Winter Camping Contest

[Zemapeli]

Cool contest. Not in for this one. Thanks for the gesture. :thumbup::thumbup:

 

[JoberSeven]

"That's it. Show that it sucked, and what you did to make it not suck! "

i love that line. i don't plan on entering, but i look forward to the pictures. great idea, and crazy generous.

 

[Psyop]

Here is what I have been up to this month.

found otter tracks in my creek.

leveled a spot for the barn

I know I should have took more pics so it actually happened but I've been having too much fun [emoji2]

 

[stabman]

Well, I don't know when I'll get to the woods proper (due to not having a car), so I hopped on the city bus and headed out to do what I could do.

On the bus to adventure!

I found the spot I made that EDC shelter back in 2011.
Remember this?

Well, in February of 2014, it was this:

Well, it's been all flooded for most of this year, so I couldn't get there before, but today I did. :thumbup:
But no snow, as we've had bouts of ridiculously warm weather, which melted it all.
But here it is now:

Kind of sagged due to things dying and decomposing over the years, but still there!

The one piece of shoelace holding it up is still there too:

Someone else had come along in the last couple of years, and nailed up some sturdy branches into a framework:

So, using my handy D'Eskabar (the only Becker knife I own), and some paracord, I strung up a tarp:

There it is with the chair I brought (and you might see the backpack hanging from a strap off to the side):

I found a couple of pieces of cement to have a fire on, and a piece of rusty sheet steel, which I later bent to make a reflector:

I used the Swisschamp's saw to harvest a piece of wood for a project:

Here you can see the bent steel reflector, the beginnings of wood for a small fire, and the D'Eskabar batonning to create a flat surface for the project...

...a spoon!

See how well the round "ring" area works for scraping the bowl:

Here it is after the sun has gone down:

You may notice the lack of a fire; that is because it is too close to civilization to have one...I started one to boil water to make a coffee, but the smoke from it just starting was way too much (I need one of those propane or alcohol stoves for situations like this...).

This also meant it got really cold really quickly once the sun went down, and my feet started freezing due to the boots I was wearing rather sucking (I threw them out when I got home ).

The quickest way out was across a drainage ditch that has been flooded all year long. The ice had partially melted, so I threw a few logs in to make a "bridge"...sort of...
I thought it must be kind of shallow due to how the logs landed; nope, it was water on top of ice! So, I made my way across (walking stick helped a LOT for balance), and made it pretty safely...except for the last step where my left foot went through the ice. Yay!

So I decided to give up on the Les Stroud approach, and embrace the Bear Grylls approach; here I am at the mall, warming up:

The spoon, more or less done (charring courtesy of a lighter, as the fire was a no-go:

Using my amazing survival bartering skills, I negotiated my way to getting this digital crime-simulation software

Not to be deterred, at home I set up the water boiling bottle on a couple of parallels with three tea lights...my ingenious "coffee bag" sits off to the side:

While waiting for the water to boil, I figured beans would be a good test of the spoon:

It worked!

Candles don't put out many BTUs, so I had to direct it more:

But eventually, it worked:

So, there it is.
Hopefully I'll get out to do a better one, but at least now I have, in my estimation, a solid 5% chance of winning!

 

[Tdhurl1103]

That was a very cool outing. A solid 5% for sure [emoji6][emoji3] Thanks for bringing us along.
It's more than I've been able to do for a while now anyway.

 

[stabman]

That was a very cool outing. A solid 5% for sure [emoji6][emoji3] Thanks for bringing us along.
It's more than I've been able to do for a while now anyway.

5% works for me!

I was pretty stoked to see the old shelter still standing, considering how it was built (not too energy intensive).
Good thing I went yesterday though...today was heavy rain all day. Rain, in February!
It's gonna be one messed up winter, it seems.

 

[bearfacedkiller]

I should be spending the night at timberline this weekend and building a makeshift shelter. I will try to document my trip but I am flying solo and if weather turns on me up over 10,000 feet pics will be difficult. I will get something posted up though. Yeah! Backcountry ice fishing!!!!

Thanks for the generous contest. I usually try to take a lot of pics when I get out but this will give me some focus.

 

[Noswad0208]

Does a non-overnight work as long as I build a shelter and such? Not sure if I have enough cold weather sleeping gear to sleep outside in this weather but if I find time I'd be down for some shelter and fire building.

 

[clarenc]

I'm getting prepared for my first real jungle camp and hike next month at Algonquin park and am so excited. Even though I had been to this park before, I thought this will be the ideal time to make a visit for a camping. Also, I haven' got any opportunity to [URL="http://www.killarneylodge.com/algonquin-cabin-rentals/"]stay at the adventure lodge in the middle of the park[/URL] named Killarney Lodge and I've heard a lot about that lodge and, this time, I had my booking a lot early and I'm excited about that too. This winter is going to be remembered for a long time I guess.

 

[1066vik]

Does a non-overnight work as long as I build a shelter and such? Not sure if I have enough cold weather sleeping gear to sleep outside in this weather but if I find time I'd be down for some shelter and fire building.

give it a shot -- it may or may not win, depending on what other entries we get, but I guarantee you won't win if you don't get out and enter something.

 

[Tdhurl1103]

Does a non-overnight work as long as I build a shelter and such? Not sure if I have enough cold weather sleeping gear to sleep outside in this weather but if I find time I'd be down for some shelter and fire building.

Post something up. We will consider it. [emoji3]

 

[bearfacedkiller]

I had been thinking about hiking up to a lake that I have been to in the summer quite a few times and and seeing if I could build a shelter or snow cave and camp out and do some ice fishing. I have been up there early in the winter before to get to some really early ice but February is a little different than November up there over 11,000 feet.

It was 11 degrees at the trailhead which isn't too bad but the trail climbs around 1000 feet and breaks the treeline at the very end when you get to the lake.

Most of the trail was good for snowshoes and even with my heavy pack it was steady going for most of it.

Some parts of the trail got a little rough for the snowshoes. You can already see bad weather ahead.

It didn't take too long and I was working my way into some bad weather.

Starting to just be windblown and cold. Winds were probably sustained at 30 mph with gusts of 50-60 mph. The first video ends when the wind blows my Nalgene bottle off my pack.

I made it to the lake but this is the last picture that you can really see anything in. The lake is about 1/4 mile further in this direction. Visibility was pretty much zero. I had to use my GPS a few times just to make sure I knew where I was.

I decided to back back down a little and dig myself a snow cave in a rather large snow drift in the trail. I used a snowshoe to do some of the digging and once I got inside the cave I used my BK15 to cut the rather hard crusty snow into cubes so I could throw them out of the cave. A shovel would have been nice but it worked well enough.

My cozy home for the night.

My loadout. A little heavy but manageable for a 2.5 mile hike.

Besides using my BK15 to carve out some of my snow cave I also used my BK14 to chip away the ice on my Nalgene bottle and snagged this cool pic.

I used my pack for a door on my cave and I guess the cold got the better of my camera so no pics from the morning. I woke up and it was basically the same weather so I packed up and split. Was no point in hanging out up there or trying to fish in that. It was only about 2.5 miles back down to the truck so I made good time and drove over to one of my usual fishing holes and killed it all day long.

 

[bearfacedkiller]

I put the camera on the dash board for the hour drive over to my favorite lake and got it working again. It was too cold and the lense couldn't open. It was just groaning.

Used my BK15 for cutting some frozen bait.

Gutted them up with the BK14.

Keepin' 'em clean and dry on the corner of the sled.

Caught around 15 fish from 16 to 22 inches and brough four home for the freezer so the trip wasn't a bust. I made my snow cave and went ice fishing, just not in the same spot.

I had a blast and got outside, built a shelter, caught some fish and got some fresh air and maybe a little too much sun. My face is peeling pretty good now.

 

[TheMadIndian]

My hats off to you bearfacedkiller that's awesome

 

[1066vik]

nice post!
some good suckage there, and excellent documentation.

 

[NCSlice]

Wow! Good stuff BFK!
That's some stiff competition there...
Nice work man.

 

[bearfacedkiller]

Thanks guys. I am a shutterbug so that part is easy for me. I do a lot of solo winter stuff so I tend to take a lot of pictures. This is really me in my element. I always have loved winter and this may sound strange but my wife says that my superpower is that I don't get cold. I really do manage cold temps as well as anyone I have ever met and I was never for a minute cold on this trip. Growing up in the northeast in an outdoorsy family hardened me up pretty good I guess. I have camped in the Adirondacks in temps as low as -35 degrees back in the day so this trip wasn't too bad except for the wind. I am a nut for winter survival and if this same sort of contest were to go on in the summer I probably wouldn't even think of entering and wouldn't stand a chance of winning. I am more of a low impact backpacker than a bushcraft pro. I don't build shelters from brush but usually carry a hammock and a space blanket. I don't process much wood and I often don't even bother with a fire if I am flying solo which is very common. I was a boyscout and have been a hunter, fisherman and all around outdoorsman all my life and I come from a long line of outdoorsmen so the bar got set high early and I have some great survival skills but they aren't all that elaborate or bushcrafty if that makes sense. Hopefully my affinity for winter will pay off here.

 

[DunkEm]

Had a free evening so I made a run to the National Forest about an hour from the house.

Just for grins I thought I'd grab some pics of the harsh winter environment today and post them here.

First up, a screen capture to give you a sense of the onslaught of winter today.



No bearfacedkiller snow cave happening here.

A simple site close to the road.



Set up camp.



Sure it's not very primitive but it came together fast.

The steel that came along for the journey.




A little hammock time before the sun went down.



Thought I might try sleeping in the hammock for the first time, but in my rush to leave the house I grabbed the one without netting. And a few mosquitoes are still buzzing around. Plus I still haven't figured out how to hang well enough to sleep in it.

Got the Emberlit going and transfered a few coals to make a bigger fire.




Water boiled. Cup of soup made and eaten.

Realized that in my rush to leave I got away without my headlamp or the flashlight I meant to bring. Fortunately I had my old 4D cell Maglite in my truck.

Though I was annoyed about the flashlight situation, things were pretty good until the fire needed adjusting and one of logs broke and flipped back and burned the fool out of my index finger. (no pics). I didn't even feel it at first but I could see the white skin and tell that it was already blistering.

Pulled out the first aid kit. Cleaned my hand, put on some burn ointment. Took two Advil and stuck my finger in a cup of water because those pain free moments were long gone.

Went back to the fire and tried to relax.

Got up a bit later and my flashlight slipped out of my hand and broke.

Decided maybe it was a sign that this wasn't the night for me to be in the woods. So I put the fire out, packed up and head home before I broke or hurt anything else or the dead treat the edge of the clearing fell on me.

And hour later I'm safely home and working on keeping my finger numb.

Probably my worst ever camping trip. But I'm still glad I went.

 

[bearfacedkiller]

Any night in the woods is better than a night in front of the TV. Thanks for sharing.

No flashlight? I may have gone home too. Maybe I am a little afraid of the dark. I may backpack solo but I always am loaded up with flashlights and batteries when I do. I once ran out of daylight while deer hunting and didn't have a flashlight and had to spend the night in the woods. I would have made it out if I could have seen but I just sat down and leaned against a big tree and waited for daylight. I thought I would be up all night but I fell asleep and slept pretty well with no bag or anything. This was years ago and now I EDC a flashlight. I actually won't leave my house without 2 knives, 2 lighters and 2 flashlights so hopefully I will never be stuck like that again.

 

[stabman]

Last Saturday, I made it to the woods again; this worked out very well, because my brother, my friend Ian and I had been planning to do a winter camping trip anyway. The only thing that was uncertain was the timing, which can be tricky given the commitments people have in place already. But a window of opportunity opened for my brother, and Ian's parents stepped up to spend time with their grandson, so it was a go!

Due to timing though, the fine tradition of my brother and I lugging all the stuff out there was continued.
We got into the woods proper at the site around 15:30, and started setting up. Here's my brother trowelling away some of the old coal bed, or at least trying...it was really friggin frozen. You can see some of the shelter poles from previous excursions:

The fire is going, and he is sawing a small log on the old sawing stump (we formed a V or U shaped notch in the top of it last time out; really handy ):

You can see some of the equipment (a small bit of it) here on the folding picnic table my brother carried out there on a shoulder strap. The D'Eskabar is there, and so is 50 feet of cheap cotton rope. Since the D'Eskabar is my only Becker knife, what I did was use it for ALL the tasks I normally use a pocket-knife for. All rope was cut with it, for instance.

I had a vision for the tarp cabin this time out, which involved hugely expanded head-space. Here you can see the poles we made to raise the rear section; one of the original supports is leaning forward, but we correct that later, as you will see:

You can see the first dollar store tarp up there, as well as the vapour barrier that forms the front, making the finished tarp-cabin into a "super-shelter." Note the extra poles jammed into the ground and lashed to the leaning support pole. We also added dirt to the base with a trowel, and stomped it down, adding more as the ground thawed near the fire.

Here I am using the D'Eskabar to make tent-pegs to peg the bottom of the tarps to the ground through the grommets. I used the flat of the TOPS SXB for that purpose (makes a handy hammer ):

It is getting dark now, so we switch to headlamps to finish setting up. Ian, at this point, has left home, and is on the way to stop by my apartment to get a plaid shirt from my wife...that shirt has the anti-spasmodic muscle relaxers and pain pills that will keep me from flopping on the ground later in the night, curled into a spasmed lump that can't stand up. I took the wrong shirt when I left; little mistakes can be costly; good thing he was coming out that night!

Here's the finished tarp cabin seen from one angle:

And a shot from inside:

Here you can see the D'Eskabar resting on the piece of wood I sawed in order to make a bowl. The plan is to eat my morning oatmeal in the bowl I make during the night. Also, note the super-manly pink camouflage paracord I bought at the checkout counter at Canadian Tire:

I have started making the bowl:

Another of my friends, Dave, has joined us by this point. He drove out, walked down the gravel trail, and then navigated his way through the woods to find us. He isn't in this picture though...what is in the picture (and the following one) is a frozen ant colony that my brother discovered while splitting a log for the fire! I have never seen anything like that ever before:

Here you see my brother, my friend Dave, and my step-brother standing around the fire. Ian is out there by now (my brother met him and led him in), but is not in the picture. My step-brother navigated his way out by himself, as it was him who first discovered this woods:

And there's Ian, throwing yet more wood on the fire!

Fire!

Using the D'Eskabar to split a pole to cook my 3 steaks (yes, those three steaks are for me :thumbup: ):

Here my brother and I cook my steaks, and 5 sausages (he had most of those). Apparently the photos are slightly out of sequence, as this one was taken at 23:48, and the one showing big fire was after midnight...of well, I ain't reordering it all now. ). It was around this time that we heard huge packs of coyotes howling at each other, and I think they must understand English. You see, we were guessing how many there were, and we figured about 20 or so, and I said "Just think how full we'll be after eating 20 coyotes!" To which Ian replied, "Yep, I'd eat a coyote if you cooked it for a couple of hours over the fire."
The coyotes shut up right about then.

You can see some progression on the bowl here:

I tried using coals to char the bowl a bit, but it wasn't deep enough yet to work. So, I put wood shavings and hand-sanitizer in there. It burned nicely as a little stove, but didn't char the bowl at all. Oh well.

Moar fire!

This is just before 05:00, and Ian is going to sleep:

And here you see the alien spacecraft that came to steal him (or maybe it's just the fire...):

It was quite nice and warm in the tarp cabin; he would have been fine even without the three sleeping bags he brought with him (Three of them!)

Boiling water for my tea (sorry, no pictures of the tea...too busy drinking it):

Working on the bottom of the bowl:

Progress is being made in the bowl part too:

Starting with the coals:

At 05:58 in the morning, it was warm enough around the fire to take off the coat and long-sleeve shirt, and go with just a t-shirt for 20 minutes...and I don't do well in the cold!

Fire in the morning, as the sun begins to rise:

Here you can see bowl progress. I had been using the trowel to take coals from the fire, then digging out the majority of char before switching to the D'Eskabar. Worked really well.

This is decent shot showing the hammock my brother slept in, and one view of the tarp cabin. He is still asleep here at 07:28, and is wearing a neoprene mask he put on due to the cold:

A shot of the early morning trees:

Here I'm looking down at the frozen creek. The mid-week warmth blast had melted the snow and some ice, but the creek had held out, and now it was cold enough to endure. Later that same day though (Sunday), another blast of warm air was moving in...once again we see how timing plays out in outdoors activities. I'm glad we got out during a colder period (but not too cold; it was perfect).

I had written a bunch of stuff, but the forum software keeps getting me..grrrr. So quickly resaid, I fell down the hill where it was a sudden drop, and covered in frozen moss...pure ice. I kept the camera safe, and managed to fall safely so as to not make my back worse than it already is:

Looking up the hill at the camp:

More in next post...