Day 1 – Friday Backpacking
My first, and as time will tell my last, winter backpacking trip. Ed Tucker, Ed Jaros (husband of a woman Ed and I worked with at Schneider) left work early (around 2:00pm) for the short drive to the Greenbush Kettle Parking lot. Shelter # 5 is our intended campsite for the night, about a mile away which was good because sunset is at 4:30 this time of year.
We arrived at the three sided shelter with daylight remaining. Ed T and I had free standing tents making it easy to set inside the shelter. Ed J. was not so lucky. He brought a tent that resembled an army pup tent that required stakes to be driven into the ground. Unfortunately for him, the ground was solidly frozen as the temperature was hovering around 0 degrees F. Ed J. was forced to use all of our available cord to rig the tent inside the shelter.
We collected enough wood to have a nice fire. As the temperatures dropped even further (the overnight low was 9 degrees below 0 F) we stood by the fire and turned around and around to keep each side warm.
Day 2 – Saturday
Boy was it cold overnight. I was happy to have my air mattress between me and the concrete floor and my down 0 degree sleeping bag. Ed J. we found out only had blankets beneath him and a cotton sleeping bag. He said he shivered all night long! The water in the bag and hose froze overnight (needed to keep them in the sleeping bag with me). Today’s plan was to hike 5 miles to Carl’s prepositioned car and to then drive to pickup Ed T’s. car at the trailhead. The day was still cold but sunny which made the walk bearable. Around noon we arrived to Carl’s car and much to our dismay realized that Carl left the car keys in Ed’s car. With no other option we turned around and walked back to Ed T’s car.
Our joy of arriving at Ed T’s car was short lived when we realized that the car had been broken into and a couple of bags of excess clothing stolen, including Ed T’s wallet. Fortunately, Carl’s car key was still in the vehicle. This was certainly one of the least pleasant backpacking trips for Carl.
