It seems I misjudged that. I especially misjudged how much work it is to drag a sled while cutting new trail. The first few miles of the trail is frequented by locals and people staying at the nearby lodge and was trampled down, making it easier on us. However, once we got off the trail and started through fresh snow, that all changed. It opened our eyes as to how out of shape we are... We stopped near my first work site and set up camp because it was late in the day and we were pretty tired. Day 1: no work done.
Based on the fact that we didn't get any work done on Saturday, I decided that we should at least download the data from both sites. This meant hiking the additional 3 mile round trip to the farthest site in the morning and then downloading data at the site near where we camped. We got started late (of course) and 2/3 of the way to the farthest site we recalculated how long it'd take for us to work there and get back to the camp site. We had set a time for when we had to leave camp in order to get back to the truck while still daylight (per winter fieldwork protocol set by SNRI) and it turned out that we'd be past that time if we kept going at the pace we were. So we turned around.
We decided to pack up camp before heading to the next site. As we were walking to the work site, I realized that everything looked different... I hadn't been out to that particular site during the winter and if you didn't know, 4' of snow changes the way everything looks. There were creeks and little hills that weren't there before and any of the identifying vegetation was covered up. I didn't want to go hiking up and down the hillside and waste a bunch of time since we were fast approaching our cutoff time. So I said "screw it," dumped some of the equipment in an instrument box near the road, packed up the sled, and headed back to the truck. Day 2: no work done.
In short, we chocked this weekend up to being a work-out and camping weekend. It was nice to camp in the mountains (our first camping trip in CA) and we needed the work out, but I needed fieldwork done and that didn't happen... oh well. I'll wait for the snowmobiles...
Atalie on the trail-- her first snowshoeing experience!
In camp trying to get frozen wood to light- didn't work very well. It provided some warmth but we had to "baby" it a lot to keep it going.
Since the fire wouldn't stay lit without work from us, we decided to get in the tent early and try our hand at some Mahjong.
On the trail Sunday morning-- this is where we turned around to head back to camp.
Trying out some of the local cuisine.
Packing up the sled for the walk back to the truck.
Me pulling the sled on the walk back to the truck-- it was much easier since I offloaded some of the batteries and the trail was already cleared by us the day before.
Atalie posing above a little creek.
Checking out a snow cave that some of the lodge folks built.
Atalie was getting nauseous on the winding roads on the way back so I gave her the pilot seat.
4 comments:
did you sled down any hills? i would have dumped the cargo for a couple slides. i thought you took atalie to pull you back up the hills. also, what's up with that crazy smile when atalie is driving? hints of an urge to do spinouts or donuts.
No sledding-- I thought about it though. Atalie was trying not to smile and couldn't do it. Although I do think she was secretly wanting to do donuts (even though she always yells at me when I want to do them!).
I am impressed! Camping in the snow! I love hearing about all your adventures. We miss you in Missouri!
i guess you two are much better at camping than that first trip. atalie was having problems with the matches and complained to patrick who said, " i don't understand what the problem is lighting them; i tried each one before we left and they all lit fine."
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