23 FEB 2001
By Melanie Kirol
As the product manager for Cloudveil, I saw an opportunity for first-hand
product feedback and testing by joining Win and Joe on a section of their
traverse. Cloudveil outfitted them with a wide selection of
clothing for their trip. I wanted to see which items they chose to
wear, and how the clothes were working out for them.
So far, so good. Not
only did I gain additional knowledge about Cloudveil products, but I came
away from the trip with a greater appreciation of the challenges, and
comforts, of living in a winter environment. While
skiing, I had plenty of time to think about my observations of the little things that make winter
camping so interesting.
If you made a list of all your physical belongings, and broke it into
necessities and luxuries, I imagine both lists would be quite long. Now, if
you modified the necessities list to items you'd be willing to carry on
your back for five days, the list would get much shorter. I was able to work
my list of necessities, and a few luxuries, down to 60 pounds. That's
cheating a little because Joe and Win carried the tents, stoves, and cooking
utensils. I carried dinners for two - Joe and myself. (Win chose to eat
separately). So maybe it almost balanced out.
On a winter camping experience, nearly everything centers around the
physical state of water. It's obvious that we need snow to ski, but we're so accustomed to living in a world where water is a
liquid, and we manipulate it to be a solid or a gas. Out here water is a
solid, and it takes a bit of coercion to get it to behave otherwise.
The
first night we were fortunate enough to find running water. The rest of the
time, though, we had to melt snow for drinking and cooking water. In the
morning, you pull the food you want for the day and put it in a pocket next
to your body. A bagel will become soft enough to bite into by lunchtime. I
made the mistake of not spreading my cream cheese on the bagels before
leaving, so I had to melt the tub of cream cheese in a pot of boiling water
before I could spread it on the bagels. The cheese and butter had to
be sliced before the trip began, and any food that wasn't dehydrated had to
be thawed before eating. The positive side of all this is that, unlike in
the summer, you don't have to worry about food spoiling on the trip.
The snow opens up a world that can be transformed with no real impact on the
surroundings. Like little kids building forts, we built our camp out of
snow. We packed down the area under the tent, making it level by stomping it
out with our skis. For the cooking tent, we dug out a square in the snow. We
were able to dig a few feet down before hitting the ground, and we set the tent
up on the edges of the snow with the center pole extending to the ground.
This gave us a space tall enough to stand up in. And it's amazing how
comfortable you can be in a winter environment. We made our Therm-a-Rest
sleeping pads into chairs for sitting while cooking, eating
dinner, or sipping hot chocolate. After eating, you can turn behind
you to scoop some snow into the pan, mix it around to clean the pan, and
dump the snow back on the ground. Everything you need is right there,
without even getting up from the chair.
It's a common misconception that snow is wet. But snow is only wet when it's
melted. I ran around camp in down booties. You can walk in, sit in, and pick
up snow without getting wet.
To me, those are the little wonders of snow camping — things that everyone
should experience themselves. And there's also the simplicity of living in unison
with nature, even just for a few days. No email, no cell phones, and for me,
no watch. The days consist of skiing, preparing a place to spend the night,
eating, sleeping, and packing up to start the cycle again. I ate when I was
hungry, and slept until I woke up.
And then there's Win and Joe, the key elements to this whole experience.
They are two of the nicest, most laid back guys I have ever met. Joe
embraces each day like a kid on Christmas, with a contagious enthusiasm. And
Win's repertoire of songs he can sing or whistle is endless. Each night he
provided the music as we set up camp. Each day we skied together some
of the time and skied separately some of the time. I was along for the
ride, so Joe and Win made the decisions. They'd look at the time, look at
the map, look at the surroundings, and decide where to camp. The two seemed
to nearly always be in agreement with minimal discussion of the options.
I
can't imagine spending five months with the same person, but the dynamic
between Joe and Win is so amicable. They're each on this trip for their own
reasons and they seem to keep a healthy balance of space between themselves,
but come together as a team when needed. I had expected pressure to keep up
with them, and that the trip would be on a tight time line. But I guess when
you're covering 650 miles, a mile less one day or a mile more another really
doesn't matter. There's a lot to be learned from their ski-tour philosophy.
So back to the list of necessities and luxuries. My luxuries included a
book, the Therm-a-Rest chair, and a camera. I had considered dental floss to be a
necessity, but after I ran out I moved it to the luxury list. Food is of
course a necessity, but the sauces and spices I carried would fall on the
luxury list. GU was an item I tossed back and forth the most on my mental
lists. Sure, it's just liquid candy providing energy that I could get from
other foods. But when you're making that last push to camp, it's so easy to
tear open and eat. My final decision on GUu: necessity.
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