“Monster Lizzard wreaks havoc in the Great Lakes region of Southern Ontario!” Homage to the classic WKRP clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wML2V6crNc0 but the “Blizard” wasn’t bad enough to earn the “B” anyway, it was a good one but the local media really hyping it and got my hopes up, I was expecting worse (or better depending on how you look at it). Rushing home from work yesterday, I setup for a “last minute” overnight hang in the back yard.
Now in the tail end of the Storm, it dropped about 25cm/10” of snow with wind gusts between 30 and 50km. The temperature at 1:30am was -11c/12.2f with a Wind-chill of -23c/-9.4f.
My setup consisted of a DIY BB Clone, -40 goose down barrel sleeping bag (Inner/Outer,double bag), unzipped and used a top quilt, full-length CCF pad, Winter Incubator and M.E.C Sil Guide Tarp. At the beginning of the night I wore a base and mid layer with Marino wool socks, Balaclava and “Uncle Bucks” hat, earflaps and all. Definitely didn’t have any problems with cold spots, in fact I was over heating and had to strip the mid layer, socks and Hat. Next hang at this temp, I will ether lose the outer down bag and/or the CCF. I underestimated the Winter Incubator; it didn’t need CCF assistance to keep my assets cozy!
As for tarp setup in a decent snowfall, I have questions! I always looked at pullouts as a means to give you more room inside the tarp so I never bothered with them. The heavy snowfall presented a problem I’ve not encountered before, the snow continusly slides down the tarps horizontal plain, building at the base, putting a lot of weight on the tarp, forcing the walls down and in. If you use pull-outs to give the snow a midpoint vertical drop (so it piles more on itself then the tarp bottom) is it effective or is on-going maintenance (up every couple of hours with the shovel) mandatory when dealing with Lizards?
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