Negative Thirty

When you imagine negative thirty degree temperatures, where would you go to get away from it- a under a toasty blanket by a fireplace, a sauna or hot tub, a sun bathed beach in Mexico? I bet very few of you thought, “Negative thirty!  Why would you want to go anywhere else?” Since I returned to Ely this fall, I’ve been dreaming of blisteringly cold temperatures and a couple feet of snow. But this winter has thrown us here in the Arrowhead for a loop, just as winter for much of the state is unheard of; we finally have enough to play in here in Ely. But, better late than never, and Austin,  Zach, and I were bitten by the adventure bug. We packed up our pulk sleds with all the winter camping essentials and trudged across frozen lakes on Friday afternoon to spend the weekend, as we called it, “Being men!”    

Winter camping isn’t for the faint of heart, as you may imagine, but it’s also not particularly for the right minded person, as you also may be able to tell from our willingness to freeze in horribly cold temperatures. But-joking aside- it isn’t for just anyone. Anyone can go camping, but it’s a whole new concept in the winter: if you fail to plan ahead or ignore essential hints as to the weather or your health, you can die- quickly. Winter camping takes an impressive amount of mastery and method. 

Here’s the method to the madness:

1)      Travel fast and efficient as day light is limited. DO NOT LET YOURSELF SWEAT.

2)      Once you arrive at your site, set priorities: cut a hole in the ice for water, gather firewood and start a fire and start boiling water, and set up the tarp/tent for shelter.

3)      Do everything possible to stay warm, but don’t sweat. (E.g. keep gathering fire wood throughout the day and night.) 

Sounds simple and it is, but there are a lot of factors that need to be taken into account. The real trick to it though-have fun. 

We made it to the boat launch a little after 2:00 pm, got sleds packed and started across Ojibwa Lake around 2:30. At that point, we were behind the eight-ball, had about two hours left of sunlight. Thankfully there wasn’t a lot of snow to trudge through, it was wind swept and packed down most of the way. Coincidentally, we followed fox tracks almost the whole way to the portage into Triangle. He was our spirit guide and any time a snow drift covered his tracks we panicked (jokingly) until they were found again. But trekking over frozen water is also a lot like driving down an interstate across North Dakota- its mesmerizing, hypnotizing- but with a different air. The weight of your sled disappears from your waist after a while, the hiss of it cruising over snow and ice melds with the creaking of your ski pole into a serenade with the wind blowing across your ear. Your mind empties, your eyes pick up on the splendors around you, and things suddenly become half blur-half art.

 

 Then you remember your friends are behind you making smart ass comments and making fun of you and you turn around to flip them the bird and laugh about it some stupid joke. 

Forty five minutes later, we made it to Triangle lake. The cool thing about these lakes is that they are so easily accessible and though Ojibwa has a lot of cabins on it and they allow motor use, once you get a mile away from the launch, you feel like you’re in the BWCA. They’re amazingly beautiful lakes with lots of islands and rolling hills around them with tall pine trees. Triangle is even more beautiful in that it is too far for cars and ice fishers to get to and most people that are there intend on heading into the boundary waters and are on foot. 

 

With an hour left of sun light, we pulled into our little cove. We quickly organized into different jobs: Austin started getting wood, Zach started drilling a hole for water, and I started setting up our tarp for shelter. It didn’t take long and once we got into a rhythm, we got camp set up right as the sun was going past the trees. It’s really the perfect spot; we set up in a little nook along an island. The cove is sheltered from the south, east, and west by islands that are nestled closely together. They act as an adequate wind break and allows for more snow to pile up instead of blow across the open lake. The sunset illuminated the cove as we worked; giving a golden glow on the snow and tall pines that surrounded us.    

The fire spoke sporadically with snaps and cracks and the kettle gurgled softly as the dehydrated chili boiled inside. We finally set in for the night under the crisp night sky after we made camp and organized gear and firewood. It’s a rare and inspiring feeling to hear nothing man-made and to see nothing, to be totally cut off from the world, to just sit and laugh and be free under a few trillion stars. 

By then, it was around negative ten to fifteen, but it wasn’t too bad yet as there wasn’t even a whisper of wind that night. The chili and a liter of hot chocolate kept us warm too. While starring contently in the flames, we joked of past adventures had and shared, swapped stories of any experience that made us laugh, and came up with ridiculously impossible and hilarious circumstances to encounter- nothing out of the usual really, all of except there was more sense of place I feel. There’s a difference when talking about paddling rapids or accomplishing the impossible when indoors rather than talking about doing those adventurous things around a fire, especially when you’re a couple miles from the nearest route back home. Rather than lust and envy behind the memories, there’s appreciation and nostalgia with knowledge that you’re in the midst of creating yet another one to tell. 

Around 9:00 that night, we all started to get cold. It must have finally dropped to the fabled depths by then, so cold that the cloud of your breath would instantly freeze your eye lashes shut and turn anything that was away from the fire and wet, to solid ice in a second. We went for a walk around the ends of the islands to scrounge for wood and to warm up. Have you ever seen the night sky- a sky filled with more stars than black space?  Well, to our surprise, when we happened to look up I swear I have never seen so many stars before. Not in the big sky of Montana or even on Lake Superior, it was like it was so cold the stars all had to come out and huddle together to keep from freezing. I was absolutely amazed, the entire universe seemed to be squeezed together into the respectively little space of sky we had above us. It seemed a shame to go back to the fire after our walk and sleep under a tarp!  But we brought back some nice pieces of wood for splitting in the morning, filled up our water bottles with boiling hot water, tossed them in our sleeping bags, and waited a few more minutes for them to heat up. What we were about to do is one of three of the worst parts of winter camping: 1) stripping to our long under wear, cramming our clothes and essential gear in our bag around us, and going to bed. 2) Waking up and getting out of your bag in the morning. 3) Taking a crap/pee in the middle of the night and being the first one on the slammer in the morning. 

It feels like you’re freezing solid (and there’s some truth to it at negative thirty) and you have to try and move as fast as possible into your cocoon.  And once you’re in and synch the mummy bag as tight as it will go around your mouth and nose, you never want to leave.

The morning was a delight, however very cold. I popped my head out of my bag and looked to see if my friends made it through the night. Around their mouths and on the tarp above them, was thick with frost, a half inch or more.  “Damn its cold!” I laughed. They were awake too and started yelling with joy to hear that everyone was alive. The sun rise was bright and ushered in another brilliant display of the beauty of winter.

For the first few hours of the day, it was sunny and calm and rather enjoyable. As Zach and Austin went ice fishing, I chopped wood all morning to stay warm and got damn good at it too. We sat around the fire and swapped more stories and simply relaxed with nothing to do-though doing nothing was the only thing on the agenda. 

But as the day drew on, clouds rolled in, the wind really picked up and snow started falling sideways. We weighed the pros and cons of staying for another day and watched our tarp get thrashed around by the wind. We all pretty much made the decision at that- its one thing if its cold, its another if its windy and cold. We packed up camp and left a good sized stack of wood for the next weekend we go camping or the next group of travelers to stop by the cove. It couldn't come soon enough, as winter camping melds many different aspects of life together- relaxation, hard work, suffering, and joy. In the end, you're always laughing about it anyways. You don’t need to spend two weeks in the wild to experience it- you just need to get out there. And that’s goes for anything in life.