^^ does he look warm in this picture? cause he was always bragging about how warm he was...yet he doesn't look warm to me here. ^^
^^ pulks full of all the wood we were "processing" ^^
^^ i blazed this trail across the lake to stay warm ^^
^^ there are two trees missing from this picture...cause we cut them down! ^^
^^ one of these guys didn't make it to the end of the day... ^^
^^ souping the dogs! ^^
^^ skillet attacked her food...it was gone in seconds ^^
^^ dog ^^
^^ rail! his ear almost got chewed off during a bit of a kerfuffle earlier that morning... ^^
^^ just us felling a tree together. how cool can we get? ^^
^^ i discovered this strange love for hauling logs thru the snow. it's like a back country cross fit workout: fell a tree, haul 200 yards thru snow and slush, repeat 5 times. sign me up! ^^
^^ slush chunks on the mouse boots ^^
^^ wood processing to stay warm ^^
^^ my favorite ski trail of the trip ^^
^^ life in the wall tent! cooking dinner... ^^
^^ ...drying clothes... ^^
^^ ...eating. at that moment in my life, this was the best food i had ever beheld. ^^
^^ and another frosty selfie ^^
Let's talk about day four. Day four didn't quite go as planned. We awoke in the wall tent except I had been up for hours because of an uncooperative bladder. It was cold. Are we surprised? I think somewhere in the negative 30s. I began the morning "find your clothes in the sleeping bag and put them all on as fast as possible" ritual. And by clothes I mean my boots and gaiters and anorak because I never took anything else off. Then I drank almost 32oz of water because they kept telling me I'd be warmer if I stayed hydrated.
I'd hate to see how cold I'd be dehydrated cause it was pretty awful hydrated. And I had to pee every night.
Let me mention again just how horrible it is to have to exit a warm sleeping bag to pee at night.
But also let me mention one of the best parts of the trip: NO CELL PHONE. We had to turn them off and leave them back at base with our extra luggage and it was an absolute dream to be off the grid for a week. So while I talk about how strip-your-will-to-live cold it was, I was actually loving my life. I just hadn't realized it yet.
Breakfast was awesome. Something with a lot of fat. And then the bad news: one of the guys had frostbite and we had to transport him back to base. That meant the rest of us would stay put for the day while a couple people manned the sled team that would get him there.
We both stayed.
The day wasn't boring though. Brewster called it "Lumberjack Camp" and put us to work felling trees and processing the logs for fire wood. I had a blast. I got to yell "TIMBER!" twice. With actual trees falling! And then cut them into logs and haul them back to camp. It kept me warm and the feeling of walking thru slushy snow with part of a tree on my back was a rush.
Like bring it, life.
Early afternoon came and we set out on a fun ski trail to kill the remaining daylight. It was about the most blissful ski you could imagine. A tight trail thru snow-covered trees with golden sun rays piercing thru. The workout kept me just warm enough and I never wanted to stop. Also, wolf tracks.
After feeding the dogs and finishing evening chores, we enjoyed another blissful dinner in the wall tent. The wall tent with a wood stove and fattening food and everything that is good in life. Clothes were dried, stories were exchanged, a lot of cheese was eaten. I can't say enough good things about the wall tent.
Then we endured a temperature transition of, I would guess, at least a 100 degrees, and cozied up in our sleeping bags for another night.
Spoiler: we would be waking up to a thermometer bottomed-out at negative forty degrees. It wasn't the funnest thing to endure, but it also wasn't the worst. And I'm going to be putting that on my life resume.
Survived outside in colder than negative forty degrees!
Have a great day :-)
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