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I just came back from a snow camping trip I did with my father. Camping in the snow has been on my want to try list, so I convinced my dad to brave the elements and do an overnight trip in the Mt. Washington wilderness.
The plan was to be dropped off on Saturday morning, ride 20 miles in on the ATVs to a known view point, brake camp for the night, and then meet back up with our ride to head home on Sunday.
Once loaded up on Sat morning, I was worried that there wasn't going to be any snow. Most of it in town was melted, and once we got to the trail head there was only a few inches on the ground. After a few minutes in, it was apparent that there would be plenty of snow to dub this a true snow camping trip. About 2 miles into the ride, I thought we were going to have some serious issues. My quad was bogging down, and it sounded like it wanted to die. My ride is an older machine, and I thought that maybe the carb was having issues with jetting/clogging. I could hear the fan going so I knew the engine had been working harder than it should for such an open and easy trail. I turned the quad off and stepped off the bike.
Immediately I figured out what the issue was. Those few inches of snow had turned into many inches of snow. The axles were buried, and my belly pan was leaving an indent on the snow. Thanking my lucky stars that the bike was not having issues, I decided to keep plowing on, albeit at a slower pace.
Our next leg of the ride was cut shorter than desired once more. This time, my father was leading and had hit deep snow. His bike was stopped in its tracks. Knowing that his newer quad had better ground clearance, and more capability than mine, we decided it would be prudent to explore a different trail than to continue on this path. With minimal winching effort, his bike was free and ready to head in a different direction.
As long as you could stay on top of the snow, our quads would keep going, but if you made a wrong move and the quad broke through the top layer, you were good and stuck. That same situation repeated itself a few more times; the last one resulting in my bike burying itself very deeply in fresh powder, which took quite an effort to free. No amount of winching seemed to help, so we resorted to digging and lifting. At this point we were now pretty good and spent. Digging, lifting, and winching had really taken its tole, and we had only ridden a grand total of 5 miles. On top of that, we came to the realization that our grand plans to make it to the view point, about 20 miles from the drop off zone, had come to a rather abrupt end.
With ample day light, we decided to revisit the sections of the trail we had already explored and find a decent spot to call camp for the night. The wind had picked up, so I wanted to be in area with sufficient tree cover in order to mitigate the wind chill as much as possible. After another 5 miles of riding we finally found our spot, though it was only a whopping 1.5 miles away from the drop off zone.
We used the quads to tamp down the snow in our camping area, then began to unload our gear. I had the foresight to bring a few hours of dry wood, unsure of how much would be available in the area. I wish I had brought more. Thankfully, there were a lot of trees with dead lower limbs. The only problem was getting them meant slugging through 2-3 feet of snow for a couple hundred yards, only to end up with an arm full of twigs. While it was 20 degrees outside, I shed my layers to find out that my base was soaking in sweat. All of the work I had done to free the quads and gather wood had really raised my temp.
At this point it was around 4 pm and I was ready to start a fire. Most of my gear was soaked, and I knew that the night would not be kind to me if I had to sleep in wet gear. Thankfully the snow held off for long enough to get my clothes and gloves dry, but it sure made sitting by the fire less than ideal. The snow stopped around 7 and gave us a good hour of peaceful night with the remaining firewood.
The tent we used was a basic coleman 6 person dome. Our thoughts were that with the catalytic propane tent heater, and doubled up sleeping bags that were 32 degree rated, we should be okay for the night. That was only half true. The tent heater did its job, but the cold really messed with its efficiency. We went through 4 propane tanks when 2 were supposed to do the job. The largest contributing factor to my lack of sleep was my air mattress. It is a small backpacking inflatable one, and while comfortable enough, it lacked the height to raise me off of the hard packed snow the tent was on. In an attempt to deter the heat loss from the ground, I threw some hand warmers in my sleeping bag. That really didn't do too much.
At 4am we called quits to our vain attempt at any more sleep, donned our gear and went on a search for some more fire wood. The temperature was 11 degrees outside. Once we had some coffee by the fire, we set to breaking down camp and loading up the quads. I called our ride and told them to meet us in 40 minutes. After a decent 20 minutes of play riding and another 20 minutes of trying to get our hands warm, we loaded up the quads and headed home from a successful snow camping adventure.
Overall I had a great trip, and will look back at it with fond memories. This was a great learning experience, and I'll take the knowledge gained on my next outing. I do wish we had been able to get a real ride in; maybe next time I'll rent some snow mobiles.
The plan was to be dropped off on Saturday morning, ride 20 miles in on the ATVs to a known view point, brake camp for the night, and then meet back up with our ride to head home on Sunday.
Once loaded up on Sat morning, I was worried that there wasn't going to be any snow. Most of it in town was melted, and once we got to the trail head there was only a few inches on the ground. After a few minutes in, it was apparent that there would be plenty of snow to dub this a true snow camping trip. About 2 miles into the ride, I thought we were going to have some serious issues. My quad was bogging down, and it sounded like it wanted to die. My ride is an older machine, and I thought that maybe the carb was having issues with jetting/clogging. I could hear the fan going so I knew the engine had been working harder than it should for such an open and easy trail. I turned the quad off and stepped off the bike.
Immediately I figured out what the issue was. Those few inches of snow had turned into many inches of snow. The axles were buried, and my belly pan was leaving an indent on the snow. Thanking my lucky stars that the bike was not having issues, I decided to keep plowing on, albeit at a slower pace.
Our next leg of the ride was cut shorter than desired once more. This time, my father was leading and had hit deep snow. His bike was stopped in its tracks. Knowing that his newer quad had better ground clearance, and more capability than mine, we decided it would be prudent to explore a different trail than to continue on this path. With minimal winching effort, his bike was free and ready to head in a different direction.
As long as you could stay on top of the snow, our quads would keep going, but if you made a wrong move and the quad broke through the top layer, you were good and stuck. That same situation repeated itself a few more times; the last one resulting in my bike burying itself very deeply in fresh powder, which took quite an effort to free. No amount of winching seemed to help, so we resorted to digging and lifting. At this point we were now pretty good and spent. Digging, lifting, and winching had really taken its tole, and we had only ridden a grand total of 5 miles. On top of that, we came to the realization that our grand plans to make it to the view point, about 20 miles from the drop off zone, had come to a rather abrupt end.
With ample day light, we decided to revisit the sections of the trail we had already explored and find a decent spot to call camp for the night. The wind had picked up, so I wanted to be in area with sufficient tree cover in order to mitigate the wind chill as much as possible. After another 5 miles of riding we finally found our spot, though it was only a whopping 1.5 miles away from the drop off zone.
We used the quads to tamp down the snow in our camping area, then began to unload our gear. I had the foresight to bring a few hours of dry wood, unsure of how much would be available in the area. I wish I had brought more. Thankfully, there were a lot of trees with dead lower limbs. The only problem was getting them meant slugging through 2-3 feet of snow for a couple hundred yards, only to end up with an arm full of twigs. While it was 20 degrees outside, I shed my layers to find out that my base was soaking in sweat. All of the work I had done to free the quads and gather wood had really raised my temp.
At this point it was around 4 pm and I was ready to start a fire. Most of my gear was soaked, and I knew that the night would not be kind to me if I had to sleep in wet gear. Thankfully the snow held off for long enough to get my clothes and gloves dry, but it sure made sitting by the fire less than ideal. The snow stopped around 7 and gave us a good hour of peaceful night with the remaining firewood.
The tent we used was a basic coleman 6 person dome. Our thoughts were that with the catalytic propane tent heater, and doubled up sleeping bags that were 32 degree rated, we should be okay for the night. That was only half true. The tent heater did its job, but the cold really messed with its efficiency. We went through 4 propane tanks when 2 were supposed to do the job. The largest contributing factor to my lack of sleep was my air mattress. It is a small backpacking inflatable one, and while comfortable enough, it lacked the height to raise me off of the hard packed snow the tent was on. In an attempt to deter the heat loss from the ground, I threw some hand warmers in my sleeping bag. That really didn't do too much.
At 4am we called quits to our vain attempt at any more sleep, donned our gear and went on a search for some more fire wood. The temperature was 11 degrees outside. Once we had some coffee by the fire, we set to breaking down camp and loading up the quads. I called our ride and told them to meet us in 40 minutes. After a decent 20 minutes of play riding and another 20 minutes of trying to get our hands warm, we loaded up the quads and headed home from a successful snow camping adventure.
Overall I had a great trip, and will look back at it with fond memories. This was a great learning experience, and I'll take the knowledge gained on my next outing. I do wish we had been able to get a real ride in; maybe next time I'll rent some snow mobiles.
