Weeks 16, 17, 18 and 19
It seemed a little much to put one of these up every 7 days, so here's a four week summary of the weekly camping adventures my son and I have been taking.
Week 16: Spent a VERY windy night nestled in a protected stand of oaks. We attached the foot of the hammocks to the same tree and V'ed out the heads to two others. Just something to try, and I didn't notice any issues with that sort of double-hang set up.
It got down to -6, which wasn't bad, but once we exited the woods and got hit with the 20 mph winds the next morning...frigid! Nice clear night, but had a bit of an issue with my pad around the shoulder area that I'm going to work on.
Week 17: We went up to Camp Horace Johnson, on Island Lake with about 15 Boy Scouts. Since it was another subzero night, the boys had the option to stay in the bunk house or brave the elements. 14 boys stayed in, one stayed out...
It got down to 4 below, but actually warmed up around 2:00 am. By the morning, it was a balmy 6 degrees. It started to snow around 5:00, but once I figured out why my face was getting wet, I just draped the extra hammock material from my Double-Nester over my face and immediately went back to sleep.
Week 18: Last Friday's camp out marked the 20th day in a row of subzero nights for my neck of the woods. I don't know if it was that, or the limited amount of time we had to get ready, but we decided to "go to ground" in a quinzee. The last time we had used this particular shelter was a -30 night around week 12, and a decent amount of settling had taken place with the snow pack since then, so I re-punched some ventilation holes, and had to squeeze through the entrance. Once inside it quickly became nice and warm and I slept like a baby until 8:30 the next morning!
Week 19: Saturday’s camp out started out fairly warm at around 6 degrees, but dropped down to -9 by morning (record breaking day 60 over all of sub zero temps this winter.) We set up our hammocks in an L shaped configuration. We've been reading “The Mysterious Benedict Society” every night before bed for the last week, and my son asked me to try it in the hammocks too. I just used my head lamp for a reading light and it worked out better than I thought. It started snowing as we went to sleep, but when nature called around 3:00 AM the clouds had left and it was a very bright, clear night with a full moon. I took the book out again to see if it was bright enough to read by moon light, and it was! I had to cover my eyes with my hat to get back to sleep. Great night out in the woods…but aren't they all!
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