December 29th

We, my son Josh and I, decided to go to our property to do some Bushcrafting and camping. We arrived at camp around 1600 hrs, since it was a 4 hr 200 mile drive there. As we got closer we noticed the snow was getting deeper and deeper. snow banks, though not very large, were forming on the sides of the roads. The lane which my property is on was not plowed. Although the road going to the lane was, forming a snow bank over the lane entrance. About a 2 foot drift of hard packed snow blocking the lane. Being the reckless fool that I am, and thinking my Mountaineer is a full size 4X4, we ventured through the snow bank, luckily with no problems. The little slope going up the first part of the lane actually posed more of a problem than the snow bank. After working back and forth we made it to the driveway of Camp Kindy. Only to find a tree top had fallen and block the driveway (as seen above). We parked on the lane as no one obviously was going to come our way. As I stepped out of the car, I spotted 2 White Tail Deer trotting off towards the back of the property. The camera was packed away, sorry.

The snow packed down, it was solid about 6 inches deep, with about 6 inches of powder on top. Overall there was about a foot of snow.

We scouted out the small 1/4 acre of land to find camp. In the times long ago we would just camp in the opening at the front of the property. I wanted to be a little further back off of the road, and needed someplace to hang our hammocks. We soon located an area suitable for our camp headquarters near a beautiful Paper Birch Tree.

We set up our hammocks between some trees and began collecting some firewood. There was plenty of standing timber as most of our trees are dying for some reason. i will have to investigate this further come warmer weather. We started the fire just as the sun was going down.

Dinner consisted of Ramen Noodles and Beef Jerky boiled in our Billy cans. We melted snow for the water. That was a first experience for the both of us. We found it to be harder than thought. it takes a surprisingly large amount of snow to make water. We found that if you added the snow too quickly, it took longer to melt. I found that if you let the first bit of snow melt and get hot, any additional snow melted faster. Otherwise we ended up with a big ball of ice! After dumping our cans over a couple of times I trekked to the car and got the fire grate. that was a lot easier to cook with. There are no rocks to speak of to make a hearth, besides that they were buried under a foot of snow. Another summer project logged for the future. Bring rocks to camp. There were no large trees to get stumps for seats so we stood around the fire most of the night, not wanting to get our clothes wet.

Having to drive for 2 hrs, we didn't dress for the weather yet. We weren't cold, but knew we would want our long johns for the night. We pulled our sleds next to the fire and used them to stand in whilst we changed our clothes. Snow sleds made for sliding down a hill are very difficult to stand in while changing your socks! LOL We slid into our hammocks and tried to go to sleep.

Josh had never set up his hammock yet that he had gotten for Christmas. No problem setting it up. But he had never tried to get into it with his sleeping pad and bag. He was able to do it without falling out. He did learn a valuable lesson though, don't unzip your bag all the way. The zipper had come apart at the bottom of the bag. He had a hard time getting it zipped back up without getting back out. Perseverance won and he soon had his bag zipped up after about 10 minutes of struggling. I was trying out a new bag I had gotten from the Salvation Army. It is a Gander Mountain Brand bag, and I could not find any information on its rating. It felt that it might be sufficient, and I wanted to know how low it would be comfortable to. The temperature outside was about 25 degrees. I had on my long johns and fleece shirt and my stocking cap. I was using a GI closed cell mat and a section of Reflectix under my bag. The small of my back was getting cold, but when I rolled onto my side it was OK. Fell asleep rather slowly. This was the first time either of us had slept in a hammock. Well I had long ago, probably 25 years ago. So I count this as a new experience. We had tarps set up over us in case of snow, either new or falling off of the trees. I woke up around 0100 hrs and was cold, not shivering yet, but cold, the new bag was not working. I don't think the Reflectix helped any. In fact I think that is why my back was getting cold. Reflectix if bubble wrap with aluminum on both sides. It is great for making cozies for your cooking gear. Around 0130hrs I started to shiver, and decided it was easier to go sleep in the car, rather than get my GI Extreme Cold Weather bag out of the car and trek back to the camp. I asked Josh if he was OK, and he was. I think he was irritated at being woke up. I went to the car and started it up to get warm, I have the seat warmers too, that was a welcome relief to my derriere. I couldn't sleep too well because I kept thinking of josh waking up and trying to find the car and getting lost in the woods. There are not a lot of houses in this area. He could easily get very lost. I left the lights on when I would start the car so he could find it easily, which was about every 45 minutes to an hour. once during that time I spotted a fox walking across the lane in front of the car! i got out and checked on Josh around 0400hrs. He was good to go. Not cold, but said he felt he was going to fall out of the hammock. LOL

0830hrs I rolled out of the car and started a fire for breakfast which consisted of Granola cereal, Powdered Milk and warmed over the fire. Again we used snow for our water. One thing I noticed was that my water that I boiled for my canteen the night before tasted smoky, and was a little cloudy. I tried to keep ashes out of it, so I don't think that was the problem. I don't know what happened. Future test: melt more snow, in the daylight and try it again. There was a lot of snow, everything was covered with it. We had nowhere to sit, no stumps to bring over to the fire pit. So we decided to return home.

As we were breaking camp I remembered I hadn't gotten any pictures of the hammocks set up. I wasn't going to set them back up, so you'll have to wait till next time out to see them. That will be in one week when we go back to Island Lake Recreation Area for our monthly FTX with the SMVM. I plan on sleeping outside, even though we have a cabin rented. Got to keep testing things out before our winter campout in February the annual SMVM Snowdog.

I shot one video when we first arrived at camp, after that the batteries went dead. My daughter uses that camera a lot. I had just put new batteries in it the week before. Next time I will make sure to have extras of those too.


Fire pit	This is where we hung the hammocks.


Josh	Old main camp and parking area	Another part of the main camp area