3 Brothers Campout

So last weekend we had our annual 3 brothers campout. We try to get in a winter camping trip each year, and sometimes bring along some guests. This year we planned on climbing Hough peak down near Schroon Lake and we brought our cousin Cam and our nephew Trenton. We went in at Elk Lake and camped Friday night. Then on Saturday we started for Hough. There were about 18 inches of fresh powder and the trail was pretty much unbroken. We had snowshoes, but they don't make you float on top! Hough is a trailess peak, but we hoped to find tracks of some sort indicating a path. We didn't find anything until we got to the trail for the next peak, Dix. So we started up Dix figuring we'd cross over to Hough part way up. It was ridiculously difficult. The snow was up to our knees climbing and whoever was breaking trail would have to wade through carrying a pile of snow on their snowshoe with each step. We couldn't see a good spot to split off toward Hough, so we decided to just climb Dix. By 4:00 our view of the top looked like this:

We figured it would take at least another hour to get to the top and since Trenton and I were the only ones who hadn't gotten Dix already, we agreed to turn around. By the way, the view of our original destination from our turnaround point looked like this:

And here we are standing there looking across the valley at Hough. That's Trenton, Cam, Derek, and Bryan from back to front.

So, we turned back somewhat dissapointed, but by the time we got back to camp at 8:30, I don't think that any of us really regretted turning back. We camped another night and then headed for home Sunday morning.

I was quite impressed by how well Trenton did. This was his first Brothers campout and he pushed through admirably. I remember on my first trip I made it through ok, but I complained a lot more than Trenton did and I didn't know what to do with myself.

I've come to the conclusion that most of the difficulty with winter camping is psychological. You have to be able to tell yourself that you will eventually arrive at your destination. You have to convince yourself to take off your sweaty clothes and put on dry clothes that have been sitting in the 5 degree cold all day. You have to understand that a quick burst of shivering and suffering now can lead to blissful warmth a few hours from now.

Tonight I was unpacking and I emptied my pack of everything but my tent and then handed it to Nichelle to heft. It was still pretty heavy. She said that she didn't know why I did that to myself. The only explanation that I could give was to be able to say that I can do it. To say, "I can load up this pack and carry it for 5 miles through the snow and sleep out in the cold and survive for 2 days and then carry it back." The real clincher is knowing that there are people who can't, and that someday I won't be able to. In the meantime, by gully, I'm going to keep testing myself - just to make sure.

A couple of particularly pretty spots in the woods on the hike out.