Tent Sauna Embarkment

It was like any other December 30th in Waterville, WA. The snow was holding back from its usual encroachment on our lovely plateau, snow storms were forecasted, and my mind was restless. Something needed to happy on this all but normal day. I decided through my madness and engineering prowess that me and the boys needed to do something memorable. As time stands, my family is currently hosting a Finnish foreign exchange student by the name of Iiro Vahatiitto. If you now anything about Finland you would know that it is the birthplace of the sauna and this holiday season Iiro was most definitely missing his everyday sauna.

The project: Tent Sauna

The Team: Kirk Davis, John Jorgensen, Iiro Vahatiitto, and Kenny Davis

Materials: Salvaged Goods.

We started as any group of men our age would, very slowly. The motivation of get everyone out into the cold to start was more than difficult...but after an elongated period of struggle everyone started pitching in. We started by clearing the snow (only about 5 inches, which is weak for this time of year) for our tent and fire.

We then were off to John's house, walking with some sleds as trailers, to smuggle some nice, dry firewood from under his porch. Upon arrive we took our first break and ate lil smokies....ya thats right! After Jim Ruud gave us the green light we were ditching the sleds for the FFFFFFFFFooooorrrrdddddd Truck! With the wood load the next thing we needed was some good rocks. Pine Canyon was our provider as we gathered about a dozen good sized basalt rocks.

Once back at home the fire started! With the

rocks on HOT we split, letting mother nature do the real work. As for the tent part we set up an old tent of mine, cut the

bottom out, and layered it as many blankets and tarps that we could find to help insulate. We put in some small cinder blocks i

n one corner for the hot rocks and pads around the rest to insulate our bodies from the ground.

When it was time, which arrived with the amber glow of our glorious stones, Iiro loaded the tent (because of his background, we let him do all of sketchy things that he learned as a child in Finland).

We rounded up a tub of water for the rocks, stripped down to the birthday suit (the true finnish way), and embarked on the greatest sauna know to this town!

BEFORE SHOT

Halfway through we all went running around in the snow and rolling like real men...do I need say more?

THE AFTERMATH

It was a success and will now be a tradition whenever we need to burn some daylight. Special thanks to the Ruud Family for letting us use their firewood. Cheers & Happy Sauna!