My report on the frozen fun and activities
MacEntyre and I left MI on Wednesday morning headed up and across the Mackinac Bridge then west arriving in MN at Stairguy's to spend the night before heading out Thursday morning.
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Early Thursday morning we headed north to Finland. We had lunch in the corner bar before heading to the woods around noon.
Watertones, Madhob, Lonetracker, Shug, and MT arrived as we were unloading, we all headed off to the camp area. All the others arrived shortly, and pitched in to help setup the group area after getting their own areas set.
Setup individual sites then did the canopy cover, gathered lots of wood and started heating water. The gallon each person brought was very helpful due to crusty snow cover. Light snow overnight and minus 10f.
Friday we cut lots of wood and later in the day snow fall increased. We ate like kings all day long, and kept up activities to stay warm. overnight temps somewhere around 20f
Saturday the canopy was down due to snowfall but not damaged from the fire. We put it back up, with a heavier spar, and then we cut a lot more wood, made a lot more water, and ate a lot more. Fronkey arrived and Mac and I shuttled him over to start a practice hike and do cold weather elevation training. Some went to hike in section 13, but I did not due to the shuttle.
Sunday we took camp down and went to Ely Mn to visit the Steger mukluk factory and Paragus, an outfitter in the area, had lunch in town then headed back to Shakopee for the night.
Monday up early and headed for a long ride home but did stop at the Marbles outlet, they manufacture knives, compasses, and gunsites. Later we stopped at Rapid River Knife works and looked around a bit. South of Mackinac in MI it was a white out for a while so travel was slow, but arrived home about 10:30Pm.
Mac did a test on my hammock straps, which I had used in the basement for about 8 years, they failed twice, but I had provided a crash pad so the landing was not real bad. We found the straps were not of a good enough quality and should not have been used in that setting, my fault. But they did work for me for a long time. They are now retired
Mac left Tuesday heading back to NC, another 10 hour drive from here.
Winter camping is a whole lot of very hard work.
If you like hard work, combined with great friends, and lots of food it is really a fun time.
Once again I had a BLAST
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