Well, we tried out our gear in my back yard at the end of December and were hoping to get out into the woods within a week or two for another camp trip. Well, the weather didn’t cooperate for a few weeks.  There was a sub-zero spell that made us hesitant to stay out all night.  I knew we could survive but -20 degrees Fahrenheit didn’t sound fun.  So we practiced.  We made lists of things we needed, packed our bags to make them as efficient as possible and went on hikes with our full packs to train.  We tried not to double up on gear if we could help it.  I had a cook stove, she had the compact saw etc.  We seem to be very good at having what the other doesn’t.  Our camp out in my yard helped us when packing for this trip.  We realized we needed to vent the tent to avoid condensation that turned to ice, having a space blanket below use was a must, and putting hand warmers in our boots before we put them on in the morning would keep our feet so much warmer.  I’ve done this before but as I’m super into efficiency I stuff my sleeping bag into a dry bag for two reasons, one  if my pack gets wet my sleeping bag will still be dry, and two  once camp is set up I use the dry bag to put our food in at night and suspend it in a tree to keep it our of reach of bears or other hungry critters.

So we packed up and layered up and went out to enjoy our day in 0 degree weather.  This time we went up Kootenai Crk.

We got up to the trail head and decide we would try to fish for a bit.  Finding a bit of creek that wasn’t frozen over we cautiously made our way down.  We couldn’t get too close to the edge because we weren’t sure where the shore ended and the ice started. We didn’t catch anything, turns out the hook becomes an ice sickle pretty quick in this weather.

We continued up the trail for a few miles and decided to make a fire.  I had made fire starters out of egg cartons, dryer lint and paraffin wax.  We busted out the compact saw and downed a standing dead tree. What an adventure that was! We got the tree down and sawed into shorter lengths and my hiking buddy got the flames going.  Those fire starters are awesome! We used two to get the fire going.  We made coffee  and ate skittles while we were there and had a nice break.

Even with the fire going we got chilly after a bit. Our hair was even frozen. We packed up and headed home, even though we didn’t camp we had a great day! By the time we got back to the truck it was -11 degrees Fahrenheit!  bbrrrrrrrr