Practice Camping? Sort of.

Well my buddy Alex managed to convince me to join him in an overnight camping trip in Algonquin Park this past Thursday. I figured why not, I had no other plans, and it would give me a chance to really test out some of my gear.

After packing up his SUV, putting the dogsled (yes, dogsled) on the roof and getting his two huskies in there too, the running a couple last minute errands, we left Ottawa for Algonquin Park around 10:30AM and were finally on trail at about 2:15PM. It's a good 3ish hour drive and we had to stop at the East Gate to pick up our permits. We walked in for about an hour, found a perfect spot and set up camp, quickly gathering wood for a fire that would last us. Alex's tent has no floor (it's a Mountain Hardwear Kiva) so we had to gather up a bunch of brush, dig out some of the snow inside the tent, lay the brush and cover it with a tarp, then some blankets, our pads and sleeping bags. Alex has some decent experience with winter camping and we were using his gear, so he definitely did the lion's share of the work.

My dinner of 2 packs of Ramen noodles was served up by 5:30PM and consumed by 5:32PM. After that we hung out for a bit, keeping the fire going and collecting more wood from downed trees nearby. By 6:30 it was PITCH black out, and the sky was incredible.We turned in at about 7:30PM. Got comfortable in the tent with the dogs and I finally fell asleep around 10PM. I was plenty warm in my Western Mountaineering Ultralite (Down bag, rated to -7C) with a merino hoodie, capilene tights and my Patagonia Down sweater, and some warm running pants (that I won't be bringing), wool socks, beanie. ONLY issue was that, since it was cold out, and we had 2 dogs and 2 people breathing for about 10 hours, we built up some serious condensation, that my bag was so kind to absorb. Down doesn't do well when it gets wet. It wasn't TOO bad, but I could feel the cold seeping through. Once morning came, we got a fire going quickly, had breakfast, packed up and headed out. We were back at the truck in about 30 - 40 minutes.

Good times!!

It was a little frustrating trying to keep things organized, as I didn't want to have my hands exposed for too long, so I would just grab what I need and throw stuff back wherever.

This trip only made me MORE excited for or hike!!!

Here's a quick Video I made.