Triplogs / Triplog#75 / Day 2
January 29 - Day 2 - A walk in The Park
Mike, always the early riser slept in till 6:30 am (usually he is up at 4:00 am), it wasn't till about 8:00 am that he woke Jeffrey and I up, to a nice warm heated tent. Ahhh Mike, you rule sir! Mike provided a tasty breakfast of spinach/egg patties on English muffins and coffee (with Bailley's). It wasn't till 10:30 am that Jeffrey and I were up and out of the tent.
It was cold outside, near -20°C. Mike had wanted to snowshoe over to Breezy Lake via the 1435m portage. It was a good plan, however it was so late in the morning that Jeffrey & I convinced Mike that it was better to go the next day. We would tour the lake today, and rest up some more, promising to get up earlier the next day for the trek to Breezy Lake. Mike was disappointed, but agreed. No worries, we'd get to Breezy Lake.
Our tent set-up on Wilkins Lake
Mike had scooped some water from the water hole he had made, and had boiled the water, which we then filled our nalgene bottles with. We carried these with us as we walked out onto the lake and headed up the Northwest shoreline. It was cold, and there was a strong cold wind blowing from the North down the lake, occasionally a snow devil would come blowing down the lake ice, gathering strength as it scooped up more snow. There wasn't much snow on the lake ice, and we were able to travel without snowshoes. At most there was perhaps three maybe four inches of hard crusted snow in some places. At one point I used Mike's ice spear to hack a hole in the ice to check for depth. There was about four inches of ice, then a slush layer, and another seven or eight inches of solid ice. We had no worries and as Mike mentioned, "Safe enough to drive a truck on", and we all felt better knowing the ice depth was much more than three or four inches. We continued up the lake following wolf tracks along the shoreline that had passed by the vicinity of our campsite.
At 11:30 am, we stopped by a campsite I had canoe camped on five years previously, even with the snow cover one could tell it was a nice campsite, although there is a dry swamp behind the campsite with very thin tree cover in-between, I mentioned this problem of wind roaring through the campsite to Mike and he acknowledged that there was indeed wind blowing into the campsite from the swamp. So ideally the site would be good in summer, but not necessarily spring or fall.
We hung around for a few minutes exploring the campsite then resumed our track along the wolf trail. Soon we came to a point on the lake where upon rounding the point, the wolf tracks veered off into a large bay at the North end of the lake, where the cold wind blowing across the bay was too fierce to continue on. None of us had the desire to walk into that windy bay, so we tracked Northeast into a smaller bay looking for a summer campsite there.
The summer campsite I visited by canoe back in October 2004
Searching hard, we never did find the campsite, but found one on the island there, but no privy. We suspect the island campsite was a grandfathered one, but couldn't find the mainland site that was indicated on the official canoe routes map. We were getting hungry and decided to travel South to another campsite that was along the East shoreline, around a point, that should provide enough cover from the North wind that just never seemed to stop.
Just after 1:00 pm we arrived at the East shore campsite we had in mind, it was almost directly across the lake from the West campsite we visited an hour and a half earlier (The campsite I visited back in October 2004). This campsite also sat above above the lake and I think I would like to camp here in the summer, it had a commanding view, with lots of sun exposure, yet it was shielded from the North. We spent about 20 minutes gathering firewood from dead bush and fallen trees at the rear of the campsite and built a fire. Mike with his trusty propane torch attachment got the fire going in no time. If ya want to stay warm in the winter, a bic lighter or matches might not do the trick, as dry firestarter is a little harder to find.
Jeffrey relaxes at a 'grandfathered' summer island campsite
Mike pulled out some smoked sausage I had brought along, with some fresh sliced apple, cheese, and crackers we had a light lunch, and when finished, we placed our water bottles on the grill to unfreeze our water, which had froze up in our journey around the lake. It was 2:30 pm when we decided to put out the fire and head back to camp. We walked across the lake, heading Southwest. Wilkins Lake 'talked' a lot, and with me in the lead, there were times when i felt a little uncertain as the lake was making a lot of noise under the ice. The was a lot of "balooping" sounds, and the sounds of ice cracking, I suspected this had a lot to do with the dropping temperatures and the wind. With the cold temps. the ice was contracting, and the wind was causing these ice cracks to shift. Many snow devils continued to blow down the lake as we crossed the expanse of Wilkins Lake and just after 3:00 pm, we reached the shoreline were our water hole was, and made our way back up to camp.
We spent the next hour collecting and cutting more firewood, I could feel that the temperature was dropping and it was supposed to be a cold night, so I went the extra 100 meters or so to find some fallen birch and hack it up. Birch is a nice slow burning wood, great for loading up the stove at night when going to bed. With all the wood back at camp, Mike with his axe, split the bigger logs and Jeffrey & I using the crutch of two trees took turns sawing suitable lengths of logs for the stove. It was hard work, that made one sweat easily, and as we did this we had to take layers off, and then put them back on again as one became chilled. You have to be careful not to soak your clothing, else you could freeze up in a hurry. This really wasn't too much of a concern for us, as we had the heated tent to dry off our clothing, and keep warm during the night. When all this was done, the boys headed into the tent to warm up and get dinner ready.
Lunch on Wilkins Lake
I headed down to the lake with my camera and tripod, I wanted to photograph the full moon rising just after 5:00 pm. I set up my gear on the lake ice near the water hole, already the hole had about a half inch of ice covering the hole from water gathered just a few hours earlier. With my camera set-up and a half hour to go before the moon rose into view, I took a few shots and then the battery died. I pulled a spare battery from inside my warm jacket and swapped out the cold dead battery. The camera was working again, and I stood around waiting, freezing in the cold, I started to walk around, as my feet began to freeze up, probably from sweating all day in my woollen socks inside my boots. I took a few more shots, and waited. 10 minutes later the moon came into view, and as I took one shot, the camera battery died. I swapped batteries again, the cold one for the warm one, and decided to keep my gloved right-hand on the camera body where the battery was. This helped as I took many shots over the next ten minutes, but my feet and my hands were freezing up fast. A few more pictures then the battery started to die again, and with that, I had had enough, I packed up my stuff and headed to the tent, my feet frozen blocks of ice and my fingers getting real sore.
Near full moon over Wilkins Lake
I have cold-tented in the winter-time only once, and I have to say, "Never again!". Once you have a heated tent you'll never want to go back. I can't imagine being out in the cold all day and having to climb into a cold tent as the night settles in, no way. After getting to the tent and undressing, towelling off and putting my dry under garments on for sleeping and a quick shot of booze, I felt thawed-out and warmed up, hot tents ruled!!
Mike served us some fantastic stew that Jeffrey had made himself. It filled our bellies and warmed our souls, the stew was super delicious and we emptied the pot in no time. Thanks Jeffrey! As we settled into our cots and listened to the silence outside, we could hear the lake talking very loudly, it was getting real cold and as the temperature dropped even further, we started to hear trees cracking. The forest and the lake were busy chatting up a storm that night as the temperature dropped to near -30°C. I awoke around midnight and set about the business of getting the stove going, it was out cold. The temperature inside the tent was -19°C, outside it was -29°C. Brrrrr! I got the stove going again and settled back into my sleeping bag. In just five minutes it was toasty again in the tent and I drifted off to sleep.