Thursday, February 23, 2012

2012 Mew Lake (1st Winter Camping Trip)


Well I'm back from my first winter camp without any limbs lost to frostbite.  This trip was a lot of fun, and taught me a lot about spending extended time outdoors in the winter.  Most of the things I thought would be an issue turned out to be business as usual, and it was the little things that I overlooked that ended up causing the most issues.

Setting up the tent was the first example of thing.  I had planned for a few cases which I thought was exhaustive enough for staking out my tent, but you can forget about snow stakes or deadman anchors.  The ground was too hard to peg, the snow was too shallow to stake, and far too powdery to bury an anchor that would hold. That was as far ahead as I thought it through, and now none of my options were available.

The solution I finally came upon was to break off large blocks of snow and anchor the ties outs to them using paracord.

Ad-hoc solution to rigging the tent up, tying corners to ice boulders and sealing gaps with snow.

This by no means was as secure as stakes, and I could not tension the lines as much as I wanted to prevent drafts.  I used our shovel to pile up walls and bury sections of the rain fly, using the insulative properties of the snow itself to seal off any areas I didn't want the wind to penetrate.  There was still plenty of breath-ability, but it reduced the heat loss to convection that we experienced.


The snow shovel really saved me here.  It is completely necessarily, and should be part of the arsenal of anyone who plans to do some winter camping.  We used the telescoping kind normally reserved for emergency kit in the trunk of the car, but it might be worthwhile to upgrade this to surplus e-tool or an aluminum alpine shovel.

Having the car really helped out with hauling gear because we managed to bring a lot more equipment than we normally do.

All packed out.  Ordinarily I'd cringe at seeing this much gear...this time not so much.

Being our first winter trip we ended up packing much more gear we normally do, to be safe and minimize being caught off guard.  Extra clothes and outerwear to ensure our comfort during the day, warm dry clothes to change into at night and and of course extra blankets.


Dressing for sleep involved 3 layers of clothes
  • Base layer/ wool socks
  • Fleece layer
  • Outer layer
Our sleep system included 4 layers as well
  • a cheap quilt-type barrel sleeping bag opened up on the tent floor
  • sleeping pads
  • sleeping bags, jackets wrapped around our feet
  • final blanket on top
Warmth wasn't a major issue throughout the night, except for my face.  From what I understand you don't pull the sleeping bag up over your face as doing so traps moisture from your breath, which will then freeze.  Being mindful of this I made a point to breath through the opening in my mummy bag and not pull my face in.  This lead to me waking up numerous times the first night to find my face extremely cold.  The second night I pulled the top blanket well over my face and slept underneath it with my head exposed from my sleeping bag, this resulted in a much more comfortable sleep.

As always, getting up in the middle of the night to pee is the most irritating part.  There is nothing quite like knowing you have to get up, and finally buckling.  Unzipping the bag I felt the warmth escape as I scrambled to put on my frozen boots and exit the tent.  I did manage to get great view of the clear stary night sky and some shooting stars as a result though.

Fire was obviously a major part of being comfortable, once the sun went down.  I prepared the fire pit early on in the days so that all I would need to do later was introduce a flame and have a decent fire going.


As soon as dusk hit, I made a flame with my flint and steel kit and we had a fire up and running for the rest of the evenings. We ended up burning through approximately three times the amount of wood we would normally use in the summer, and this was with us being conservative with our fuel supply.


I chose to use a Pyramid style fire this time, because it helped burn larger sized pieces of wood and threw out consistent heat for many hours with very little maintenance.


Dealing with the cold during the day was less of a concern than I thought it would be, but we managed to luck out in terms of the weather.

We got a late start on the 2nd day.  Waking up and getting out of bed on cold mornings is a pretty monumental task even in a heated house, so you can imagine how hard it was to leave the comfort of our sleeping bags.  We ended up not  breaking camp until after brunch and spent a few hours snowshoeing across Mew lake.

Breaking fresh track over a frozen lake is incredibly satisfying.

I found as soon as we started snowshoeing that I was breaking a sweat, so I quickly removed my jacket.  Sweating in the winter time is a huge danger, as moisture pulls heat away from the body much quicker than air.  One of the benefits of layering clothing is that it allows you to strip off or add pieces of clothing to regulate your body temperature more precisely.

After a few hours we headed back while we still had enough daylight left to navigate with, to get a start on dinner.

One thing I did not expect was how much more time is required to do the basic tasks like meal preparation and clean up.  Cook time was greatly increased and food cooled down so quickly, you had to eat fast if you wanted to eat it hot enough to warm you up.  It was a challenge to keep water liquid, as it quickly froze if left around too long unattended.  Canned food that contained water was also prone to freezing solid in the can...and while we could get it out after a little heating over the fire, I found I had the best success cooking food that was initially dry(ish) and had moisture added to it during the cooking process (instant mashed potatoes, rice, stir fry, ramen noodles).


Washing dishes in the cold is not fun either and even after heating the water it still sucks the warmth out of your hands so quickly that it becomes painful to move your fingers.  We eventually decided that for the remainder of our trip, that we would quickly rinse our dishes and then completely wash them in the nearby comfort station where we had hot water and didn't need to expose our hands to frostbite.

Our final night out was much colder than the first.  At some point I had to relieve myself and lost all feeling in my fingers before I even made it back to my tent.  Working the zippers on my sleeping bag was almost impossible, it took a good 15 mins of shivering and then another 20 mins before I warmed up again.  I got just a very small glimpse into how detrimental hypothermia can be and how quickly it can set in.


Overall I would say it was a good experience and am glad that I did it.  It gave me a lot to think about and I now have some ideas on what I need to improve for the next trip cold weather trip out.


Maybe one day I'll be able to work up to camping in the winter without a car nearby, but I'm not in a rush.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Preparing for my first Winter Camp

This weekend I'll be going out with a group to partaking in my first winter camping experience.  While we will be in a designated campsite and have the luxury of bringing a car full of equipment, this is still a fairly significant milestone as it marks my first foray into spending nights out in the cold.

The presented a problem to me.  Of course I have gear, but the majority of what I have can be considered "3-season" equipment, that is, it was designed with spring/summer/fall conditions in mind.  How then can could I reasonably make the transition into winter treks without having to invest hundreds of dollars into buying brand new specialized gear?

Of course this is a problem that has been encountered many times because, and because I have no intention of messing around with hypothermia and so a lot of research has gone into how to stay warm both at night and during the day.  Of course I have invested in better quality cold weather clothing, but was surprised at what could be done to 'winterize' the gear I already had.

Tent
The first discovery I had was that the key difference between a 3-season tent and a 4-season tent is actually structural, since a 4 season will likely have to support the extra stress of snow and high winds.  In terms of insulative value, there isn't much difference between what the 4-season offers compared to the 3-season.

Fortunately for us it's been a fairly mild winter so far, and so we're not expecting a lot of snowfall.  At this point, warmth has more to do with the quality of clothing, sleeping bag and sleeping pad.

Clothing
As stated before I did a bit more investing in clothing, upgrading different parts of my base, mid and outer layers.  I won't go into more detail that this, since it's way beyond the scope of this post.  The key thing to remember is that layers are important, and each one has a specific purpose that should not be ignored.

Sleeping Bag
My sleeping bag is a SnugPak Softie Elite 3, which is rated to -10 extreme.  I usually like assume a 10 degree tolerance for comfort and that the rating would be the bare minimum needed to keep me from dying.  With that said, I will be bringing extra blankets for insulation, a luxury I can afford since we'll have a car.

Sleeping Pad
I've had my self-inflating pad for a few years now and would be foolish not to bring it.  The sleeping pad adds a lay of insulation between the ground and body which makes a world of difference.  The cold ground can suck the warmth out of the body very quickly and be deadly.

Other notes
One thing I almost overlooked was a method of staking out the tent.  I take for grant that in the other seasons I can hammer stakes into the ground and have a fairly secure setup.  In the winter, this doesn't work as well as snow doesn't hold on to the stakes.  So how do we get around this?

Anchors
This could be bags filled with snow, rocks or a "deadman's anchor" made from sticks or tent stakes.  All work well but involve digging a hole and then burying the anchor and stamping down the snow on top to secure.

Snow stakes
Specifically designed to hold in deep snow, these stakes aren't as likely to put up from the snow when hammered in.



At the end of the day, all the research I do will not match the lessons I will learn from actually going out and doing.  Still, it pays to be prepared and I would rather be over prepared than under...