Eat great at Apogaea! Use this printable recipe list for quick and easy mealtime planning. Got a favorite camping recipe? Share it in the comments below!
We’ll also share information on ice availability, camping hacks and cooking tips. Bon apetite!
Cooking hacks & camp recipes
Cooking in foil pouches saves both water and cooking fuel. Burners love prepping foil-clad treats in advance, freezing them and tossing them onto the heat at meal time. Also, when you are finished cooking, just ball up your foil into a little ball and toss in your moop bag. Easy to pack out!
Click here for a printable list of fabulous camp recipes and cooking hacks
Ice, ice baby!!
You can purchase ice daily at Center Camp. Here are the updated ice sale details as of June 6:
- $3 suggested donation – bring exact change!
- Feel free to donate more if you like.
- Hours: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
- Ice comes out of the big ice chests, donation goes in the igloo! It’s that simple!
Please use only what is necessary so there’s plenty to go around. As of June 6, we do not yet know if there will be one delivery or two.
Ice preservation
Be a good Apogaean and practice radical self-reliance! There are a lot things that you can do to extend the life of your ice.
- First and foremost, put your liquor, beer or other non-perishable drinks in a separate cooler. You will be opening that cooler more often. Every time you open your cooler you release cold into the hot environment.
- When you are getting ready to prepare a meal, get all the food that you need out at once. Limit the amount of times that you open and close your food cooler. Once before the meal and once after the meal is much better than opening and closing it to search for each little ingredient you need for those awesome Apogaea meals.
- Keep your cooler in the shade. In a pinch, a shiny emergency blanket laid over your cooler will reflect a lot of the light and heat that will melt your ice. Another alternative is wetting a towel in melted cooler water and draping it over the cooler. As the water evaporates, it naturally cools what’s underneath.
- Think twice before dumping loose ice over your food. Keep it clean and drinkable by bagging your ice into gallon-sized Ziplock bags before it melts. Once it’s liquid, you can transfer the water into a bottle for a refreshing drink.
- Speaking of resealable bags, keep your snacks from getting water logged by storing your food in air-tight containers!
To dry or not to dry. Ice is the question.
We generally don’t recommend dry ice unless you have experience with it and know how to handle it properly. It can be more trouble than it’s worth. Tips for those that decide to use it:
- Get a small Styrofoam container and turn it upside down over the dry ice in the bottom of your cooler put a cloth over that to protect other items in your cooler.
- Anything that comes in direct contact with the dry ice will freeze solid. Just in case, freeze a gallon of water or two (depending on the size of your cooler). This will keep the ice much cooler throughout your burn if dry ice is not an option for you.
- The best place to purchase dry ice is King Soopers. You only need a couple small chunks and it is fairly cheap. Reliant Dry Ice sells at a 50-pound minimum, but if you and your camp mates pool your resources, this will go quickly:
Reliant Dry Ice
1751 East 58th Avenue
Denver, CO
303-308-3005
Trash the potties and we all get sent home.
We cannot stress this enough: if someone puts trash in a porta potty to render it dysfunctional, the event will be canceled. In zero uncertain terms, misuse of the porta potties will cause a big stink and we’re not just talking about poo.
If our Rangers and ICS teams notice trash in the porta potties and adequate restroom facilities are not available, we will all be sent home. No shit.
Pro tip: Bring your own hand sanitizer for each visit. Get a little bottle attached to a clip and hook it onto your belt. You can refill these later from a bigger bottle!
Stay hydrated!
Bring one gallon of water per day for drinking. You will be out in the sun and constantly losing water from your skin. The air is incredibly dry and you will be sweating a lot but you don’t get sweaty because it all evaporates before you can realize you have sweat.
Electrolyte packets are a great idea to stave off the effects of heat and sun. Try drinking at least one liter of electrolytes per day. You can get sugar-free electrolyte powder from Sprouts. They are made by the same company that makes those EmergenC packets you all love so much!
If you are drinking alcohol, please be extra careful to stay hydrated. Alcohol causes your body to shed any water that you would normally retain. Be sure to drink water or other non-alcoholic, non-caffeinated drinks between beers or cocktails.
Shade is your friend.
We all love to wear as little as possible in the hot desert sun. Be careful! There is little to no tree cover at our land in Valdez. Even though you feel like you are keeping yourself as cool as possible by walking around in next to nothing, overexposure to the sun is a serious problem.
Bring a canopy, shade structure, tarp or anything you can securely affix to your camp to provide as much shade as possible. Use a light colored, lightweight fabric as a personal sun shield, apply sun screen often and take an umbrella to protect your skin from the harmful rays of the sun! Daytime costumes that provide shade are a great idea. Just make sure that you do not over heat in your awesome costume.
Don’t be a dark wad!
See and be seen by bikers, pedestrians and art cars! You can pin el-wire to your hat or backpack at night. Do not overestimate the power of head lamps in a dark porta potty at night! Get one that has a red light so that people can see you from the front as well as behind you. Remember, there will be some art cars driving at night, so make sure you can be seen! Please avoid taking disposable glow sticks. LED glow sticks are reusable and many double as flashlights.
Light up your camp at night!
Motion-activated battery lights are great for the outside of your tent. Point them toward the front of your tent so you can enter your tent easily at night. Battery or solar powered Christmas lights are awesome for keeping things lit up. Don’t forget to hang something that glows from any safety lines you use to secure your tent. Tripping over these in the middle of the night is a reliable way to get hurt!
Keep your grey water to a minimum!
Showers are hard to come by at Apogaea, especially if you want to minimize the amount of grey water that you have to haul out.
Take a sponge bath with two wash clothes:
- the first washcloth you will put water and a little bit of Dr. Bronners and wipe yourself all over.
- The second washcloth you can add just water and wipe off all Dr. Bronners.
- Bring a gallon-size Ziplock bag to store all of the used washcloths.
Clean up your camp kitchen the easy way
Keeping your dishes clean is important for an easy meal time. Who wants to do dishes before you can start cooking?! Bring a couple of squirt bottles. Fill one with 1/3 Dr. Bronners and 2/3 water. Fill the other one with clean water. Spray your dishes down with soapy water right away and give them a quick scrub. Then just spray them down with clean water. The sooner you clean your dishes the easier it is. The cleaner you keep your kitchen, the less interested any wildlife will be in what you have in there!