Back to the Woods

This past weekend I had the opportunity to go winter-camping with a group of wonderful people. Even though I haven’t been camping for about 5 years, back in high school I use to go at least twice a year, which consisted mostly of canoe trips. Unfortunately I’ve let school, among other lesser distractions, keep me from enjoying the outdoors. So when my good friend from home Mike A. told me he wanted to go winter camping, I knew that I had to go on the trip, even though I’d never been winter-camping before. The plan was to go down to Newmarket on Friday where we’d gather our supplies, head to Algonquin on Saturday morning, and then return on Sunday evening to Waterloo.

Our team consisted of Emily S., Kai, Mike, and me. On Friday, Mike, Kai and I went down to Mountain Equipment Co-op to buy some last minute equipment. Then we headed up to Newmarket where Kai stayed over at my place. When my parents met Kai, they had already read my blog post about him, so they were expecting an exceptional individual. Actually, at the end of the weekend, my Dad said to Kai that he lived up to my blog post. Moments like these make me believe that my blog does have some good in it.

Anyway, this post is about camping, so I should continue with the details. Kai and I went to bed shortly after we finished packing our backpacks. The next morning at around 8am, Em and Mike arrived at my place (Em had to come from Scarborough, hence the late start). We were a little tired on the way up:

After buying lunch and a ridiculously large amount of granola bars in Huntsville, we arrived at the entrance to the trail with very large smiles on our faces:

The hike was much more difficult than I had anticipated. It had a fair number of trees to maneuver around, along with many steep ascents. Here’s a picture of Kai and I climbing one of the steepest ascents on the path (this is actually stairs that have been covered in snow):


We hiked a little over 4 km, which took a little less than 3 hours. On the way back, the hike took about 30 minutes less.

When we finally got to our campsite, the sun was about 30 minutes away from going down. Emily and I started setting up the tent, which comprised of packing down a section of snow, and then setting the tent up on top on the packed snow. While the tent was being constructed, Kai and Mike gathered supplies for a fire. We worked on the fire for probably an hour, but were unsuccessful. We then realized that we should have prepared a better plan for starting a fire than simply bringing a lighter (mind you a good lighter) and seeing what happens. Plus, had we been given an hour more of sunlight, we may have had enough time to search for materials to burn.

With our fire plans failing, dinner was quickly made and ate, and then we all ran for the tent to get what warmth we could from our sleeping bags. We put on a lot of layers, went deep into our sleeping bags, and snuggled up to each other as close as possible. Unfortunately we all froze (though not to death). What we probably should have done (or at least what I should have done) was take off the layers we had worn that day, and replaced them with new clothing. Even though my clothes didn’t feel damp, I’m certain they were at least a little, and thus it was impossible to get comfortable.

We probably all got about 4 hours of sleep that night, even though we were exhausted from the hike. I was actually scared about falling asleep because I was worried that I’d wake up and my toes would be frost bitten. By 6am, Mike and I were waiting for a hint of light to excuse our leaving the tent so that we could start packing up, and moving around. Putting our frozen boots on was at first painful, and a little worrisome, but after a little moving around, we felt far better than we did all night. Part of me wishes that we just hiked all night so that we could have stayed comfortably warm.

Just for fun, here’s a picture of Kai’s glasses by morning. Even though the tent had ventilation, the condensation from our breath covered the inside of the tent with a layer of snow.


We skipped breakfast, and instead ate a few granola bars and went straight into hiking. Our hike on the way back was much quicker. We had learned how to maneuver around obstacles with our snow shoes, and we had a lot more hills to go down than to go up. Of course things weren’t perfect, and I was the only one who took a ridiculously large fall while running down a hill. Here is a picture of me after I got up, having an expression indicating that I’m in no physical pain, but my ego has been slightly bruised:


When we got back to Newmarket, we ate a huge amount of food at both my house and Mike’s house. We then headed back to Waterloo (with a short detour to grab a Belinda Stronach sign to post in my room). By the time I got back to my room in North 6, I really wanted a back message, but I got the next best thing, an incredibly warm bath! I then fell asleep in pure pleasure ville, and later awoke in frigid water land.

So that was my winter camping adventure, but if this sort of trip interests you, a group of Dons (and I’m assuming some non-Dons) will be going camping sometime in Febuary. If you haven’t heard about this, please leave me a comment on this post and I’ll add you to the list of interested individuals. Trust me, it will be a worth while trip!