The snow was so fine and unwilling to pack that we could never get it to work well enough to sleep under. Luckily, everyone had good cold weather tents and mummy bags so this was not a major setback. Nonetheless, we built as much as we could for the experience of it, and we’re all looking forward to making it work sometime. I might even have to get Michael to fabricate me one of his custom snow saws…
With the sun beginning to set, we got the fire going and began to start thinking about dinner. Ian brought his little Weber BBQ along for this purpose (more on it later) and we buried it in the snow. It worked well and kept us warmer than we would have been otherwise. While we were sitting there, a couple of cross-country skiers/hikers came upon our little clearing. They were incredulous that we had driven up there. Our conversation went like this:
Hikers: “How the hell did you guys get up here?”
Me, after quickly looking at the three Jeeps: “Well, we drove.”
Hikers: “Yeah, we saw your tracks down there and thought it was from a Sno-Cat or something. I can’t believe you drove your Jeeps up here!”
Me: “Only in a Jeep, buddy.”
Hikers: “Dude, you guys must have fawking HUGE cojones!”
I looked around our campsite with it’s fire, cooler full of beer, steaks and the pot of chili that was cooking, and then at the two guys.
They had just climbed 3000 feet in five miles and were only halfway through their trip.
Me: “I think you’ve got it backwards, man, but thanks!”
Ian, our official camping chef, again came through with some delicious NY steaks and chili. The chili may have been inadvisable, due to our close proximity, but it sure tasted great. With the bourbon gone (Sasquatch drank it, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it) around 11:00, we all shuffled off to get warm in our sleeping bags. At this point, it was only in the mid teens, and there was a lot of night to go.
The next morning was as clear as the day before, which meant it was freezing-damn-cold! It was beautiful though, as we drank some coffee and huddled around the campfire to get warm. Meanwhile, Michael broke down our camp and filled in the holes that we had dug, lest someone fall in later in the season.