We camped and hiked in the Dix Wilderness over the long New Year's weekend.
We started at the Round Pond trailhead on Saturday afternoon and hiked the ~4 miles to the Boquet River lean-to. The trail was already broken, but with a fully loaded pack and heavy feet (winter boots + snowshoes), it was a tiring hike.
At the intersection of the Round Pond trail and the Boquet River trail, the snow bridge over the creek had collapsed, leaving us to balance our way across a log.
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| this would be a really, really bad time to lose your balance |
We made it across with no dunkings (though I was mentally rehearsing the process for getting a hypothermic person wrapped into a plastic sleeping bag burrito).
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| inside the bouquet river lean-to |
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| we melted snow for water |
We saw a snowshoe hare circling our camp. Super neat - I haven't seen much wildlife in the ADKs during the winter on day hikes, so that was a real treat.
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| snowshoe hare wants to eat my mac n' cheese. i want to eat snowshoe hare. |
On Sunday morning, we hiked the last 2 miles to the summit of Dix Mountain, the 6th highest peak in New York State. The first mile was moderate, and then it got STEEP. With the knee-deep snow, it was one step forward and slide two back.
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| steeeeep |
But we made it!
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| summit pic |
The weather on top was crazy and intense: the wind was screaming up the east side of the mountain.
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| beautiful but unpleasant |
But, wow, were the views beautiful!
We raced back down the mountain and back to the lean-to, where we packed up and out, finishing the hike by headtorch.
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| the "after" picture" |
So, how do you stay warm while winter camping?
1) Eat, eat, eat (Saturday dinner for Dave and I was 3 boxes of mac n' cheese + 4 hotdogs + 1 stick of butter);
2) Stay active (run in circles, do crunches, split firewood);
3) Fire (hike to find dead n' down wood, drag it back to camp, saw it, split it, stack it... then finally burn it).
Overall, I did pretty well at staying warm, especially considering we did not get a fire going so this was technically "cold camping" (heh, yeah right). I think it got down to about 5 F at night. Next time, I need to work on winter fire techniques (fire pan?), having easier-to-eat trail foods and easier-to-access hydration, and a better way to keep my hands dry-ish and warm-ish (or at least not frozen).
It was an awesome trip to kick off the winter season, and I'm really looking forward to the next!
