Climate Catch Up

This post is weeks late as we are well into spring thaw.  

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We have lost most of our snow already... so D and I dug up all the snow stakes in order to take down my tent.  Neither of us had used winter specific stakes before and wasn't too sure how they would work.  But work well they did.  

It is just like described -- The snow freezes in the holes which creates a real solid anchor.  And because we stomped out the site in advance, the compacting made things even more frozen.  To the point where we needed to break out the ice axe (another piece of equipment to test) to get down to them. 

To completely stake out my winter tent required 15 stakes.  I only had 12 so used the ones it came with to make up the difference. They didn't work well at all and came undone pretty much right away.  Can't find anymore of the snow stakes to buy now, so will likely have to wait untl next season to top up.

Been reading of how this year will also be a challenge for gear inventory.  Or it could be a continuation of last year's phenomenon.  Or people are onto it and have bought early.  We continue to be guilty of that.  Using snow stakes as an example, I started making my purchase list early summer.  

D and I are getting ourselves back into the water this year and toward paddle in camping.  We had sold our sea kayaks last summer and considered various ideas but nothing came together until recently.  It started with us wanting to get back into fishing, having both grown up with it.  Then the idea moved to getting a fishing boat.  Which progressed to a fishing kayak (didn't know it was thing...).

And after watching some adventure videos, it has brought us to a 2 person canoe and maybe a solo kayak for me.  The huge difference this time around is portability.  I had been looking for a way to transport a boat with a potential camper van or truck camper and stumbled on a thread about pakboats. 

Fast forward a couple of weeks and we now have a 16 ft canoe sitting in our dining room with me busy packing it up with a canoe barrel and multiple duffels.  Add to it fishing rods, hip waders and a wet suit.  Fun times.  I did try out a smaller portable kayak but it didn't fit me well.

There are many moving pieces associated with canoe camping -- New paddles, back up paddles, many dry bags.  We had kept our paddle jackets, shoes, pfds and boat safety equipment but bought a cart again as we sold both of ours.  Also needed heavier duty lines. 

Paddle in camp sites tend to be in the backcountry, so camping this way often means being bear and critter aware and all the stuff that this entails.  It's the price to pay to be further away from others.  We are currently delving into the food dehydration thing and D couldn't be happier.  He has been trying to convince me to go down this route for a while.  

What remains to be seen is whether we'll paddling together well as we've never done tandem...We'll see if the marriage survives...