Sat, Jan 16 2010, Sun, Jan 17 2010 - Winter Camping - Build a quinzhee and sleep in it! (View Original Event Details)
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Eighteen of us headed north to find some much needed snow for the “Build a quinzhee and sleep in it overnight weekend”. We drove up to McCrae Lake Nature Reserve. At the trail head, it took us about an hour to get organized and all our gear tied down on our backpacks and head out.
We snowshoed in about 2 K’s along frozen lakes, snowmobile trails and lots of bushwhacking up and down some fairly steep hills. The trail from the parking lot lead to a sheltered bay where we quickly met up with a family ice finishing. We checked out their fishing holes and confirmed the ice was 8” thick. Down the lake about 500meters we turned inland away from the river system where there was open water. Bushwhacking up and down a few hills we hit a snowmobile trail which lead us to a bridge to cross the river. There were some nice ice formations on the rocks.
Back in the woods we headed for our no name lake, which was just off of McCrae Lake. The lake was picked because it was a small shallow lake that was in the lee of a wind break of trees from the bigger McCrae Lake. The theory being that the Georgian Bay snow squall winds (from the west) would slow when they hit the trees and deposit there snow there. In addition, the lake being small and shallow and more or less land locked would provide the thickest possible ice.
We arrived at the site at about 12 noon and due to last minute cancelations had to revise the 7 quinzhee teams into 6. As we redistributed the teams we realized that Ian and Matt D. were missing. A quick Q&A we discovered they left Downsview but where not at the trail head. We left messages on their cell phones. About 15 minutes later here they come out of the woods across the lake. So Ian and Matt D earned the first ever TOC event “Mantracker award”. They tracked us over 2 k’s with various false trails. WELL DONE GUYS!.
The lake is covered with about 4 inches of snow. I drilled a couple test holes to check the ice thickness. Five inches at a frozen over pressure crack and 8 inches plus at a location next to it. It is starting to get warm and my thermometer confirms it at +1C. The snow is wet and sticky. This is going to be hard work. It takes about 2-3 hours of shoveling to make a dome shape pile of snow about 7 feet high and 12 feet in diameter. Most of us, are down to 1 layer. Stephen is going shirt less! Around 3 pm we all had our domes packed down. The next step involved sticking 1 foot long sticks into the walls. It is time to let the quinzhee pack snow sinter for about 1 hour. We grabbed a snack and drink and were ready to make the fire pits and collect wood.
The digging out process is the next step. It takes about an hour to dig the inner cavity out up to the ends of the sticks or until you start seeing light through the quinzhee walls. The best method is one or 2 people inside and the third person shoveling out the door way.
We poked a small 2 inch diameter hole for ventilation on the opposite side from the doorway. The next step is to smooth out the floor and place the tarp and our sleeping pads and bags down.
Things are looking good we have 6 fully built quinzhees.
“HOUSTON WE HAVE A PROBLEM!” Morgan/James/Stephen quinzhee has cracked the ice and is starting to take on water. Due to the heavy wet snow and the lack of cold weather the ice was not thick enough to support the concentrated load of the quinzhee. Normally the ice will develop circumferential cracks but the cold temperature will quickly re-freeze them. In our case the temperatures were above zero and the water slowly filled the area. Ok you guys are going to plan B, build a tarp shelter or just sleep under the stars. Well, we still have 5 quinzhee’s high and dry. NOT!. Now Victor/Margaret/Joe quinzhee has started to take on water. So they are going to plan B. We break for supper and check the rate of sinking over the next few hours and hope it will get colder so these cracks can freeze up. The sky is clear and the stars are out. It’s going to be a nice night. It look’s like the temperature (-3C now) is dropping and the surface water is starting to freeze. Bernadette is teamed up with Matt D and Thye. She decides she does not like the ice cracking sound and decides to sleep on land in a tarp shelter.
Cherrie, Tristian and my shelter was next to Victor’s shelter and around 10 pm I surveyed all the shelters and everything look stable and dry so we made the decision to sleep in the quinzhee. So we get in with Misty. The ice was making cracking noises and Misty would not settle down so after a few minutes she exited the quinzhee to sleep on firm land. Smart dog!
“Gary, Gary, …….I feel wet” Tristan reports at 12:30 AM. The one rule in winter camping is stay dry = stay warm. Well we just broke that rule. Tristan and sleeping bag were wet. My sleeping bag was wet. However, I was still dry inside it. Cherrie was high and dry. The doorway had about 2 inches of water in it. Going out that way was guarantee all wet.
We’re going with plan C, invent a back door. I pulled in one of our wall sticks and worked on making a new door. Even thought the walls were only about 8-10 inches thick it did take a few minutes to get a hole going. I kicked out the opening with my boots so we could exit. There was a 2-3” deep moat of water surrounding our quinzhee.
We formed a relay team and passed the gear to dry land. The remaining 3 quinzhees were still ok. Tristan got the fire started by blowing on the ashes and we brought all our gear up to the fire to figure out what dry clothes we still had left.
Cherrie for the most part escaped without getting wet. My clothes in my clothes bag where dry, but my sleeping bag, boots, jacket and camp booties that where just on the quinzhee floor where all wet. I gave Tristan some dry fleece pants and he changed into his other dry clothes. I wore about 3 layers of microfiber shirts a light fleece hoody, a shell jacket and a head band. Drained my boots and pulled out the wet wool felt liners. I put on 2 pairs of dry wool socks and put my boot shells back on. Not a bad recovery!. It was only -3C so that was about right.
I made several trips down to the lake to check the status of the other quinzhees and collect our wet gear and hang it up to dry on a line.
WELL, IT LOOKS LIKE WERE PULLING AN ALL NIGHTER. Between collecting and sawing wood, drying out our boot liners and checking the other quinzhee health over the night, I managed to get a few 15 minute intervals of sleep next to the fire.
The last quinzhee status check was around 5 AM and all quinzhees were still high and dry. Back to the fire my liners were dry and I put them on and dosed off for a little while. 7AM daylight. We made it thought the night. Ian and Lacey arrive at the fire and announce their quinzhee was taking on water. Well we still have 2 quinzhees dry.
So the final tally was; 18 people did the event, 8 people slept under the stars or under a tarp and 10 of us slept in the quinzhee.
Of the people that sleep in the quinzhee; 3 of us sleep 2.5 hours before getting wet, 2 of us made it all night before getting wet and 5 sleep all night without getting wet.
Needless to say we had lots of interesting stories to tell in the morning. We had breakfast and around 10 AM about half the group went out for a one hour day hike to explore our surroundings. It was an overcast day but was warming up to about +1C.
We bushwhacked our way to a hill top looking west over McCrae Lake. We returned to camp tracing out a loop. As we were having lunch the fifth quinzhee started to take on water.
Before we exited, we got a group photo with everyone on or around the last dry quinzhee.
See you all soon. Gary
We returned to the cars by our hard packed re-frozen trail. We packed up and drove south to Tiffany’s in Coldwater, for a late lunch and sort out the finances.
I think we’ll all agree, it will be a long time before we will forget this trip!
For me, I found it as a great example, for being prepared for things that happen in the great outdoors. See you all soon. Gary
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