Hello my old Hammocking friends, and new ones I have not met. A buddy of mine mentioned this thread and that I should stop in.
Dispelling a few myths about my personal low temp hang.
This trip took place on the tide waters of the frozen Moose river and the western coastline of James Bay. We pulled pulks from Moosonee Ontario and travelled by snow shoe along the frozen sea ice for 7 days.
I made a humble video about this trip in the video section entitled North of 50. First video ever posted to hammock forums!
1. * minus 47 deg F. is the lowest ambient temperature without windchill that I actually recorded. (using the Brunton ADC wind.) At this temperature the goop inside the LCD screen froze solid black and the device became useless for the rest of the week. I personally know we had at least 2 colder nights on this trip but I cannot comment as to how much colder it really was.
2. Winds were gusting in excess of 75 km/h during two days of that trip which we were able to record. After the brunton quit we had one night on day 6 where we had to hunker down as wind was gusting strong enough to knock a man over.
3. While I did sleep in the prototype JRB winterhut which I have modified to use with a titanium goat woodstove. I slept ALL but one night of that trip in the full freezing glory of the outside ambient conditions. Finding and using wood fuel took tremendous effort and burned untold calories. It took 2 of us several hours a day to gather, cut and prepare enough wood to sit for a few hours each night and cook our main meal of the day in the heated shelter. 6 nights of that trip were slept in full outdoor ambient temperatures, including the night of our recorded -47 temp.
4. This area of ontario is absolutely impossible to get accurate weather data on. The moosonee weather stations sits on the sheltered shelf of the airport in town. As we decended onto the ice, ambient temps dropped more than 10 degress in just 5 kms ?!? Its a crazy place. The truckers running the ice road, reported temperature fluctuations +/- 20 deg F along different sections of their route between moosonee, attawapiskat and povungintuk. The ball busters in this group can disqualify my claims to your hearts content on any technicalities you feel fit. I can only provide the data I had on hand at the time. The memories and the experience are trophies enough for me.
Thankyou for the walk down memory lane. I am sorry I have been away from the forums for such a long time. I would love to catch up and read about people that have shattered my low temp record or been close to it. Maybe you guys have started a -25 and under club or something. There are a multitude of issues related to hammocks that I would love to discuss with people that are getting their gear out in those temps and beyond. Take care people. I miss you dearly and this place. I will make an effort to stop by more often.
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