I just finished putting together a map of where I spent each of the 100 nights camping. Check it out: http://arcg.is/29CLTOC
P.S. Blog posts about the last 40 nights or so are in progress, so have a look at the map for a bit of a preview, and stay tuned!
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We camped at the Furnace Creek Campground in Death Valley. It was a stunning site, bordered by mountains to the east and west. It is also located below sealevel, though it is not quite as low as Badwater Basin, the lowest point in North America. We did visit on one of our field trip days; the small salt formations on the ground were very cool. We worked on two projects here, the first was mapping the different deposits of an alluvial fan, as well as the faults that ran through it. The area is part of a large extensional system (the Basin and Range Province) but also experiences lateral movement due to strike-slip faults. For the second, we were in a nearby canyon. Here, we mapped metamorphosed rocks of different grades and ages, stacked one above the other due to faulting. Both projects offered unique challenges and were very interesting! On the field trip days, we visited the aforementioned Badwater Basin, Artist's Drive, some petroglyphs, Panamint Valley, and a bunch of different volcanoes! It was so great. One of the few issues I had here was the heat. After our first day of field work here, I realized that I had adopted a faked laugh; I had started just saying 'ha ha ha' because actually laughing was beyond me, it was so hot. Leading up to leaving for this field school, the weather in Halifax was consistently around 4-8 degrees, and only made it into the double digits a few times. One day about a week before I left, it was a full 11 degrees. I wore shorts. The day it hit 20, I felt like melting. Now, I pride myself on being tough in the cold; I enjoy being the last to layer up, and I relish winter camping. I also make sure to never complain about being cold, partially because it I don't often feel that way, but also so that I feel a little more entitled to it, and less like a hypocrite, when I complain about the heat. I do feel a little bad for my classmates because, despite the fact that I tried to limit it, and only said "it's hot" or "it's so hot" or "it's too hot" etc... about 1% of the time those thoughts came to mind, that was all I could think about.
Over the course of our stay here, things did get a little better, but I was very glad to move on to the next campsite! For locations of these, and all my other camping nights, check out the map I made here. I spent April 27th to the 30th staying at an incredible campsite in the Valley of Fire. After even just one night in Vegas, it was a welcome change! I was down there for the Honours Field School, so it wasn't a typical camping experience, but it was great in many other ways! We had a great kitchen set up, including two fridges, which was kind of weird, but necessary. We all had to help make meals everyday, either cooking or cleaning up after breakfast or supper everyday. That system worked out very well! We spent that first evening in Vegas taking strike and dip measurments in the Travelodge parking lot, which garnered us a few looks. The next day we went to Frenchman Mountain.
Finally! It has been so long, and feels like even longer since I'd been camping. Fortunately, I got to rectify that this weekend! I took the AWFA course through Adventure & Safety Atlantic, which took place Friday to Monday. Fittingly, the course is mostly outside, and involves one overnight! The course itself was absolutely fantastic, and definitely keeps you on your toes! For the sake of not ruining the surprises for you, should you decide you want to take it (and you really should!), I won't go into any more detail than that.
Back to the camping: on the Saturday, we all set up camp in between learning things during the day. By the time we got to crawl into bed, I was very grateful that I had gone so far as to set up my liner in my sleeping bag and make my pillow; it was a long day! I slept really well, though the snow was quite loud, especially when it first started falling a short while after I went to bed. There were a couple times around 4 am where I woke up due to clumps of snow hitting the tent really hard. They sounded like muffled shots, or something (other than snow) hitting something else (other than the tent) and, based on the way the weekend had been going, this definitely put me on edge, just waiting for someone to start screaming or yelling. Fortunately, it was just snow hitting the tent at that point in time! Once I did have to get out of the tent, I popped my head out to the most beautiful scene. The snow cover was amazing, and amazingly distracting. For the rest of the day, snow falling from the trees on to my head was startling. One would think, based on the frequency with which it happened, that I would get used to natural snowballs hitting my head every few minutes, but no. I just went camping again! School, while still very intense, just got a little less intense for the week, so my friend and I decided to celebrate! Krista and I headed out to Chebucto Head yesterday evening. It was a little chilly, I've gotten used to the warm weather we've been having, but clear skies and open ocean can't be beat. We star gazed and ate chocolate, what more can you ask for in life! This morning it was really windy, and not any warmer, which made watching the sunrise an endeavor. Trying to take non-blurry photos was such a challenge; I couldn't keep my hands still enough! However, it was so gorgeous, and made for a wonderful and much-needed getaway. I finally went camping last week, and now I'm finally writing about it! Last week was reading week at uni, so I finally had some time to go camping, and since I'm part of the outdoors society here, I lead a trip. I had a fantastic co-leader, Thalia, and the participants were amazing! We went up to Gully Lake Wilderness Area for what was supposed to be 3 nights, but more on that later. The start was a bit of a roller coaster, we stopped in at Sugar Moon Farms. I'd never been there before, but I will definitely be going back! Holly is on exchange from New Zealand, so she'd never had a 'tire d'érable' before, so we made sure to do that! Starting a snowshoe with very full bellies may not have been the best idea, but it ended up being a non-issue, since one of the other cars ended up getting stuck half way into the ditch at the trailhead. The snowplow had plowed considerably more than the road, and while the snow on the edge looked very solid, it was, in fact, not. At the end of the trip, when lots of snow had melted, we saw there was a vertical drop-off from the pavement of about a foot and a half! Fortunately, CAA was on site surprisingly quickly, and we were all good to go less than an hour later! One adventure over with, we hit the trail. We opted for the snow machine route instead of the snowshoe trail. It was shorter, and well traveled, and we were loosing daylight. We ended up getting to camp with about an hour of sunlight left, which was the perfect amount to get tents set up and some food cooking! Tuesday morning, we all slept in. Holly and I were the first to get out of our tent at 10, after having gone to bed before 9 the night before. It was a wonderful amount of sleep. We got breakfast going for the rest of the group, and once we were all up, we headed out for the day! The forecast did call for rain, so we weren't sure how it would go. Fortunately, we had a mostly sunny day; it was really warm! I was down to my base layers (under rain gear, it was rather windy). We ended up not being able to do the loop we had planned, because of the late start, but we had lots of fun exploring anyways! The rain held off throughout supper, it didn't actually start until 2 am! However, we woke up to a whole new, swampy, world. There had been about a meter of snow on the ground, but with all the rain, about two thirds of it melted. Combine the rain and the melted snow, and there was a lot of water everywhere! There was a pretty decent creek running through the campsite, where there had been none before. Some of our sleeping bags got rather wet, the snow melting around, but not under, the tents lead to a plateau effect. In some of the tents, this lead to the sides of the tent being pulled down, and sleeping bags getting caught and dragged into puddles. The forecast called for a colder night, and rain during the day so with no way to dry things out, and a cold night ahead, we decided to hike out a day early. It was a warm day, again, so warm that even Holly took off most of her layers! It was very interesting navigating the same terrain as the day before because so much had changed. The small creeks we had crossed with ease were suddenly much wider, with less solid snow banks on either side. Our trail, instead of being a channel of packed snow, was instead a series of ghostly raised snowshoe prints. It was really neat! The drive home was also very different, most fields and yards were lakes!
It felt so great to go camping again; it had been way too long! My next trip is planned for next week, which is unfortunately far away, but between having all my midterms and my honours thesis draft due, it's hard to get out! But, I'm still very confident I can accomplish this, and very much looking forward to having a bit more time! A huge thanks to Holly and Lindsay for the photos. I forgot my camera battery in the charger (it was bound to happen eventually) so I wasn't able to take any of my own. Suzies Lake, second week in a row! This time, I went with a friend from geo, who has been out with me before, on the night of the super-moon eclipse! She had just gotten a new tent, and was very excited to try that out! (I may have been equally excited to just see it...) We had a meeting at school that ran until 1915, so we got a very late start, but had no issues because of that (well, except trying to get a bus!). There has been some snow since last weekend, so there were fewer tracks before us this time. With the snow on the branches, the trail felt so much narrower. The hike in definitely had a different feel. We got to the campsite shortly after 2100, set up camp quickly, and then went to bed. In the morning, I awoke to footsteps outside my tent. One of my friends is studying journalism, and decided to do a piece about this challenge, as well as winter camping in general. He and a classmate showed up shortly after 8 to take some pictures and ask a few questions. You can check out that article here: http://signalhfx.ca/dal-student-pledges-to-camp-100-nights-in-a-year/ The trip was short, but sweet, and I solved the ice vs water debate I'd had last week. In the photo above, there are three shades of black/grey in the lake. The bottom left stripe is open water, the other two are different thicknesses of thin and clear ice. Based on that information, I'm pretty sure it was all ice last week!
I just got back from Suzie's Lake, a funny little place! The short hike to the lake begins in the Kent parking lot, and there are lots of clear cuts in the area due to prospective developments, which is terrible. But, it's easily accessible by bus and, therefore, perfect for student trips; I've gone there several times with the Outdoors Society. This time, I just went with one other friend. Check out http://www.bmbcltrails.com/ for mor e information on th is wilderness area! After a slightly delayed start (I got caught up at school) we headed out. It was long after dark, though that's a pretty common situation these days, so we made our way by headlamp (or diving light in her case). After one or two wrong turns, depending on who's counting, we made it to the campsite. We set up the tent and our sleeping things and I looked inside and couldn't help but burst out laughing. Half the tent was sleeping bag, and unfortunately, I don't have a photo, but trust me, I'm not exaggerating! Krista only had a 0C bag, so I brought both my new -23C bag and my older -7C one as well. That -23C bag is huge on its own, so throw it in a 2-person tent, along with two other sleeping bags, and that's a lot of sleeping bag! It didn't help that we were using a downmat and an xtherm f or sleeping pads since both are about 7cm thick! It was a hilarious sight. We hung out by the lake for a bit before crawling into bed. It was beautiful! Lots of it has frozen over, though there is some open water still. The city lights, while unfortunately still present, did make for a neat scene.
In the morning, going back to the lake, it was clearer that the part we had thought was open water wasn't really, it was just much thinner ice than nearer the shore. The other times I've been there were both last year in the dead of winter, so the ice was really thick (we even slept out on the lake the one time!) and the trails were covered in a meter of snow. This time, while there was snow, there were also lots of patches of bare ground, and due to recent warm days, there were many sections that were sheer ice. (Many super graceful moments ensued.) I'll have to check it out in the summer sometime! I am back in Halifax now, after spending my winter break in AB and B.C. As you know, I sent the first half camping out at my dad's farm. The second half, I spent in southern Alberta, with a bunch of people I haven't seen since summer 2014! We had all been students on JIRP (Juneau Icefield Research Program) where we traversed 100s of km of glacier to get from Juneau to Atlin, all the while doing science! It was so great to hang out with some of those guys again! There were all sorts of shenanigans, including investigating a weird wooden castle in the woods (lodging for a summer camp), tobogganing down the best hill ever, downhill skiing in BC, cross-country skiing once in BC and twice in AB, rock climbing on a wall in the barn's hayloft, New Years festivities and sauna-ing, ridiculous games involving things like races to see who can get a smartie across the finish line by blowing on it through a straw first (which apparently I'm really good at), and, of course, so much camping!
I got six nights in while I was there, five of them in a really cool tent, and one beneath the stars. There's a story behind the tent I used. I left my tent in Halifax because I knew I would have access to other tents and I didn't have the space in my luggage. At the farm, I used my dad's old tent (which I went camping in over 20 years ago!) but when I went back to my mom's place, I couldn't find a tent there. Fortunately, or so I thought, the friend who was hosting this reunion had a tent I could borrow. Unfortunately, when I got there, we opened it up to find it damp and absolutely covered in mould. I was trying to sort out how I could get the tent (now found) from my mom when another JIRPer arrived. Mike drove up from the States in his van (which he's decked out with insulation and cedar planking on the walls, a bed, and storage) and fortunately had a tent in the back! It was by far one of the coolest tents I've slept in. It was a Hilleberg tent, which isn't one I'd heard of before. I'm so glad that's changed now. It set up so quickly, and was extremely livable; there was tonnes of head room, and the largest vestibule I've ever seen. I didn't get to test it in super windy conditions, but Mike said he's slept through storms that collapsed other tents! The inside warmed up pretty well, especially considering there was only one of me in a three-person tent, and while it was a little frosty (less than other tents I've used) on the inside in the morning, by the time I went back to sleep it had dried out completely. Mike had to leave one day before me though, taking his tent with him. Fortunately, I had just gotten my birthday/Christmas present for the year that same day, so I slept outside in my super fancy new sleeping bag. (It's the Lynx GWS from Western Mountaineering.) It was only about -17C or so, so that's not the limit of the bag, but it's great to know that it's comfortable in those conditions! Since I'm talking about (non-sponsored) gear anyways, I figure it's a good time for a footwear update! You may remember that Keen kindly supported me in this endeavour. My Revel IIIs are fantastic! I was slightly hesitant about them at first since they are a little wide, but I am in love with them now. I wore them the whole time I was away. My feet were only cold if I was just standing around doing nothing for a while, other than that they were toasty warm, without being super sweaty. I didn't get a chance to really test out the waterproofness; it was so cold, and the snow so dry, that I could have been wearing paper bags and still have dry feet. I'm sure Halifax will give me the opportunity to test the waterproofness soon though! I haven't gotten any blisters in them (yet?) but that may be because I've been using my ezeefits for longer walks and such. However, the fact that I haven't had hotspots from shorter wears is a really good sign, and fairly abnormal for me! I can't wait to test these out in some wetter conditions and see how they hold up. Night 45! Last night on the farm... This was a bonus night; I was supposed to fly from BC to AB on the 24th, but the plane couldn't land to pick me up due to the clouds, so I hung out at the farm for an extra day! It was good and bad, I had birthday plans with friends and family in Calgary that evening, but got to spend more of my birthday in one of my favourite places! Since I was supposed to drive up to Edmonton with my family on the 25th to visit my grandparents, that complicated things a little, but I was able to change my flight, so I just met them there yesterday. It all worked out quite well! The photos below are from the 24th and 25th; on the left: the reason I didn't fly out! Finnegan was extra adorable that evening, hanging out with me for longer than usual when I was going to sleep. He likes to stick his head under the vestibule and whine at me through the mesh until I let him lick my hand. Then he'll stomp around before curling up for a few minutes. Then, he'll get up, run around for a bit, and do it all over again!
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AuthorCarmen has successfully camped for 100 nights out of 365. This blog is a record of those nights outside! Archives
July 2016
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