In late February weather starts to get iffy and as we looked at the forecast a small window of good-for-bikepacking weather opened up and we made plans to get a quick two-nighter in.
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| On a few rides recently I had taken some time to scout out the snow conditions in the area we were going to camp - about knee to thigh deep. I decided that it would be worth the hassle to bring snowshoes for both of us and a shovel for clearing out a campsite in a sled. Also in the sled were a few extra clothes as it was supposed to get down to the single digits both nights we were out. |
Because of the deep snow and the effort it would take shoveling and generally readying a campsite we decided to stay at the same spot both nights and just do a day trip on the second day.
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| Late in winter the snow has been settling for months and have gone through numerous freeze/thaw cycles and this is why our bikes (and snowshoes) aren't sinking in much. If we weren't wearing snowshoes we'd be sinking in up to our knees each step. Snowshoeing while pushing a loaded bike was definitely a first for me. |
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| The way things looked before Nolan shoveled all the snow. The hammock looks to be a reasonable height now but after removing two and a half feet of snow it looked comically high. |
Not gonna' lie: that first night we didn't get a whole lot of sleep. It wasn't so much that we were all that cold - although it was in the single digits (I can't speak for Nolan but I wasn't any too warm, either) it was more that there were sounds that woke us every once in a while. Fresh snow sliding off the tarp, trees popping with the cold, that kind of thing - nice sounds, the kind of sounds I don't mind hearing but loud and/or strange enough to wake me up.
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| Since we were camping in the same site again the second night we were able to leave almost all of our gear and it would be waiting for us at the end of our day-ride. Besides a few essentials we were unencumbered the second day. Here Nolan pours water for the day into my bottle. |
Our day ride took about 3 1/2 hours, so we were back by early afternoon. The second night was forecast to be even colder - near zero F - and we spent much of our post-ride time gathering firewood so if we woke up cold we could at least get out of our hammocks, light a fire and warm ourselves back up.
Thinking we were going to be waking up during the coldest hours before dawn we went to bed early to try and get in some solid sleep before we were woken up. We managed to hold out until about five a.m. when Nolan's feet got cold (despite the rest of his body being toasty) and my back got damp from condensation on my sleeping pad. Nolan kindled a fire and we both just hung out near it until the sun was up and the air was a bit warmer.
We then made some breakfast, packed up camp and rode home.
