Hi HOOP, thanks for the comments. I might suggest that you are biased toward wool & toboggans!
Some observations on the story:
... I am wondering how they did in the nylon? I would have died from heat and soaking in their attire. Did you compare notes on the clothing?
No, we didn't spend much time comparing notes in that regard. One of the fellows did say in that "lessons learned" e-mail that he felt he needed fresh clothes for each day. In light of what you mention, I would bet that it relates closely to the materials used. Mark was also in synthetics, but dressed lighter, eschewing a shell when underway except the first cold morning.
Definitely those little pulks were packed too high. If trail had to be broken in deep fluffy snow, or obstacles to be hauled over and around, they would have been tipping over. Your toboggan was looking really good with its long low load. Well done.
It also looked like your heavier UHMWPE toboggan was hauling easier than the pulks? I don't know what those pulks were made of, but if they were that black plastic used by the snowmobile sleds, then they drag really badly. Something about the plastic on those that are high friction and the corrugated bottoms that clump snow and add surface drag area, and are horrible to hand haul. If they could rig a crazy carpet underneath, they would have easier hauling I bet.
Mark & I traded loads for a stretch on the way out. Sadly, it was a flat stretch, not over one of the ridges we crossed. Mark thought my load was easier to haul on the UHMW toboggan compared to his pulk, I thought they were pretty similar. Later, once we had each weighed our loads, the real difference became apparent. As mentioned, I was heavily laden at 140 pounds. Mark on the other hand has pulling just 50 pounds! (
Funny story - On the way in Mark packed the sleds for himself and his girlfriend, ensuring that he was carrying the heavy stuff and that Zoe was more lightly loaded. On the way out, Zoe packed the pulks, paying less attention to load distribution between the pulks, giving herself 80lbs of load and Mark only 50! Hence the reason she decreed that 80lbs was too much for day 3.)
One big advantage of the pulks - they had no room to carry more stuff! Despite that others had offered to help share the load of the stove in exchange for the benefit of having it along, nobody had any room to take it on. My tent partner hauled the sled while I hauled the stove, but I was hoping to share the stove pipe around a bit more.
By the way, Mark (the most experienced in the group and trip organiser, and someone who reads and passes on a lot of information from wintertrekking.com), recognises the advantages of the longer UHMW toboggans. It was he that went together with me on a sheet of UHMW, but he hasn't had time to turn it into a sled yet. Mark & Zoe's loaded pulks were never too high despite the length restrictions of the sleds.
The water there is a beautiful blue-green. On our Shield here, the water is naturally tea stained brown. Yours is much more photogenic!
Yes, the colour of the ice was amazing and photographs don't really do it justice! On the other hand, Mike should have taken a few more steps out of the bay before chopping that hole in the ice since our drinking water did have a certain tea colouration to it.
Some Thoughts on your Lessons Learned blog:
Camera: If you keep the camera (slim point and shoot, not SLR), around your neck and slipped inside your outer layers against your belly, on top of a layer or two to stay away from moisture, then the batteries stay warm in the deepest cold, and you don't have to change them. The camera slips in and out fairly easily down your front.
My approach after the first day was to keep camera (small point & shoot) in the deep front pocket of my army surplus wool pants. That kept the camera working well for the rest of the trip and handy for use.
Chimney sparks: Don't use a spark arrestor!!!!! (it will clog). The problem is that your pipe does not angle out and away from your tent - it rises more or less straight up. I think you need an elbow at your thimble, or just outside, to angle the pipe out. You need a bipod to support it (like in the Snowtrekker pics). Wall tents use the same principle without the bipod, taking the pipe out and away up to the ridge where it is wired and supported well away from the roof. That distance, plus tent set up based on wind direction, will go a long way to preventing spark holes. Black spruce is still your best overall Boreal firewood. It sparks far less than jack pine.
To be honest, I'm not sure what wood I was burning. Is it obvious from my pictures what type of wood is prominent in the area near our camp? In the summer, I expect it would have been a thick mossy forest floor and fairly damp.
You can find the whole album at
http://picasaweb.google.ca/pawistik/Nistowiak?feat=directlinkRegarding the spark arrestor - that comment was written coincidentally just before a discussion here in the forum made me realize that may not be the best approach. I must remember to edit the blog posting in light of that discussion. I think one more length of pipe (4" to nest inside the 5" pipe, 26 gauge galvanized) will help. I've done more playing around with stove position and stovepipe angles since then (and we realize we bent the stove steel backwards, putting the stove pipe hole on the wrong side of the stove from how we designed it). I think the angle of the pipe was greater than was evident in those pictures and we did have it supported with a bipod.
Kindling and fire starter: Yep - gotta have it ready before retiring!
Lesson learned. Now you know why I was asking about that
Jack London story the other day.
Lighter: Sleep with one in a chest pocket. If your sleeping sweater does not have a chest pocket, make one high on the chest where it will not bother you for sleeping on. The butane will be happily heated when you rise to start the fire. My match cases are also devoid of a striking surface. I have to make some time to glue a striking strip on each of them. I keep forgetting. It’s an important survival prep for the gear.
Yes, I have since put together a bit better of a package for the matches including some abrasive for striking. Such a simple thing becomes difficult at -30°C.
Food: Cheese slices for lunch stay in slices if you put tomorrow's lunch in the bottom of your sleeping bag. Use a small hip pack or neck bag for your food against your belly inside layers, or pack the thawed lunch from your sleeping bag against your insulated hot water nalgene, and inside a pack or duffel. The heat from the water bottle keeps the lunch thawed. I do the latter method. There is no need to eat frozen food for lunch.
I have a couple of ditty bags that are just the right size to hold a few items in my sleeping bag. I'm hesitant to add much since with my large feet there's not a ton of room in there.
Instant coffee: Unfortunately, I too have also gone to instant coffee, caff and de-caff, due to its enormous time and energy savings. Space on the stove is also not conducive to real coffee when so much time is needed for heating water for drinking, water bottles, and washing dishes. I think on harder colder trips, people are easily drinking 5 liters of water (with drink mix) each per day, and that much water heating cannot be used for coffee perking.
On a day when you need to get an early start, instant coffee can certainly be a help. The coffee pot is also hard to clean in the winter from boiling up proper camp coffee. On the other hand, good camp coffee is sometimes worth it.
Knots for sled haul line: The bowline is easy to tie, won't come loose under a load, and can be easily undone with gloves, mitts, even when iced and frozen solid. Important for on-ice rescue line work!
Lashing lines: Knots are not good. Loads shift. Iced lines are no fun with cold fingers. Better to use bungies with hooks, and use multiple zig zag wraps, or webbing with metal cinchers like Black River Sled uses. I use 1/4 inch bungies (with real rubber), cut in bulk from the roller at Canadian tire (the blue and white stuff), and rigged with bungie hooks with stop knots, and they have never failed in the cold. Fastex buckles on webbing are also great, but bring extra because cheapies can break in cold. Only use fastex type buckles that feel nylon-y as opposed to brittle hard plastic.
I read in someone's report that they had trouble with bungees in the deep cold - that has not been my experience. Perhaps it depends on the type of bungees? I used bungees as the main means of securing the load across each section, but also used rope to help cinch in the sides of the duffel bags and ensure that they didn't flop over the sides of the toboggan. I had no problems in that regard. Others in the group did have some issues but those issues are also related to their pulks, the height of the load, and the overflowing nature of that load. This goes back to the pulk versus long low toboggan discussion.
For the future, I would consider creating a lashing system like that used on the black river sleds (in fact, I may just order what they sell, the price seems reasonable), or a system of webbing and fastex buckles. the advantage of these systems is not having to deal with a dozen bungee cords, the hooks of which become entangled in anything they can find.
Toboggans with ropes: I agree with all your points about the advantages of a rope and tump harness. So easy and better in my opinion on that terrain with snowshoes. If skiing, then poles become more important.
Coming from a pulk background, I had actually set this toboggan up to use fiberglass poles. I didn't want to have to rely solely on a system in which I was entirely unfamiliar for a trip this ambitious. The poles connect to eye bolts at the front of the toboggan, which in turn are connected to the toboggan by u-bolts. A short section of garden hose was the perfect solution to keep those eye bolts form dangling when not in use. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I forgot the poles at home and was forced to learn to haul by rope.
RE statement: "Pulling 80 lbs is too much for day 3." I bet it was their pulk's plastic, and their pole harness and poles that did not allow them to turn and use body language and arms to help with the hills and turns. 80 pounds on a long UHMWPE toboggan is greased lightning and should not be a problem on the terrain you had there, especially on a packed snowmobile trail. Some of those hills would have required a second person pushing from behind, but that is normal trekking style. It was quite obvious from the short video you posted on the downhill segment, how restricted and uncomfortable those pulkers were in their pole system. They could not even get out of the way and let their sled accelerate down the hill for free gravity fed progress. Ropes rule with snowshoes.
That 80 pound comment comes from the uneven loading of Zoe & Mark's sleds as mentioned earlier.
140 pounds up a steep hill is still going to be heavy no matter what it slides on. I think in that situation the benefit is minimized and the extra weight of the sled actually becomes a hindrance to a certain degree (my toboggan weighs 20 lbs).
I don't think the pulkers necessarily felt they were that uncomfortable in their systems.
Re statement: "My boots do not keep my feet warm at -30, especially when just standing around camp." Did they have double insole boots? If they were simply liners without a second hefty insole underneath, then that is likely the problem. Single insole boots, even like the Sorel "Caribou", will not keep you warm standing around. And they have a narrow toe box preventing a thick second insole. It may also have been wet liners too. Did they bring a second pair and dry them every night? Booties don't do well in a thaw, and are not good for making water runs to the water hole, especially when there is slush. Can't go gather firewood either. Booties to me are dead weight. Better to wear your boots and have a second pair of liners and be drying the liners.
You're right, the boots were a fairly typical old pair of sorels without the double insole. These were her "standing around camp" boots, not those worn during more active periods so moisture build up is unlikely to have been a significant factor in this case.
Regarding the camp booties, no, they're not great for bush work, but for sitting around the fire they are quite decent (mind the sparks!). If I could commit to my mukluks, I think the mukluks for active use and camp work would be great when combined with my down booties for the less active sitting around camp.
Thanks again Pawistik for the "lessons learned" extra work. It adds to the group knowledge we are building here. Any comments on my comments +/- are welcomed.
And thanks HOOP for making such a thorough assessment of my postings!
Cheers,
Bryan
(whoops, there goes my lunch hour!)
