Well maybe not true winter camping, but one night the temperature did get down into the single digits. Far colder than we had expected. We'd put our teepee up over an old tent platform, and the cold got under the platform. It was like sleeping on a slab of ice. Everything froze. Even the river.
Good thing we had a wood stove and plenty of willow. Not the greatest fire fuel, but adequate. It was a good thing we brought about 50 pounds of good firewood from home. We sure needed that wood stove! Everyone asked me how the Alutiiq could have possibly survived winter with such poor local firewood. I reminded them that elderberry used to be far more common before it was overgrazed by deer. I also pointed out the black birch and alder groves on the hillsides, and how much better a fuel willow can be if properly dried.
Photos: Top two - Ayakulik flats scenics. Middle - ice in the river. Bottom two - life in the teepee. My brother Dicky took the scenic second from the top and the one of me in the tent. Patrick
2 comments:
Are you wishing you had brought a Sierra Stove?
It'd have been a tad smokey in the tent with a sierra stove, but it might have handled the wet willow better. Dicky wants to put the fan from the sierra stove onto the Kifaru stove - that would have solved all our draft problems. Patrick
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