Winter Camping
Carrie posted in Recreation on January 22nd, 2009
Last week I was invited to go winter camping with the same ACES group that travelled down the Yukon River in the Fall. It was sort of a last minute deal since we were waiting to see what the weather did. The previous week it had not been above -35 C and we were just not willing to sit around and be cold and miserable for 3 days. Fortunately we hit a warm spree. A really warm spree. Like, tropical warm. In fact, last weekend it was 24 C (yeah, ABOVE zero) in Dawson City. It rained yesterday. And now it’s back to 17 below and everything is a giant sheet of ice.
Anyway, we didn’t freeze but we sure got wet. The temperature sat just above freezing the whole time which was okay but it made working in the snow to make quinzees very difficult. The snow sintered well and there was HEAPS of it but the digging out process, which is usually very damp because of the sweat build up, was made even more watery because of the heavy snow. Because of the high volume of snow students tried to build these massive quinzees and, though they were warned, still acted shocked when their castle roof collapse in on them while they were digging it out because of the lack of structural suport in the middle. Maybe it would have worked if they had a support beam in the middle… So those boys were happy that the night was warm because there wasn’t enough time to pile up and dig out a new quinzee and they spent the night under their new skylight.
Our quinzee was a relative success though we didn’t build it high enough and were unable to keep a very high sleeping platform. Ideally, one should have a large step up inside the quinzee once you get through the door to allow the cold air to fall down and out and warmer air to stay inside. Because I wanted to try a new door system, and then I broke the new door system with my massive frame, ours didn’t exactly turn out the way we’d hoped. We, too, were happy that it didn’t get too cold that night.
We spent the middle day cross-country skiing and snowshoeing in Kluane National Park. It was my first time to both Haines Junction and Kluane and I was excited to explore a bit. I’d really like to go back in the summer (even though it’s full of tourists) and see Kathleen lake because it’s famous for a reason. In the middle of winter, we had the place to ourselves, and even with snow covering the emerald blue waters, the mountains rising straight out of the lake and the beautiful sunrise around them were amazing. I have a bunch of pictures linked here, but my camera batteries died on the last day and I missed the fantastic sunrise.
Our quinzee shrank a bit the second night but at least it stayed standing. A couple fell in over the course of the night but the walls were so thin from the intense melting that the students were alright. It was nice to get one last trip in with them before they all go back to their regular high schools. I’m also proud to say that I survived winter camping in the Yukon in January, and we just won’t mention the global warming part.
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