Hi Ric,

For the past three years the local VW club has been getting together
the weekend after Valentines day for the True Canadian Winter Bus
Campout. It's always plenty cold, and we always have a good time.

Some things I've learned:
- a 1500W ceramic heater will heat a westy with the pop-top down.
- If your feet and hands are cold, put a hat on.
- Keep your head covered, even when sleeping.
- take lots of wool socks, and change them often.
- Screw the diet!!! you need about 3,000 calories a day when winter
camping.
- insulating the pop-top doesn't keep you as warm as keeping it
closed. We insulated the westy canvas but it didn't work as well as
the year before when we simply kept the roof down.

http://www.pottsfamily.ca/The_Bug_Pack/TCWBC/

Happy Trails,

Greg Potts
1973/74/75/77/79 Westfakia "Bob the Tomato"
www.pottsfamily.ca/westfakia
www.busesofthecorn.com

On 16-Oct-06, at 10:19 PM, Richard Golen wrote:

> Hi!
>
> The weather up here in New England is cooling off, and thoughts are
> turning to winter. My wife and I are thinking of trying some winter
> camping in our Westy. So far I have a set of thermal curtains that I
> got from Bus Depot a while back, a Mr. Heater buddy heater (with a O2
> sensor, and also a CO detector in the van), or a Pelonis ceramic
> heater if we can plug in. We have a couple of zero degree sleeping
> bags. I figure we can hang a heavy blanket to block off the driving
> compartment from the back of the van to keep the area to be heated to
> a minimum, and of course we wouldn't be keeping the poptop up while
> sleeping.
>
> Besides the above, any suggestions of other things that we could do
> to do some winter camping in the Westy?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
>
> Ric