first heat I did put a couple old pieces of firewood underneath just to get a little more space between the coals and the and the skillet so time will tell we'll see how this goes so I was just sitting here trying to figure out how to keep the bottom of the crust from burning while getting the top to actually be able to cook like a normal pizza and the bottom of the crust is cooking faster so I was sitting here having an epiphany and wondering if I cut a couple wedges of wood to put down inside my skillet to get that pizza crust off the skillet if that might not help it so figured I'd give it a shot nonetheless look at that yeah that's starting to look like a pizza so I'm gonna see if I can lift this thing up out of here guys there's a pizza I'm gonna put this wood down here and I'm just hoping that that creates a little bit of air space and for that heat to be able to come up and around we'll give that a shot and that right there folks is that campfire pizza I cannot wait to sink my teeth into that thing I am actually pleasantly surprised I think we've got campfire success on the pan it's nice and crusty the cheese is melted you're never gonna believe how good this is it actually turned out it's so good look at that it's real pizza made over I can't fire hmm I never even thought that this could be possible and actually the one that I need to thank for this recipe and this idea is actually my mom so mom thanks much for the idea for cooking the pizza guys it's delicious this is seriously the coolest thing ever the snow is falling down the Mount Baker wilderness is under a winter storm warning and here we are live in the van life eating pizza of all things that was cooked on a campfire it's better than delivery it's better than DiGiorno and it's so messy especially when you got a beard in a mustache the crust is actually perfect it's got a nice crunch to it well I would certainly say that was a successful dinner I was a little apprehensive of how I would be able to pull that off but super stoked it actually worked and it's one of those things that exploring certain things just pays off I got the fire stoked back up just been chilling out here enjoying my cup of whiskey snow is still coming down it hasn't stopped coming down in the last 24 hours so that's pretty cool today is the last full moon of the decade which i think is pretty special I was thinking of uh maybe headed out for a walk it's dark but it's actually pretty surreal how much of a glow there is because of the full moon even though it's cloudy and snowing it'd be cool just to walk out in the nature for a bit breathe for a moment relax for a moment just take it all in oh man it's so cool to get out here and be out in the wide open listen to that that is the sound of nothing besides snow falling there's a crazy glow and I know that it doesn't show up on camera but with that full moon you really don't even need a flashlight I can see the mountain over there from the trees look at this going gray already I'm just set down right here in the snow it's like a lazy boy just kicked feet out holy damn this is a crazy world that we live in what is up with this planet how is it that we exist in this and around it yeah this is good stuff what a good way to spend an evening wonderful meal a few cups of whiskey a walk out into nature as it just falls down upon you I love the fact that the diesel heater is on keeping the van nice and warm all right guys I'm gonna chill out and enjoy this moment head back and go to bed I'll catch you guys in the morning good morning guys the snow is still coming down I don't think it's stopped in the last 48 hours almost there is probably eight to ten inches of snow on top of the solo stove which leads me to believe it might have snown like 12 inches last night because that solo stove was still warm when I went to bed man what a cool opportunity to be able to come up here and wake up to this it's 32 degrees outside it's a nice warm 63 degrees here inside the van that's zero degrees Celsius and 17 degrees Celsius inside the diesel heater kept me warm throughout the night and I've just been running it on low and it's plenty this is awesome I'm hungry it's time to figure out some breakfast for this morning's meal I brought the fixings for some biscuits and gravy I thought I would try and build another fire in the solo stove and cook breakfast ah I just love the fact that it's still snowing it's been dumping non-stop and here we are with the wonderful shelter of the van nice and cozy while the snow is literally just piling up are all around us yes [Music] [Music] it's crazy to me to think about what it must be like if you were lost or stranded we're stuck out in this type of weather and the wilderness far from anybody's help or rescue just so thankful to have this to be able to sit inside and enjoy it out there but if I was lost in a survival situation I tell you what that is a whole nother ballgame okay it's time to start thinking about some breakfast here [Music] this is so cool look at the amount of snow that we got just overnight remember when I got here yesterday I cleared off the rocketbox before I opened it up to get my cold-weather gear and the solo stove out of there and you can see how much snow is piled on top of it I'll leave that there you just buried in there so freakin cool it's like a little igloo in there as you can see the wall that I built as a windbreak for the van has actually worked really really well all the fresh snow stacked on top of it and really made it nice and not having that wind out of the south blow through into camp [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] hmm home sweet home guys being out camping doesn't mean you have to give up the comforts of home especially when you live in your van you just bring your home with you it's a little bit touch-and-go with the biscuits and the skillet over a fire like that it's pretty hot but they worked out the gravy worked out really really good nothing like a good old heritage American meal good old biscuits and gravy feels like a cowboy meal to be honest with you Cowboys and wagon trains exploring the West I bet they ate just like this I wonder how they cook the biscuits back in the day well guys I'm gonna wrap up this here van adventure it's been awesome coming up here and living in my van and this winter storm the first of 2019 I was stoked to have you guys on board if you guys liked the video make sure and hit the like button don't forget to subscribe hit the little Bell next to the subscribe button that'll notify you anytime videos like this are uploaded guys it's just the beginning of winter season up here many many more videos like this to come so definitely subscribe to come on board if you guys have any cooking suggestions make sure and leave them in the comments down below let me know what you think of these videos all right guys I'm gonna finish this meal and pack up and get pack out of here peace out keep on truckin [Music]

Channel: Living The Van Life

Views: 11,785,496

Rating: 4.8545747 out of 5

Keywords: Living The Van Life, Living, Life, Live, Lived, van, camping, camped, camper, camp, cook, cooking, survival, surviving, survived, RV, campervan, wild, wilderness, woods, outdoors, car, truck, vehicle, volkswagen, vw, vanagon, westfalia, mountain, mountains, vlog, vlogging, vanlife, chad, bushcraft, bush, offgrid, off the grid, adventure, travel, traveling, snow, winter, ice, cold, weather, prepare, freeze, freezing, preparation, food, prep, overland, overlanding, explore, exploring, blizzard, storm, pizza, campfire

Id: aNWaFxIVbQM

Length: 35min 45sec (2145 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 16 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Tiny_Pay]

I liked the experiment, however not the wiskey. I think hot drinks would be better.

[u/RedditUsr2]

This video makes me wish I could retire and live the van life.

I really want to make some camp fire pizza!