Decided to head out to West Canada lakes area Wednesday of last week. The original plan was to hike into Sampson lake for the first night, then hit Whitney for the second night, then hike out Friday before the rain was supposed to start. Unfortunately, we got off to a bit of a late start so we decided as we were passing pillsbury lake that our new destination would be pillsbury lake. It was nearing dusk and getting colder and a fire and food sounded pretty good. We’d never been there before, having hiked past it last time we were in this area. We checked it out and decided to stay and figured we’d hike to Whitney the next day.
There were a lot of chopped stumps, some pretty fresh, and live trees with hatchet marks. You could tell this site gets its share of morons. It’s kind of a strange area there - tons of dead standing trees, with no branches. It was tough to even find a decent bear hang. It’s like a forest of rotten telephone poles just waiting to come down. The lean-to and the site were clean though, so that was good.
The outhouse was pretty much a cesspool; full of water and leaning quite a bit, but still serviceable if you didn’t want to close the door. Which you didn’t. Trust me. :)
We gathered up enough firewood for the night, and rehydrated some dinner, but the wind would not let up. It was a steady 10 mph, and showed no signs of abating. It was about 25 degrees, and we figured a fire was going to be out of the question with the breeze. Luckily though, it died down a bit by 8 pm or so, and we were able to have a quick one before heading in for the night. No loons; no animals of any kind, actually. Not even a lean-to mouse!
I contemplated setting up my tent just because I find it to be quite a bit warmer than a lean-to, but I couldn’t find a great spot that wasn’t either too close to the water or too close to the lean-to so I decided to keep it in the pack.
The night was cold but not that bad. It got down to about 19 with a windchill of 13 so my inreach weather told me. It snowed a bit during the night, so I woke up a few times because it would blow into the lean-to and hit me in the face. I need a bigger mummy bag for cold weather camping. I had so much “no freeze” stuff in my bag with me, it was getting cramped.
I usually bring a white gas stove in the cold weather but I’ve been playing around with alcohol stoves lately and I wanted to see how they’d work below freezing. I was pleasantly surprised. It was 19 degrees Thursday morning and the Trangias worked flawlessly, even though they were a bit harder to start and took longer to bloom. You do go through substantially more fuel, however! How much more surprised me. We used almost a whole liter between dinner, breakfast and lunch the next day.
On Thursday morning it didn’t look like the weather was going to improve much, and the wind had picked up again. We were seeing the start of some whitecaps on the lake, and we were both really glad we opted to hike rather than do a canoe trip somewhere trying to fight that wind. It sure was beautiful, though.
So, after chasing our Helinox chairs across the campsite for the third time, and taking stock of our fuel situation, we decided on a leisurely hike out late Thursday afternoon.
We had put this trip off a few times hoping for a little blue sky, but it was not to be this October. Oh well.
PS - I’m currently looking for a good deal on a pulk and a hot tent. ;)
Here’s a few pics:
There were a lot of chopped stumps, some pretty fresh, and live trees with hatchet marks. You could tell this site gets its share of morons. It’s kind of a strange area there - tons of dead standing trees, with no branches. It was tough to even find a decent bear hang. It’s like a forest of rotten telephone poles just waiting to come down. The lean-to and the site were clean though, so that was good.
The outhouse was pretty much a cesspool; full of water and leaning quite a bit, but still serviceable if you didn’t want to close the door. Which you didn’t. Trust me. :)
We gathered up enough firewood for the night, and rehydrated some dinner, but the wind would not let up. It was a steady 10 mph, and showed no signs of abating. It was about 25 degrees, and we figured a fire was going to be out of the question with the breeze. Luckily though, it died down a bit by 8 pm or so, and we were able to have a quick one before heading in for the night. No loons; no animals of any kind, actually. Not even a lean-to mouse!
I contemplated setting up my tent just because I find it to be quite a bit warmer than a lean-to, but I couldn’t find a great spot that wasn’t either too close to the water or too close to the lean-to so I decided to keep it in the pack.
The night was cold but not that bad. It got down to about 19 with a windchill of 13 so my inreach weather told me. It snowed a bit during the night, so I woke up a few times because it would blow into the lean-to and hit me in the face. I need a bigger mummy bag for cold weather camping. I had so much “no freeze” stuff in my bag with me, it was getting cramped.
I usually bring a white gas stove in the cold weather but I’ve been playing around with alcohol stoves lately and I wanted to see how they’d work below freezing. I was pleasantly surprised. It was 19 degrees Thursday morning and the Trangias worked flawlessly, even though they were a bit harder to start and took longer to bloom. You do go through substantially more fuel, however! How much more surprised me. We used almost a whole liter between dinner, breakfast and lunch the next day.
On Thursday morning it didn’t look like the weather was going to improve much, and the wind had picked up again. We were seeing the start of some whitecaps on the lake, and we were both really glad we opted to hike rather than do a canoe trip somewhere trying to fight that wind. It sure was beautiful, though.
So, after chasing our Helinox chairs across the campsite for the third time, and taking stock of our fuel situation, we decided on a leisurely hike out late Thursday afternoon.
We had put this trip off a few times hoping for a little blue sky, but it was not to be this October. Oh well.
PS - I’m currently looking for a good deal on a pulk and a hot tent. ;)
Here’s a few pics:
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