Sat, Jan 8 2011, Sun, Jan 9 2011 - Winter Camping - Build a Snow Shelter and Sleep in it! (View Original Event Details)
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This winter adventure lead us to McCrae Lake area where we found fresh snow. There was about 4" of frozen stuff in the woods from the Xmas rains and about 4" of fresh stuff that just fell this past week.
Saturday we snowshoed in to our campsite. We spent a few hours collecting snow and built 5 snow shelters in teams of 3 each. This took longer than planned due to the lack of quality snow. We set up 2 fire pits and collected wood and prepared supper.
By around 8:30 pm I headed to the snow shelter to settle in for a 12 hour sleep. Our snow shelter did not have a proper door to trap in the heat (due to limited snow availablity) but it was quiet and dark.
Most of us got up the next day at 8:30 am. It was reported that it was around -12C last night. Blue skies and bright sunshine was in store for us today. We had breakfast and got organized for a group snowshoe out onto McCrae Lake.
We checked the ice thickness with my ice drill. It was greater than 8" thick. We covered about a 4 km loop on the ice. It was a beautiful blue sky day.
Back to camp we had an hour for lunch and time to finish packing up in the sunshine. The hike out was a combination of beaver ponds, bush whacking and snowmobile trail following.
See you all soon!
Gary
Have some photos from this event that you'd like to share in our photo album? Please forward them to Erik Sonstenes at photos@torontooutdoorclub.com. Please note that we prefer to receive the photos in approximately 640x480 or 750x500 pixels - do NOT send original high-res photos. If you have a LOT of photos, please submit up to twenty of your favorites (only) for a day event, or up to forty of your favourites for a multi-day event. Thank you.