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I pause from our series on backpacking to bring you a video from Camp Crooked Creek in Shepherdsville, KY. Three camp leaders, Jason, Ben, and David have graced us with their musical talents and I now offer you a listen as they play 3 songs from their growing list of music. They put the charm of Bluegrass to some old favorites as well as perform one of their very own tunes.
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How To Sleep Warmly
10 steps to a goosebump-free night
Lucky is the warm sleeper. You know you’re a member of this club if you’ve ever slept blissfully through the night with the zipper to your bag wide open while companions with nearly identical sleeping bags complained of the bone shivering cold.
Warm sleepers and cold sleepers are indeed born that way, due in large part to metabolism and body size. But a whole bunch of other factors come into play that influence your ability to sleep comfortably through the night, such as how much water and food you consumed that day and how much insulation lies between you and the heat-sucking ground.
So, cold sleepers, don’t despair. You can level the playing field with a few easy-to-follow tips to help you generate and conserve more body heat when the night turns frosty. Here’s how:
1. Get enough “bag” for your buck. Select a temperature rating for your sleeping bag that’s adequate for the nighttime temperatures you’re likely to encounter. Head into New Hampshire’s White Mountains in November with a 35-degree bag, for example, and you’ll likely be a cold pup. For a more in-depth discussion on temperature ratings, see “Degrees of Comfort.”
2. Hold onto your heat. A sleeping bag’s design plays a big role in your ability to retain body heat. If you’re a serious camper or backpacker, your slam-dunk choice is a mummy-cut bag for the simple reason that there’s less empty space inside that needs to be heated and the close-fitting hood prevents heat from escaping. (Attention women: new women’s bags conform to the realities of the female form and metabolism — narrower fitting in the shoulders, wider in the hips, shorter overall, and extra insulation in the foot area — to create a bag that’s easier to heat up.) Other warmth-enhancing bag features to look for: an insulated draft collar, which drapes or cinches around your neck like a gasket to seal in heat; a hood with loads of insulation as well as cinch cords to narrow the face opening; and an insulated zipper draft tube running the entire length of the zipper.
3. Get off the ground. The ground is always colder than you, so without an insulating layer between you and it, you’ll be robbed of precious body heat. Your best bets in pads are either the closed-cell foam variety or self-inflaters. See “All About Backcountry Beds” for more about the buying considerations that go into selecting a pad. Tip: When camping on snow or frozen ground, the best formula for warmth is to carry two pads, a smooth, full-length closed-cell foam pad topped with a full-length self-inflater.
4. Eat before you sleep. Think of your body as a furnace that needs stoking with food to generate heat. Treat yourself to some high-calorie indulgences before turning in. For quick heat, carbohydrates like a cereal bar will rev your internal motor almost instantly, but the burn peters out after a few hours. That’s where proteins and fats come in. Peanuts and beef jerky, for example, are like big ol’ Yule logs that burn long and slowly to help generate metabolic heat into the wee hours.
Winter Water
Melting snow
In cold weather camping, one of the best things you can do to stay healthy is develop a drinking habit. I’m talking water, not wine. Adequate hydration is key to avoiding hypothermia and altitude sickness.
But what if you’re camped in a vast expanse of snow where everything is frozen? Then, you might well remember the old lament,”Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink.” But lament no more: These tips will help you find water — or make it.
* In freezing cold weather, look for flowing water. A lake may be frozen solid, while a stream or even a tiny spring might be flowing well.
* Don’t forget to filter or boil water: Freezing temperatures do not kill all the parasites that could be lurking in there.
* If you expect to have to melt water, bring along a backpacking snow-shovel (you’ll need it anyway, for setting up camp, and it’s a safety item in avalanche country) and a couple of big black plastic garbage bags. Shovel snow into the garbage bags and set them in the sun. In a couple of hours, you’ll either have some melt water, which can be funneled into a pot, or you’ll have almost-melted snow that will melt very quickly when it is heated. It takes an enormous volume of snow to make water, so as the snow starts to shrink in volume (which it will do as it starts to melt), add more snow to the bags.
* For faster results, melt snow over either a fire or a stove. First, shovel the snow into a bag or a big pile. (That way, you’ll have all your snow together when you’re ready to start melting it.) When you start your stove (or fire), pour a little bit of water you’ve already got on hand into the pot before you add any snow. This is important: If you try to start with snow: the heat will scorch it, and you will actually end up”burning” your water! Once the water is warm, slowly add snow, wait till it warms up, then add more. Don’t add it too quickly, or it will turn into an icy mess.
* Melting snow takes a lot of fuel and time, so always fill your water bottles whenever you encounter running water.
Conquering Blisters
*Double-check the boot fit. If you’re a beginning backpacker and you’re not used to the feel of hiking boots, wear them at home for a couple of days for several hours to be sure they are comfortable. Seek out a reputable store and an experienced salesperson to find the best fit. If you wear them at home and they don’t feel right, you can take them back to the store for exchange.
*Break in your boots. This is usually as much of an issue of toughening your feet as softening your boots. Any way you look at it, your feet and boots are going to have to reach a compromise, and better they work out their differences near home than on the trail. I like to walk about 50 miles in new boots before I hit the trail (which is great exercise, too). But even trustworthy comfy boots need to be reintroduced to your feet if you’ve been sitting around all winter. Before a big trip, I’ll go out for a couple of four- or five-mile shorties near home, just so my feet and my boots can renew their acquaintance.
*Wear wicking socks—polypropylene or nylon are fine—under a pair of wool or wool-and-nylon blend outer socks. The wicking socks are less abrasive, plus they move moisture away from your feet. Never wear cotton socks—cotton absorbs moisture and practically guarantees blisters.
*Go easy on the mileage and keep your packweight as low as possible.
*The absolutely number one most important rule of blister prevention: The second you feel the slightest hint of something rubbing in your shoe, STOP! Ignore your hiking partner’s pleas to just keep going. Find the pebble, grass-seed, clump of dirt, grain of sand, or wrinkle in the sock. If it’s a tight boot that’s causing trouble, rub the inside of your boot with the blunt, rounded end of a Swiss army knife to try to stretch the leather or fabric.
*If you know you’ve got a vulnerable trouble spot, like the back of your heel, put a piece of moleskin on it before you start walking.
*Treat a hot spot with moleskin on the trail. If a blister has already started forming (it can happen in mere seconds), use a dressing called Second Skin (available from Spenco). This dressing was developed to treat burns—and after all, blisters are nothing more than friction burns. Whether you’re putting moleskin over a hot spot or adhesive tape over a Second Skin dressing, remember that tape adheres better to dry skin than wet skin—so use a bandanna to dry your sweaty feet first.
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Small Critters - Animal-Proofing a Campsite
Little critters like mice and raccoons may not cause hikers the sleepless nights we often have when hiking through bear country. But no one wants to wake up and find a mouse-sized hole in a brand-new backpack, or porcupine tooth-marks in your favorite pair of perfectly broken-in boots. Here’s how to protect your stuff.
* Camping in a site that isn’t often used is the number one preventative. Most animals are afraid of people — until they learn that we carry delicious food and don’t fight back. If you camp where the animals haven’t learned this yet, they are much less likely to come calling. Note: Minimum impact rules apply: Leave the site as you found it.
* If you’re staying in a trail shelter, check out the register (a notebook that serves as communal message board). Often it’ll contain notes about particular animal problems. Shelters usually have hooks or nails for hanging bags of food and equipment. Use them.
* Some campsites have food storage lockers or bear bags for hanging food. That’s a dead-giveaway that animals are problem visitors at those sites. If you’re going to camp there, stow your food out of reach.
* It’s not what you call food that counts — it’s what they call food that counts! That includes cooking utensils, toothpaste, sun cream, and garbage. It can also include T-shirts, boots, and the hip-belt of a pack, all of which can taste delicious, especially to salt-loving porcupines. (Deer also like salt, and will happily chew a smelly T-shirt to pieces.) Natural fabrics are at risk, as well: Mice use them as nesting material.
* It’s better to hang a pack from a tree branch than to leave it lying on the ground — even if the branch is only a few feet off the ground. Animals will be less likely to stumble upon your pack. Take all the food out, and leave the zippers open. Even if animals do find your pack and decide to explore, they can get in without doing damage.
Snowshoeing 101
*Choose the right snowshoe for the conditions: Snowshoes come in a variety of shapes and sizes. The most important consideration: How much “float” do you need? Float refers to how effective the snowshoe is at keeping you on top of the snow—in other words, float is what keeps you from sinking and postholing. The heavier you are, the more float you’ll need. If you’re planning a backpacking trip, the weight of a winter pack will almost undoubtedly put you into the high-float category. The kind of snow matters, too: On powdery fluffy dry snow, you need more float than in wetter, gloppier stuff.
*More on float: Rounder snowshoes tend to float better than the tapered kind. Narrower or tapered snowshoes are a little easier to walk in, because they track better through the snow, and because you can walk with your legs in a more natural stance. Asymmetrical shapes are also easier to walk in because they let you keep your feet closer together—but they sacrifice float.
*Don’t expect to find the old webbing and wood snowshoes of yesteryear: Today’s models have gone high-tech, with components made of plastic, rubber, and aluminum.
*Shoes: Used to be there were only two choices: Shoe-paks (like those felt-lined Maine-style hunting boots) and backpacking boots. But wouldn’t you know it, snowshoeing has undergone a recent renaissance, and the manufacturers, bless their inventive little hearts, have followed suit. So now, snowshoers, too, can sprinkle their conversation with words like polypropylene, Gore-Tex, and Thinsulate. And before you go sniffing that, “The Indians used snowshoes for centuries before Gore-Tex,” consider the advantages of having support, insulation, and waterproofing all in the same boot. Plus, they can be used without snowshoes for regular winter walking.
*Gaiters keep snow out of your boots: A big advantage.
*A pair of ski poles is a must: They’ll help you keep your balance and get up when you fall.
*Technique: If you can walk, you can snowshoe. Don’t worry about how awkward it looks: Despite the width of the snowshoe, the design actually lets you walk in a pretty normal gait. The only thing you can’t do is go backwards because the heel will stick in the snow and flip you over like a well-tossed pancake. Instead, to reverse direction, pivot by moving the fronts of the snowshoes around in a circle.
*Hills: Snowshoes have little spiky crampons attached that help grip the icy spots. The best way to tackle a hill is straight up (or straight down). It’s easier to keep your balance.
Need Heat? How to Build a Winter Fire
It’s gonna happen. And when it does, it won’t be on a sunny summer day when the light lingers till late and the wood is crackling dry. Nope, you heard it here first. Murphy’s Law is gonna attack your stove on a cold and wet night. And when it does, life can start to seem pretty grim, especially if the grub you’re carrying needs to be cooked to be eaten.
So rule number one: Always have some extra snack food handy so that even if you can’t cook, you can eat.
And rule number two: Know how to build a fire.
But building a fire in the snow is a little trickier than in the middle of summer. Here are the basics:
* Gather all your wood first. Organize it by piece size so that you’ll have just the right piece when you need it.
* Even wood buried under a layer of snow can be dry enough to burn, especially if the snow is light and fluffy, which means that it has less moisture content. The worse the snow is for making snowballs, the better your chance of finding dry wood.
* Break a stick to see if it’s dry inside. If it cracks, it most likely is. But there’s one exception: If you’re hiking after a winter rain, that crackling snap could be ice, from water that soaked through the wood and then froze. If that’s the case, you’ll need to look for dry wood in protected areas, like under thick vegetation or in the hollow of an old tree stump.
* Try wood from different places around your site. Keep track of what wood you found where, so that if some of it goes up well and some of it simply smolders and smokes, you’ll know where to return for more of the good stuff.
* Wet or damp wood can take some time to get going. That’s why firestarter is one of the ten essentials. You can buy firestarter at an outfitter, an army-navy store, or at convenience stores in many rural areas. Look for tubes of fireribbon, balls of wax mixed with sawdust, or tablets made of petroleum.
* My favorite in-field trick is using laundry lint, which might be hanging around the inside of your pockets somewhere. Another quick fire-starting trick: If you’ve got a little petroleum jelly or cooking oil, and a Q-tip, apply the oil (or petroleum jelly) to the Q-tip and set it alight. You can also use old guidebook pages or the pages of that lousy paperback you’ve been toting along to read at night. Don’t bother using toilet paper — it burns for only a second.
* Pine needles and birch bark are great fire starters. But don’t rip birch bark off of living trees — look for downed stumps.
* Don’t forget your stove fuel: a dash of gas can give your fire the kick it needs to get going. For safety’s sake, put the fuel on the fire before you light it, never after. Then toss in a match — and STAND BACK!
* If the snow isn’t too deep, dig a hole to make the fire on solid ground. If the ground is completely covered with very deep snow, tamp down the snow so it’s a solid, hard platform. (This will also form a depression, which will act as a windbreak.) Then put a layer of wood down on the snow, and build the fire on that. (Otherwise, the fire will sink into the snow and go out before it even gets going.)
* When the fire is roaring, put any damp wood around it. The heat from the fire will dry it out, and you’ll have a stash of dry wood for later, or for morning.
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