According to my last blog it was Christmas day when my dad and I agreed that we would go winter camping. We took about 2 days to plan the trip and 4 days after the thought crossed our minds we were in Algonquin Park with snowshoes strapped to our feet.
The night before we left everything except the refrigerated food was packed into our two backpacks. There were a few things that we remembered to put in last minute... including toilet paper. Our packs weighed around 40lbs each with the tent, tarps, sleeping pads and bags, clothes, food and cooking tools. We didn't take much that wasn't essential. It’s amazing how the gear you plan to take dwindles when you think about carrying it on your back for 4 km.
We rented a 4-season tent from Mountain Equipment Coop in Toronto and our snowshoes from an outfitter in Bracebridge. The rest we had on hand. Dad has always been an outdoors guy so we have a surprising amount of outdoor gear whether 5 or 25 years old. The poles leaning against the snowshoes could very likely be 25 years old. We could only find 3 poles before we left and thought would be enough but we ended up grabbing a stick not long into our trek. Poles are pretty much essential for balance when climbing over, under and around broken down trees, and climbing steep hills and getting back down the steep hills. They also seem to be propellers on a straight path.
There were a number of half-frozen puddles on the way. Most of them weren’t very deep but to be safe we tried to avoid them by going off the path. That’s when we realized that often it wasn't just a wet patch on the trail but a stream that couldn’t be avoided.
The snow is considerably deeper off the pathway where people haven't packed it down and there are all kinds of surprises hidden under the snow. I lost balance and fell onto my back. With 40lbs keeping me down I flailed around like a beached whale until dad came to pull me up. We finally found a part of the streamthat was shallower and crossed there. Unfortunately Dad got his boot wet crossing. Apparently when you continue hiking the movement keeps your foot warm and even dries your sock!!
The trail we chose is called the Highland Hiking Trail. We realized after some serious climbing why it is
named such. Once we were over the steepest hill we stopped in the middle of the path to grab a bite to eat. It was our first time to use the little stove that dad bought from MEC when we rented the tent. We were impressed when it only took 5 minutes to warm up some stew that dad had made a few days before. It took less than 5 minutes to consume what we had heated and we were on our way again not long after. We didn't realize that we were already 3/4 of the way to the campsite and had already covered the most difficult terrain so we only had another 1/2 hour until we saw the side trail to the campsites. It was untouched except for some fresh moose tracks. We were glad when his tracks wandered away from our campsite.
The views from the campsite were beautiful. It was a very satisfying feeling to finally arrive after a good 2.5 hours on the trail. We dropped our bags and went to explore. Not a minute after we arrived a chipmunk ran in front of me and up a tree to sit there chattering at me as if I was invading her territory. She had likely claimed the area for herself as it looked like it hadn’t been used for a while.
The wind was really howling across the lake so I ducked down into the lee of a cove in the rocks and wrote in my trip-log about or trek in. All the sudden the chipmunk was on the ledge right behind me prating away again as if I was sitting right on her nest! I yelled and turned just in time to see her run off. We didn't hear much from her after that. Her fearlessness surprised me!
It wasn't long until the sun would set so we put up the tent, made a fire and were cooking supper just as it got dark. We ended up using our headlamps as we finished cooking and ate by the fire. The wind was quite cold and a light snow started to fall so we stayed as close the fire as we could for as long as we could but It wasn’t long before we headed to the tent.
It turned out to be a very long night. The tent was quite small. My feet touched the tent wall when I laid on my back, which is likely the reason for my numb toe in the morning. It took a few hours of being up and moving before the feeling came back. We left our packs outside under the fly and kept the food and water in the tent with us hoping it wouldn't freeze over night. We even slept with our water bottles in our sleeping bags thinking it would warm the water but all it did was make us colder.
It was –5°C outside likely –20°C with the wind-chill and it wasn’t much warmer in the tent. My 
sleeping bag was only good to -10 and not great quality. I doubled it under me to make a few extra layers of insulation. Essentially there were 10 layers of tent, tarp, insulated tarp, sleeping bag and clothes between myself and the snow. I admit it was help but I was still cold. Dad fared better than I but neither of us got much sleep.
We were shocked in the morning to find ice beads hanging from the roof of the tent. The pictures taken in the tent reveal a fog that we couldn’t see in the pitch black. A big lesson: Vent the tent! The moisture from our breath and wet clothes formed the icicles. Apparently, venting the tent is no colder than not venting it but cuts the dampness.
We boiled lake water to cook with. When we arrived at the campsite there was some open water by the rocks. By nightfall we had to break ice to get water and by morning we had to take a swing to break the ice to get the water. Our spiffy little stove boiled the icy water in just 5 minutes. So we made pine needle tea because we had forgotten to bring tea bags and didn't have anything to flavour the water. I got the idea from Jean who made pine tea at Richmond preps. Apparently he made cedar tea once and Denis became ill quite fast. The pine needles we found looked a bit different than what Jean used so we were cautious at first but its only effect was to warm our bellies.
During breakfast we decided that it wasn't wise to spend a second night in the park. We knew that it was supposed to drop another 10°C the second night. So we packed up camp, had some lunch and were on our way by 1pm.
We faced some of the same obstacles on the way out as we did coming in. One was a 6ft long bridge that wasn’t much more than a foot wide with a 3ft drop to ice cold water. I did the side step because my stride isn't long enough to accommodate the 2ft long snowshoes one in front of the other. Dad was able to go strait and we both made it across safely.
An obstacle that wasn’t there on the way in was where the river had swollen overnight from runoff water. There was about 9ft of impassable slush. Another couple was on the opposite side and had already started to make a bridge with branches and logs. So we did our part from our end then crossed. This was when we were thankful for an extra 2ft on our feet to help us balance. Dad got a little wet on this one as well but as we said the foot dries fairly quickly when you are moving. Our exit took less than 2 hours and I must say that it was nice to sit in a heated car after 24 hours in the cold.
