Snow backpacking

Last week, at the prospect of going backpacking, I didn't really want to do it because I could only think of everything I SHOULD be doing.

But when you get like that, sometimes the best thing to do is just GO and leave it all behind.

It was fabulous.

I bought an ultralight backpacking book. It's called "Ultralight Backpackin' Tips" by Mike Clelland. It's full of illustrations and is organized in a tidbit fashion. Great for skimmer-readers like me. I tried to use some of the tips when packing. We did just go for an overnighter, but my pack weighed just 25 pounds, which I think is good considering I was carrying a 3 man tent that wasn't designed for backpacking, plus clothes to keep me warm in the snow. One of the handiest tips was to put all the contents of my pack in a plastic yard garbage bag and twist the top closed to seal. This way, there was no chance that my gear would get wet while hiking. The over-all thing I've applied from the book is the mentality that if I'm packing it "just in case", I probably can survive without it. Also, an overnighter doesn't have to be perfect. If I forget something, it's just overnight!

Here we are, ready to go. We had to decide between a snowy trip or a rainy trip, and we picked snowy!

The hike followed the PCT, so it was a pretty easy hike with minimal elevation gain, even though we were hiking through up to 6 inches of snow. Part of the trail was through burned-out forest, and part through green forest.The only one disappointing thing was that the mountain that we camped at the base of was almost invisible because of all the falling snow. The middle picture above is pretty much the most we saw of it from our camping spot. I really want to go again in the summer and go even further to make a loop with some of the lakes in the area. It would be really pretty in August when the wildflowers are in bloom!

The good part about snow is that you don't have to worry about camping near a lake for water and you don't have to filter water, either! We stayed as warm as we could - my new 0 degree bag was truly initiated as up until this point, I've mostly used it for deck sleeping in the heat of summer.... :) I didn't freeze to death. Success. A good fire is a great thing to have to thaw out fingers after setting up the tent and for drying out socks before bed....we were lucky to have an experienced wilderness EMT to build our fire for us... :P

Hannah was using her new JetBoil stove for the first time! I now want one very badly. SO compact, SO user friendly! And fast! I'm all over fast!

Hiking out the next day, we caught some sun. We didn't see any other people except one mile from the trailhead coming home was this random group of people in street clothes and an umbrella.

Being out in the wilderness helps you appreciate little things in life like a hot cup of coffee and a shower. We stopped on the way home at a wonderful coffee shop. In that same town I bought the famous chanterelle mushrooms of the previous blog post.

Coffee and hot chocolate, plus free water in a warm building is enough for us!

In this picture, I'm totally beating Miranda at checkers. However, we had a second game after this and after an intense battle, she beat me. So we still don't know who the checkers queen is.


May you find inspiration and joy in the remainder of the week!

Karen