Sunday, January 23, 2011

While not outright cold. It was certainly a bit cooler in my bag this evening. I drew the hood on my bag after having gotten back in my bag after my night pee break. Somewhat puzzled, I thought that maybe my sleep system needed some refining or perhaps I brought in too many things into my bag to dry?

Once again I was the first one up. John & Scott were up shortly thereafter. Even before I could get the fire started. They also said it seemed a bit cooler last night. Confirming our suspicions was the fact that even with my glove liners on my fingers instantly became numb while breaking up tinder and trying to get the fire started. Everyone had figured the next guy would bring a thermometer and no one did. Not an absolutely necessary item? But it would've been nice to know. The kicker was when Mark, sounding irritated, asked, "Who the hell put grease in my schnaaps?!?!" We all checked our bottles and they all had "grease" in them ;-) Yet another indicator that it was colder then -2 below.
The leftover cobbler was just as good on our oatmeal this morning as it was last night. Slowly we began packing up. After glorious sunshine most of yesterday today overcast skies were moving in.
We thawed out some teriyaki sticks for the trip back. Fortunately we were able to get off Pine before the wind picked up. You could really here it blowing across Pine. There was a snowmobile parked at the portage. Discussion turned to using that option if we ever come back to this entry point. So we could get out further onto Pine. We stopped a number of times along the way back. Our trail from coming in was getting blown over so we tried to keep moving. The wind was blowing pretty good by now. It even started snowing. For me personally I was comfortable while we kept moving but once we stopped it did get a bit cool. I didn't want to dig my parka out. So I took the lead for the last stretch determined to make it back to the parking lot without stopping.
The short climb out of McFarland seemed a bit more substantial than expected as I hit the home stretch. Soon the vehicles were in sight. I was relieved when the van fired without incident & left it warm up while we stripped down and began packing our gear.
Heading south down the Arrowhead Trail we happened upon 2 moose in the middle of the road. They appeared to be 2 large bulls that had shed their antlers. They disappeared into the woods before we could dig the camera out. Kind of a cool close to our trip.
Once back in Grand Marais we stopped at My Sisters' Place to grab a burger. It was at this time that we found out that the overnight low temperature was btween -35 to -40 below inland along the Canadien border. Ignorance is bliss! I guess our gear did it's job after all? LOL
Wish I had a little more time to focus on fishing. Also a fishing partner would've been nice. But, all in all I couldn't complain. It was a good trip. Being in below zero temps for the majority of our trip, I'm not gonna lie and say I was never cold. Usually it was just numb fingers and/or toes. Which was quickly remedied by just moving or putting my gloves back on. Worst case was once I used a foot warmer pad. Looking back it's surprising how comfortable I was the vast majority of the time. I think we were all more than satisfied with the performance of our gear. We cold camped in near -40 below temps. So we must've done a few things right? And we all agreed this was something we'd definitely like to do again. But just as with canoe camping there will be constant tweaking. Things I won't need to bring next time & things I'd like to. The unending pursuit of perfection.
But here's to the boys. Who experienced the joys. Of camping in the cold. So this story could be told. Pine Lake, McFarland Lake

Lakes Traveled:   Pine Lake, McFarland Lake,