{"id":17195,"date":"2018-08-27T14:00:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T21:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=17195"},"modified":"2022-01-06T07:43:30","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T15:43:30","slug":"sand-free-is-the-way-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2018\/08\/27\/sand-free-is-the-way-to-be\/","title":{"rendered":"Sand Free Is the Way to Be"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kids are messy. So is life. CGEAR Sand-Free Multimats can help<\/a>. A lot. <\/span><\/p>\n

Sand is, of course, more commonly known as \u2018desert spice.\u2019 It\u2019s the onmi-present grit in even the most jealously guarded sandwich, the other surprising \u2018crunch\u2019 in your scrambled eggs, the bane of every zipper. It camouflages micro-trash and coats your Paco pad, tent floor and the back of your legs. It drives toddlers and parents crazy, and it just gets…everywhere.<\/span><\/p>\n

Now, there\u2019s nothing wrong with getting absolutely filthy on any given day in the outdoors. I fully encourage it. But as a mother of three kids under six, whether we\u2019re camping in the high country or rafting western rivers, the constant management necessary to maintain a very basic level of hygiene takes tremendous effort.<\/span><\/p>\n

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I was excited to try CGear sand-free mats this summer and put them to the test with my own hot mess of a camping family in the hopes that I could simplify things just a little. As a quick summary, they\u2019re designed as durable alternatives to traditional tarps. They allow sand and grit to fall through while trapping everything else from cracker crumbs to dropped batteries and blueberries. You can walk across them without building up piles of dirt as it sifts through quickly. Even wet sand passes through with some gentle pressure. <\/span><\/p>\n

After getting a chance to take out both the largest and smallest size mats for the season, I\u2019ve identified three major ways this super neat invention improves camp\u2014and life in general\u2014 especially with little kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

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CGear as a Kitchen Mat
\n<\/span><\/strong>I was most familiar with using a mat (of sorts) in the camp kitchen when this experiment started. It\u2019s the tried-and-true best way of managing micro-trash and significantly lessening the impact of any group camping experience.\u00a0<\/span>Whether you\u2019re camping in a sensitive riparian area, or in a heavily trafficked site, kitchens are the areas most notorious for leaving behind \u2018traces\u2019 of all types. <\/span><\/p>\n

Because the sand mats allow sand and grit to pass through, while trapping almost everything else, they\u2019re they perfect catch-all for food detritus without requiring you to also dump a full pound of sand into your trash bag. With the large-sized mat laid out under the prep tables and set up as a floor mat for some of your more hands-on eaters (.e.g. toddlers and your drunk cousin), dropped bits of grated cheese, upended pasta bowls and even wrong-side up fallen sandwiches are fully contained and salvageable if you subscribe to the five-second rule.<\/span><\/p>\n

For us, the trial by fire was a four-day camping trip through Labyrinth Canyon on the Green River with two other families for a total of seven kids under seven. Needless to say, meal times were a bit like the sort of feeding frenzy you see with carp off the dock of a restaurant on Lake Ozark. Toddlers with plates of food in various interpretations of upside down, with faces and fingers fully coated in whatever part of the meal they had deemed worthy of their attention.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I also got to give it a try with an all-ladies Westwater overnighter. The campsites for Westwater are, of course, highly trafficked and, over the last five years or so, have begun to write the end chapters of what happens when even tiny crumbs from a thousand meals get left behind. The ants, then the mice, then a variety of reptiles. But our group was able to run a totally clean camp and saw neither scale nor whisker of the alleged varmint interlopers despite the notoriously messy food item garlic bread.<\/span><\/p>\n