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By
the time we reached the junction with the Mizpah Cutoff, the light
was fading and the temperature had dropped considerably. My clothes
were damp and Muffin was covered with snow. I knew that there
was still another 45 minutes to an hour of arduous hiking before
we would reach the hut and tent platforms, so I decided to stop
right there for the night, and then worry about going up higher
in the morning. Luckily, the trail junction was at a fairly flat
open area along the trail and there was room for the tent off
to one side.
I
started to stomp down an spot for the tent. I wished that I had
had a shovel as I would have been able to do a better job leveling
and smoothing down the snow. But I did the best that I could using
my feet and hoped that the tent would further pack it down. Although
my winter tent is twice as heavy as the summer tent, it was worth
the extra weight since it’s free-standing and needs less staking
out as long as it’s sheltered from the wind. I used my two ski
poles to stake out the front of the vestibule, and anchored the
right side to a tree and the left side to my ice axe.
Muffin
was beginning to shiver, so I put her in first, even before the
fly was up. Then I got in and rolled around a bit to further smooth
down the snow and began to unpack our things. By the time everything
was set up and ready, it had gotten almost completely dark, and
I was glad we had decided to stop here. The only thing this spot
didn’t really have was a source of water, but I knew we could
melt and boil snow to refill our supplies.
Before
changing out of my damp clothes, I boiled some water to make supper
and to help us warm up now that we weren’t exerting ourselves.
I made two Cup-O-Noodle soups and a small container of bean soup,
giving some to Muffin while I ate the rest. It was very warming
and good, and Muffin stopped shivering. After eating, I collected
all our food items in a bag and carried it outside to hang in
a tree in case of bears or other prying animals. I couldn’t find
any really good branches, so left it hanging from a nook in a
fallen spruce. It would have to do. At least it wasn’t in the
tent.
Back
in the tent again, I took off Muffin’s wet sweater and put on
a dry one, then changed into dry clothes myself. It was now pitch
black, but still early, no later than six o’clock. I continued
to melt and boil snow to refill a water bottle, then shut off
the stove and climbed into my sleeping bag, hoping to do some
reading before bed. I put Muffin in the bottom of the sleeping
bag by my feet, with the lower zipper open a bit so she could
get air. To keep them from freezing up, I put my flashlight and
the camera in the sleeping bag with me. I had to shift the sleeping
bag around a bit to find the most comfortable configuration of
dips and bumps, but once I slid over toward the middle, it wasn’t
too bad.
As
has happened in the past, I never ended up reading. I just listened
to the sounds of the night. I could hear the night wind stir the
tops of the spruce trees, sending showers of snow crystals down
upon the tent walls. Occasionally, I heard what I thought might
be a small animal like a mouse or a shrew or a vole digging or
clawing in the snow off to the right of the tent, but mostly it
was quiet and peaceful. Before going to bed, I took a look outside.
The stars shone bright and frosty in the night sky.
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