Is it just me or is this becoming a noticeable trend? It used to be the best fireplaces were built high and most had at least one side open to allow feeding and airflow for cooking w/o so many unnecessary rocks you had to reach too far to get to it. More and more it seems once nice fireplaces are being dismantled and turned into big fat piles, at best rings - many of which hold big punky partially burnt logs and various garbage. They are often near a growing pile of unwelcome punk and green branches.

What I'm wondering is, are stoves robbing us of a common heritage, our fire making for cooking skills? If you want something to burn thereby providing heat and light, why sink it a foot or two deep in a ring of rocks two/three feet thick? We all tweak fireplaces to fit our own needs but one ring I encountered this year (dubbed Camp Willy Nilly) was so big that after I cleaned it out, I found two, maybe 9" rocks to hold my 24" grill and easily set them inside the ring. It was so big it already provided the needed airflow and I could feed it foot+ long wood w/ relative ease from both sides. I had to step into and straddle the previous ring to get close enough to pour and flip pancakes but it worked.

Why would I even consider a campsite I didn't like you ask? The first one I stopped at was trashed. It's one I stayed at on an early solo. the fireplace at that time, well I sat right next to it and fed it twigs within reach late into the night listening to a bird sing. The second (big 5 star we liked 20 years ago) had toilet paper in the fireplace and lots of it.  (No I didn't investigate further, just turned my back and left.) The third, well, it wasn't so great and wood was scarce. The forth wasn't the thing of beauty I remember when I first stumbled across it years ago. The fifth was the best of all I surveyed on the lake, it was after 7 and I had fillets bagged from earlier that morning plus I like fire.

It is what it is, I know that but it doesn't seem right to me. Maybe it's because I just felt like cooking over the fire more than usual this year.