Well, I'm not dead yet . . .

Well, it was bitterly cold out there. While the temperature wasn't too bad (on Saturday at least), the winds were definitely fierce. We were going to camp on the hill between Long Lake and Lake Neilson, but once we got there it was obvious that the wind was charging off of Long Lake and nearly creating a whiteout at the top of the hill. In the picture at left I'm lounging in the windbreak I built on the slope facing Lake Neilson. While it did break the wind, we decided to all sleep in the parachute on top of the lake instead.

We hauled a picnic table down to the lake for cooking, and everyone spent the afternoon building shelters. There were 7 quinzes, one "bunker," and two parachutes for the 34 of us (9 adults, 25 boys). We did send one boy back before dinner due to the windchill, but the rest of us toughed it out.

When we first left for camp it was a balmy 15 with light winds and snow showers. By 4pm the temperature was starting to drop by about a degree every half hour. We had reached zero before dinner was done cooking.

Inside the parachute wasn't so bad; it blocked the wind and the chorus of snoring around me drowned out the sound of the lake ice cracking beneath us. But, somehow I managed to press the wrong buttons on my watch and I ended up thinking it was much closer to dawn than it really was. It was a terrible moment when I realized that while my watch read 7:52 am, it was actually nowhere near that late, and I'd have to continue debating whether I should risk getting up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

I decided to wait, mostly because I couldn't imagine trying to zip myself back into the bag when it was already covered with frost. Not long before dawn I could feel that the air in the parachute had gotten much colder. When I finally got up at about 6;30 it was -18 outside with winds of 30 - 40 miles an hour. It was a very bitter walk to the latrine at the top of the hill. Thank God it has walls.

Unfortunately, it didn't warm up very fast, and with windchills that were probably at -50 for much of the morning, we decided to break camp "fast." That meant no breakfast and no warm drinks (or any drinks). Most of the adults went to get the cars so we'd only have to cross the lake before climbing into a warm vehicle. Dad & I stayed behind. It took so long to get the boys up and going that I started to lose heat in my torso. Apparently three hours of -50 and no breakfast is about my endpoint. Being sick didn't help much either. I trudged across the lake and climbed into a truck and waited for the rest of the crew to finish up (2 hours later).

So, here I am, back home and sore as hell. Apparently shoveling for several hours is not the best thing when you've already coughed yourself into sore chest muscles. And my knees are unbelievably sore. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm guessing it's because I was shoveling uphill to help build a quinze. It must have been the up and down on the steep hill carrying shovelfulls of snow.

All of my pictures are from Saturday, since the cold temperatures killed the batteries in my camera. Which is good, since we all looked pretty haggard this morning. Dad had icicles hanging from his eyelashes, and my hair had sneacked out from under my hat, become frozen with my breath, and created a humorous "beard" around my chin.