2001-01-27: Big Group Ski/Snowshoe to Fish Lake
The Victims
- Aaron Reynolds (+ Sky)
- Brent Clark
- Elaine Tyerman
- Rick McCharles
- Tyler McGowan
- Warren Long
The Planning Session
Planning for the winter camping expedition began with an evening planning session about 5 days before we left. Of course, as with all of our group get-togethers, this involved eating. Once we managed to gorge ourselves with Thai food, we got right done to business…NOT!! Elaine is always amazed at how we can discuss so many different things and manage to carry-on 5 or more simultaneous conversations and still end up with a fairly organized plan. Admittedly, the planning sessions are always well beyond even the most generous time allotments. The general plan was:
| Friday – leave for cabin at Emma Lake. Fuss with gear. Crash for the night. | |||
| Saturday – drive up to the National Park. Ski/snowshoe into Fish Lake via the Elk Trail (a 12 km route one way) with toboggans in tow. Set up camp, build a quinzhee, eat, drink and be merry. | |||
| Sunday – putz around camp, do some snowshoeing, eat breakfast, fuss with gear, ski/snowshoe back out, and drive back to Saskatoon. |
We figured Fish Lake, via the Elk trail would be ideal. This is at the south end of the Prince Albert National Park. Warren was a little put off the the trail would essentially be a road all the way… it would have to be to allow both classical and skating x-country skiing. But, it was the perfect distance (about 12 km each way), had picnic tables and also had an outhouse!
Warren went out and purchased two big black toboggans, one for himself, and another for Elaine. When the rest of the group heard about how much Brent also wanted a toboggan, Rick offered to go out and purchase extra toboggans. Warren warned him that it might not be that easy, because everyone in town seemed to be sold out of them. The first flurry of email ensued, with Rick finding them, then discovering that the computer had lied, that they were really sold out, then an attempt the next day discovered 3 smaller ones. He bought them and along with Bill Wallace’s old one, we now had one for each camper.
Friday, January 26, 2001
Before any travelling began, the day was highlighted by another flurry of emails between the campers (what did we ever do before email?) to arrange departure times and toboggan assignments.
Rick, Brent, Warren, and Elaine departed about 9:00 pm following coaching by Rick and Elaine and a stop by all for a tasty wrap at Bad Ass Jack’s. So, just how much gear can be packed into a 4 x 4? We are pretty much the masters! But Rick and Elaine had a slightly less than comfortable trip. Rick had toboggans leaning on one side of his skull and skis and towing poles down the other side. He confiscated Elaine’s pillow and went to sleep on the skis (if you are forced to lean over to one side, might as well go with it). In addition to the large objects, Rick and Elaine were packed into slots between a variety of backpacks and duffel bags. No change of position possible for the next 2 hours. A brief stop in Prince Albert for fuel and yet a bit more gear from Elaine’s Dad’s place did nothing to relieve their joy at being in the back seat.
We arrived at Emma Lake around 11:30 pm, a mere 5 minutes before Aaron, Tyler, and Sky (also masters in the gear packing department). The crew was greeted by Sandy and Kim & Karin who had arrived (complete with kids) a few hours prior.
A MASSIVE explosion of gear ensued as the campers unloaded, repacked packs, drilled holes in toboggans for tow ropes, consumed a few beverages, made an extraordinary amount of noise, and decided on the final details for the next day’s departure. We managed to crawl into our sleeping bags about 2 am with visions of a 7 am wake up and 9:30 am departure dancing in our heads! The hubbub had ensured that Keiran, to Sandy’s joy, stayed wide awake until 5:30 am!
Saturday, January 27, 2001
The hoped for 7 am wake up transformed into a 9 am wake up. Yet another flurry of gear fussing ensued, followed by breakfast on the run (bagels and cream cheese, eaten while packing stuff) and the massive reload of gear into Brent’s 4 x 4 and Aaron’s station wagon. Six humans and one canine (Sky) and enough gear, food, and clothing to last a week departed the cabin for their winter adventure about 10:30 am. The drive to the trailhead is only 20 minutes, so we weren’t late yet!
We stopped at the south gate to the Park, where we self registered for backcountry camping and got our vehicle passes. We were now bonded as two families in the public eye – well at least in the eyes of the Park administrators (it was cheaper that way)!
Our group is charmed (as always) by beautiful weather! We would be able to ski/snowshoe in only long underwear and a single layer of fleece. This way we would be able to avoid the perspiration and wetness associated with the supposedly breathable Goretex.
The trailhead welcomed us as we fussed to create our toboggan loads (using a tremendous amount of bungee cords), strapped on our skis and snowshoes, and began our journey into the bush. There were several panics as the number of available bungee cords seemed to have decreased since the practice toboggan load at the cabin. It took us over an hour to lash all our gear onto our toboggans. Aaron had an extra special time as he experimented with exactly how much load Sky would pull. Not much it turned out, so Aaron also had on a huge backpack.
Departure time was 12 noon (we never seem to manage to keep to anything resembling a schedule). This was not a good thing for our quinzhee build: we hoped to have it piled up high by about 3 pm, but there was no way that that was going to happen now.
The trail began with a LONG, slow, gentle climb up an old road for approx. 1 1/2 km. At the top we stopped for a little break, a chance to adjust our toboggans, strip down a few layers of clothes and, of course, begin our taste test of Butter Ripple Snapps (well, at least some of us did!). Sky managed to circle the troops a few times, with her toboggan in tow, wiping us out and winding her ropes around legs, ski poles, other toboggans, and trees. Quite funny really.
Rick discovered that he had been videotaping with no tape in the camera. Quite a mystery really, because he was sure that he had had a tape in the camera earlier on… So, he put the video camera away.
The trail then took a left turn heading into the woods, and so began the most hilarious part of the trip.
The trail had many up and sections for the next 7 or 8 kilometers and was tracked on one side and packed for skate skiing on the other. This made for an excellent opportunity for toboggans to whip furiously side to side in a “crack the whip” fashion, ricocheting off trees, brush, and fellow skiers – at times sliding past the skier, and managing to flip some of us like a pancake!!
We knew that we wanted more than just rope to attach the toboggans to us. The rope would have worked fine on the flat and uphill sections, but would have made the downhill descents scary: it is awkward enough the go around corners on xcountry skiis, without being slammed into from behind by a still accelerating toboggan. So, we had bought some cheap piping (electrical conduit) that gave some rigidity to our tow-bar setup. But we hadn’t thought enough about stability for towing, and the toboggans tended to swerve from side to side.
Tyler quickly became the master of the wipeout caused by the wild toboggan, with some spectacular crashes that even a gymnast could be proud of. The first time, Tyler had been skiing down a gentle slope, with the toboggan gently oscillating from side to side behind him. The 10 foot length of the poles meant that the toboggan made some very wide “S” turns behind him. Tyler had a calm expression on his face as glided down the hill, compensating for the little extra jerk from the toboggan as flicked from left to right and back again. But as he slowly got going faster and faster, the oscillations got more and more violent. The toboggan reached out to its maximum, nicking one edge of the wide trail and then the other. Warren thought it looked like Tyler was being chased down the hill by a wild cat.
Finally, it flipped and threw itself into the trees. Tyler didn’t even have time to blink: the tobaggan stopped and so did the pack he was wearing. His arms, legs, skis and head tried to continue on down the hill, but were too firmly attached to the now stationery body. Tyler slowly dragged himself back to his feet, and trickled down the rest of the hill.
Brent came down next. This was the first real down hill and Brent was understandably cautious: there may have been a hill on his previous winter camping trip that he made it down without falling, but neither he nor Warren could remember it! Somehow, his toboggan was better behaved than Tyler’s, and it followed him down the hill, with only minor swerves. Near the bottom of the hill, he passed six feet to the right of Tyler, who was now standing up and looking around. Six feet was not an adequate distance however and Brent’s toboggan chose this moment to pounce. It swerved over and scored a direct hit on the back of Tyler’s toboggan. Brent’s toboggan came to a sudden halt. So did Brent’s pack. Once again, arms, legs, skis and head attempted to carry on. Once again, everything came to a sudden halt, and without any warning, Brent was suddenly on his back.
The sudden acceleration of Tyler’s sled hadn’t helped Tyler either, the sudden push knocking him down to his knees.
Elaine cannot remember a time when she had laughed so hard nor witnessed Warren, forehead in the snow, tears in his eyes also laughing uncontrollably! Unfortunately, we have no video evidence of this part of our adventure due to the lack of a video tape for the camera.
We figured out that a lower packed load didn’t flip over nearly as easily, although getting one of the small toboggans packed lower was easier said than done.
Next, a passing skier (ALL skiers passed us, there was NO-ONE slower than us) told us that she had seen a video tape lying in the snow about 2 kilometers back. Rick said “Yes, I am the fool that lost it, I will go back and get it”. To which she replied, “No problem, I’ll ski back and get it for you!”. Rick let her do him this little favour. The exact mechanism for how the tape pushed the eject button, jumped out of the machine, then pushed the eject button to close the door again is still something of a mystery. Rick claims that it must have happened as he let it dangle from his neck…
We stopped somewhere around the 4.7 km mark for a snack break and for Rick to fix his video tape and camera. Somehow it seemed that the video camera was not willing to put up with a wet/damp/snowy video tape being crammed into it… so it ate it… repeatedly. Rick and Warren eventually got the machine to accept the tape (with only minor injuries to the tape) and then they attempted to catch up to the rest of the group. The fancy walkie-talkies that Aaron had assigned to someone in the lead and someone in the rear were both far ahead of Warren and Rick. A sustained effort did very little to catch them up to the group, so they amused themselves by attaching the video camera to the sled and taking a variety of shots. (and lost Rick’s highly prized Swiss Army Knife in the process).
Eventually, the lead group started feeling guilty, and stopped to allow the stragglers to catch up. Then around the 9 kilometer mark we came across a lovely little oasis where a large bog (?lake) emptied into another bog (even smaller lake?). It displayed a neat little area of open water, and the sound of running water was magic to our ears. Unexpected.
Just after the 10km mark we came to the edge of ??? Lake…at least we thought it was just after the 10 km mark! As it turns out, there were two 10 km marker posts, about a kilometer apart! At the lake shore, the trail forked into two, the right being the one we needed to take to get to Fish Lake. The trail was rather flat now and the group, somewhat like horses heading to the barn, spread out and traveled at their own speed toward our destination. The snowshoers had been told that the total distance would be only 12 kilometers and they were only ready to go 12 kilometers. They slowed down even more. The 10 1/2 (or would that be the 11 1/2?) km point marked yet another fork in the trail. To the left was an untracked trail to Hunter Lake (ET recalls a grueling mountain biking adventure along that trail which she endured a few years ago, poorly supplied by water). Elaine sped off ahead, while the rest of us tried to maintain touch with the leader.
Elaine arrived at the campsite first and “woo hoo’ed” in delight as she spied the giant wood pile, bear platform, picnic tables, outhouse, and firegrills. She dropped her pack and toboggan and went back to help the straggling snowshoers, Rick and Aaron. She quickly passed Warren, Brent and Tyler who were close to the end. Florence Nightingale (a.k.a. Elaine) continued on to the rescue of man, man, and dog! Aaron was still hauling a “B-train” made up of his toboggan and Sky’s abandoned sled. Sky had been relieved of it at about the 2 or 3 km mark due to her erratic towing skills and fear of her own sled when it sling-shotted ahead of her on downhills and quick stops! But, when Elaine finally found them, she was shocked to find that instead of two men and a dog working hard hauling their toboggans, she found two men (with Sky looking on in a begging type posture) chowing down on chocolate chip cookies and bagels. Between mouthfuls they mumbled something about being so hungry that they were shaking and couldn’t possibly travel the remaining 500 meters without refueling!! Elaine tied on the B-train and skied off into the sunset – yes it was almost dusk – leaving the cookie monsters to their eats.
The campsite near the edge of Fish Lake was lovely, at least until we unpacked our gear in it. We disassembled our toboggans, put on some Goretex layers over our fleece and exchanged our ski boots for snow boots. The first part of setting up camp was stage 1 of building of the quinzhee.
We quickly exhausted the 6 inch layer of snow surrounding the quinzhee site and looked around for more snow. Tyler made the token effort of transporting snow using a tobaggan, and Warren suggested using the big blue tarp instead. We began shoveling snow onto a it from other areas of the camp and dragged it over to be dumped on the quinzhee pile. We were amazed to discover how heavy a few inches of snow on a tarp can be. Four of us could barely move it.
Rick, Aaron, and Sky arrived and joined in. Aaron took on the fire making task and created a mighty fine campfire after a much splitting of wood, a few tries with questionable fire starter, and then one try with a functional lighter.
With five people and the help of a large, blue tarp, the snow for the quinzhee takes only about an hour to pile up and we move onto setting up our tents. It was getting gloomier and darkness would be arriving soon! The headlamps were turned on!
We cooked supper, a lesson learned on what not to take winter camping! Actually, it wasn’t too bad, but only because it wasn’t that cold out. Supper consisted of BBQ’d burgers and buns, sauted onions (oops, no margarine), cheese, and condiments. We also shared a few cans of chunky soup warmed over the fire. These had been predicted to be a great winter camping meal and they were. We were all pretty full from the burgers. But if it had been much colder, the burgers would have been cold before we finished 3 bites, and we would have been forced to eat drippy things wearing mitts or gloves.
Sitting around the campfire and having supper turned out to be one of the chilliest times of the weekend. Elaine, anticipating quinzhee building had remained in her damp traveling clothes (with an extra layer on top) started getting too cold to contemplate digging out a quinzhee.
Aaron finished off Elaine’s second burger, then had a whole tin of chunky soup to himself. “Easier to carry it inside than outside” was his explanation. He thought about finishing the other 3 tins of soup too but somehow never got around to it.
Elaine attempted to dismiss the whole quinzhee thing and favored crawling into the tent. But she was rescued from this less exciting idea by Rick and Tyler who are still eager to tunnel out the quinzhee. The next photos are taken from Rick’s video camera, running in “NightScope” mode.
Actually, the whole thing went pretty quickly. The biggest problem is the lack of light. The headlights worked fine for digging inside the quinzhee so the problem was more the lack of daylight outside the quinzhee. Daylight gives you a good indication of the thickness of the walls, and it is pretty easy to tell when they are getting too thin. We tried to compensate by poking dozens of short sticks into the pile of snow from the outside. Then, when we hit one digging from the inside, we knew we had gone far enough. We also discovered that a bright flashlight shone onto the snow from the outside also help the digger estimate snow thickness. The thickness and sound damping capability of the snow made communication with those inside very difficult. We frequently had to relay messages to someone who would repeat them through the doorway.
In spite of these innovations, we still broke through twice. Luckily, Tyler had a new snow saw that he was dying to try out. Even luckier, we had a large expanse of packed down snow in the middle of the campsite. So, we cut out snow blocks, and inserted them into the holes. Worked like a charm. We also earned not to cut them too close to the correct size, just make them too big, and then pack snow around them to hold them in place.
Brent and Warren slunk off to bed before the quinzhee was quite finished. Building the quinzhee had gotten Elaine and the group back up to operating temperature, so they went off and checked out the area in the dark… just trying to make enough noise so that no-one else would get to sleep.
Brent and Warren had a long, easy night in the tent. Since they had sealed it up, there was a substantial build up of frost on the inside by morning, but it was cold enough so that no melting was going on. Warren claimed he was actually too warm for most of the night… subsiding to just about right around 6 am. This was with a good DryLoft down bag, inside a -10 Hollofill bag. Brent was a little cool inside his -10 Hollofill bag, with a summer Hollofill as a blanket.
Aaron and Sky were fine in their tent, until Warren went out to pee at 1:00 am. Sky was desperate to determine what the noise outside was, and when this failed, rammed her freezing nose down into Aaron’s sleeping bag, where it remained for the next few hours. This ensured that Aaron would stay awake for quite awhile. Otherwise, Aaron also claimed he was overly warm all night, in his triple sleeping bag combo.
Elaine, Rick and Tyler were stuffed into the quinzhee. Carving out little niches for the candles greatly improved the chances of the sleeping bags surviving the night. The flame of the candle carves out an elagant little alcove, complete with its own chimney.
Being the tallest, Tyler was in the middle. Since the quinzhee was not large, everyone had their heads mushed up against the snow wall of the quinzhee. The inevitable brushes against the wall caused mini snowfalls, which did no real damage unless they made it down past your neck into your sleeping bag. Being packed in so tight meant that it was almost impossible to turn over. Tyler perfected a wriggling jump into the air that enabled him to spin in place. Naturally, one person moving woke everyone in the quinzhee… But, in spite of the multiplicity of airholes, the quinzhee was a very warm place, and dampness and drips were visible on all sleeping bags in the morning.
Sunday, January 28, 2001
Everyone slept in until 9 am, at which point Brent figured that 11 hours of sleep was plenty! He was up and building a fire in no time. Warren was next. The quinzhee gang would have slept another 6 hours in their little womb without a view, except for exploding bladders. Warren removed the pack blocking the entrance and got this photo.
We never really got organized for breakfast. Warren made two pots of coffee, which were quickly drunk. No one knows what the non-coffee drinkers did. More snow was melted on the fire. It ended up with a flavour that was either disgusting or great depending on your point of view. Warren thought it tasted like LapSangSooChong tea. The others thought it tasted like smoke. Both were accurate because LapSangSooChong tea is often described as tasting like an old sailing ship: old tar and sisal/hemp rope. Anyways, we filled up thermoses and bottles with the hot water and started packing.
Brent was ready in an hour and desperate for something to do. Since we also wanted to do some testing of other equipment and conditions, he took off on skiis down on to the lake to see how things went in untracked snow. He then came back and did the same with a toboggan.
By this time Warren was ready and loaded, so he tried on the old rawhide snowshoes, and clumped on down to the lake as well.
Then Warren had to also try out towing a toboggan across the fluffy stuff as well. Tyler stomped down in a variety of snowshoes as well. We came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be that much more work to blaze our own trail across lakes. This was in sharp contrast to Brent and Warren’s previous trip, where they tried to break their own trail through the woods of the SpruceRiverHighlands. That time, they had a very difficult time getting 50 metres. The slope made the skiis slide backwards. The packs made the skiis sink in too deep to herringbone. The deadfall and other debris invisible under the snow meant that their skiis continually got stuck under things. And without seeing these obstacles, it was very difficult to get unstuck. Pulling their skiis backwards frequently meant getting stuck under something else, and the ski was now stuck at both ends!
Eventually the group was ready to leave. We sawed the tow bars down to a more reasonable length, down to 7 feet from the original 10 feet. This helped a little.
Aaron had moved all of his gear off his back and on to a toboggan. He had also a new set up for Sky, this time attaching her toboggan with poles.
Warren spent some time apply NewSkin and moleskin to his blisters. They had made their appearance around kilometer 11 the previous day, but hadn’t been worthy of notice. They were now, and after prodding by Brent and Elaine, Warren succumbed to the group pressure and did his best to prepare them for the ski out.
Rick had foolishly spent all of the previous day on snowshoes and was now suffering the consequences. The boot/snowshoe combination had done evil things to his bunion and he wasn’t able to walk. This meant that he had been hobbling about camping hoping for things to loosen up. They didn’t. So, he made an attempt to squeeze into his skiboot… 2 seconds later he took it off, saying “No”. Which left him limping badly in plain old boots. So, we gave him a head start, and sent him on his way. The snow wasn’t packed quite well enough for plain old boots, but he didn’t have a lot of choice.
Tyler had now packed his toboggan much smaller and lighter. He was looking forward to an easier day with the shortened tow bars. Somehow Tyler also ended up with a suspiciously light toboggan…
Elaine was gifted with a much lightened load after the consumption of food. But no, it was pretty much unchanged. An extra bonus was cold toes.
It was now 1 pm. Brent had been chomping at the bit for awhile, so we let him go. He soon caught up to Rick, and took his tobaggan away from him. Brent was now loaded up with a B-train, and continued to set a pace that the rest of us just weren’t that thrilled about matching.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch… er, campsite, not much was happening. We radioed back to Aaron, and discovered that the new harness etc for Sky was not to her liking. It turned out that loosely attached tow bars don’t work for dogs who stop, then turn around to look at you. This meant the she was now standing in the middle of some uncomfortable bars, at which point she refused to move anymore. Aaron gave in after a very short, frustrating time and attached her toboggan to the back of his own… Yet another B-train.
Warren arrived at kilometer 4.7 and dug around in the likely spots for Rick’s lost Swiss Army knife. No luck. Somewhere along the way, Aaron’s second toboggan was transfered to a skier, possibly Elaine.
Eventually, we all met up at kilometer 4 and settled down for a nice pleasant lunch of “Trail Quesadillas”. This is a Rick McCharles specialty. Always pleasant, even when we have to split one 6 ways! We split about 6 of them 6 ways. People made mumbling noises like “Could we have one with no marjoram?”, and “Could we have one with just cheese?”. This people were silenced by being allowed to cook whatever they darn well pleased, when the rest of the group was done. Tyler was the only one who last to the end, and cooked a big cheese one for himself.
Rick now warmed up his bunion enough so that he could walk again, and once again, shifted back onto snowshoes. Once again, we sent him off early. Brent took off after him, and took his toboggan once again. After a few ups and downs, we hit the sequence of plateaus that lead up the the highest point of the trail. Brent took the opportunity to add yet another toboggan to his train. He was now pulling three toboggans.
Warren and Elaine, way back at the back after cleaning up after lunch saw little of this. In fact, Warren didn’t catch up to Brent until the top of the climb, where Brent had passed on one of his toboggans to Rick (so the Rick could try sitting on it to go down the hill) and then waited for Warren to pass on the other tobaggan. Brent was more worried about going downhill with multiple toboggans than he was about going uphill with them. Warren accepted the gift, and then had to work hard all the way down the hill. Just not steep enough to glide with all that resistance.
Some foolishness ensued for the last 200 meters, as Elaine attempted to pack all the snowshoers onto toboggans and pull them. We finished the ski out at about 5:20, and started loading things into the vehicles.
Brent quickly checked that his truck would start, and we loaded up the vehicles. We were ready to go… well, maybe not, Aaron’s car wouldn’t start. Out with the booster cables (which were at the bottom of all that stuff in Brent’s truck) and five minutes later we were rolling.
Most comments in the car were directed at Rick, requesting him not to foul the air by exposing his armpits.
A final jolt of adrenline hit us at the cabin. We were locked out. All our keys, wallets and other clothes were inside the locked cabin. Having been in this position before, Warren smoothly broke in… A quick change of clothes, repack the vehicles ( a walkie talkie in each which was fun, and also critical for keeping Aaron awake) and we were on our way to Subway, and Saskatoon.
Summary:
We thought we were pretty unique. Then on the way out we ran into 3 guys on their way in to stay at the same place. One of them had rented his skiis from Ebbs. The next was using the same electrical conduit to tow his toboggan. The third had the same purple toboggan as us!