PREPARING – PART 2
Camels Hump summit on The Long Trail, Vermont, 2010
I was born in Manhattan and raised in New England and have spent a lot of time in the snow and cold. But I don’t want to be foolish. Hiking and camping out in near-0 temperatures can be dangerous. I have spent a good bit of time getting prepared with the right gear for me and my hiking companion, Theo. He shivers just as much as I do in our winter hikes. My family says Theo and I are of the same litter but my wife does not quite get my use of “we” when talking about our adventures.
Theo is game for anything. He carries about 15 pounds of his food and my water. It took us an hour once to go about 10 feet because I had to climb a cliff and rig ropes to get him up. Another time, we were in a gulch of huge, jumbled boulders. I could not lift him to any spot where he could get a foothold. So, I did the only thing I could do at that point. I hiked on by myself knowing that he would find a way out and in no time, he came trotting up behind me.
Early morning sun, The Long Trail, Vermont, 2010
In our hikes together, we have gotten our systems down pat. We try to set up camp by early evening, pitch the tent, unpack inside, including clothes, cooking gear, sleeping pad which I unroll to self-inflate 80% as I cook, sleeping bag on top. Then I cook, eat, get breakfast cereal (and pills) ready with powdered milk in a wide-mouthed plastic jar, hang all food (his and mine) in the trees away from the bears, get ready for an early bed, sleep the best we can and wake with the dawn.
In the morning, I reverse the process: again, brush teeth in the tent, dress, stuff sleeping bag in a plastic bag in the bottom of the pack to give it shape, lie on the sleeping pad to deflate it and fold and roll it up and bind it with a Velcro strap. Then I pack it and my cooking gear and clothes in the backpack, emerge from the tent, eat breakfast and decide what dehydrated food I will have for my supper that night and put it in the breakfast jar, add water and pack it so it can hydrate as I walk all day to save fuel and time cooking in the evening.
In truth, I don’t think I’ll be having too much dehydrated food on this long trek – it’s cheap but everything tastes the same. I have found a good source of freeze-dried foods and stuff off the grocery store shelf will do fine.