In 2016, my wife and I agreed that if I failed to make 100 miles of forward progress through the winter of 2017, I would abandon the Continental Divide winter trip altogether. That failure indeed happened. However, because of the circumstances, I was able to convince Carleen to let me have another year.
Here are those circumstances.
· The first part of December coming off a training trip, I fell and cracked some ribs, which stopped me in my tracks for the next eight weeks. Even then, I knew taking the trip would be untenable if not outright impossible.
· Near the end of January, I caught a virus that cut me down for nearly 3 weeks. More loss of physical conditioning.
· I agreed to stay put until the end of February. With two ailing dogs, one within days or weeks from the end of his life, Carleen was going to be gone for most of February. The dog did pass the middle of that month.
Snowshoes, backpack, and an expedition sled are used to travel on an eight-foot deep snowpack. Location was on a tributary of Odell Creek in the Centennial Mountains.
Now beyond the point where I could physically prepare for the trip, I nevertheless prepared to go anyway. My hope was that pulling a sled would make the trip possible. Without a training trip, something that is a necessity, I left a few days after March 1. It was a failure. I left again one week later. I exited this final trip after 12 days. I claimed that a mushy snowpack combined with the stolen resupplies stopped me. While those reasons were true, they were also not the complete story. Being ill prepared physically carried at least one third of the reason I failed.
What did come out of the winter of 2017 was the realization that with some exceptions, I would be able to use the expedition sled throughout the future trips.
Besides the sled use during most of the upcoming winter trips, another change will be the incorporation of a large summer trip, which will include my wife going with me. The trip will be in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Idaho and Montana. The distance will be approximately 160 miles, which will take approximately one month to complete. More on this trip later.
In the meantime, the physical training has begun afresh. What I have to mention about that is nothing, considering all it would be is under my breath groaning and grumbling.
British Antarctic explorer, Robert Falcon Scott and the two remaining members of his five-man Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition team perished on March 29, 1912. Low on food and fuel, and 11 miles from their next resupply, a blizzard arrived. They were so weak the last day they traveled they only covered a couple miles before they hunkered down to wait out the storm. The wind blew for a week before they finally succumbed inside their tent.
In a winter setting, to manufacture heat a person needs numerous items such as shelter, cold weather gear, and two major items, calories and movement. Because at the last moment Scott decided to bring a fifth man, the Expedition only had 4500 calories available for each man per day rather than the original 6000 calories. That eventually slowed the expedition, which simultaneously made them more susceptible to the cold and harsh conditions, which in turn slowed them further. At some point, they were unable to move fast enough to manufacture heat, making them vulnerable to frostbite, which slowed the team even more. It was the classic snowball effect . . . no pun intended.
Their experience was similar to some of my own, except I am still alive, although not because I am better than they were. Au contraire, the only group of expeditioners I have read about that might have been tougher than the Scott bunch was Lewis and Clark’s Corp of Discovery, who probably never experienced temperatures colder than brief spurts of 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. For the Scott Expedition below zero temperatures were the norm.
A winter sunset on the summit of Blodgett Pass in Montana and Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
On March 23, 2008, my first day in Idaho after summiting Blodgett Pass, another storm would arrive before the day’s end. This was Day-6 of the first leg in my attempt at a 106-mile double winter crossing in Montana and Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Moreover, today I was supposed to have arrived at the winter-closed Elk Summit Guard Station, where I hoped my nine-day resupply waited. After two nights of below zero temperatures, and sleeping cold in my mummy sleeping bag, I still had 13 miles to travel before arriving at my cache. Only, it had just taken 5 days to complete less than 11 miles, and by the end of this day I would be digging into my 3-day emergency food stores.
In the heavily forested region of the Big Sand Creek canyon, I stopped for a breather near the end of my freshly built trail through the snow. The last time I had eaten anything was at least six hours earlier. Out came the 2/3 empty bags of raisins, prunes and peanuts. Weak and tired, I desperately needed nourishment. Shaking, I fumbled the bag of peanuts, and then dropped it into the snow at my snowshoed feet. Some of the precious contents spilled into the partly stomped snow.
On March 23, 2008, during the descent into Big Sand Creek Canyon, in Idaho and Montana’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, the storm arrived in the early evening.
Even in the pristine woods, I have a zero tolerance rule. Whatever lands on the ground stays on the ground. Not this time. By the sixth day of the trip, I finally realized that I was slowly starving to death. My backpack’s heavily padded waist belt, already cinched as tight as it could go, remained so loose that the pack was dropping off my hips and onto my shoulders. After a few moments of indecision, I stuck my fingers into the snowpack, retrieved and then ate the combination of peanuts and snow. The spilled contents totaled approximately 100 calories. However, I knew I needed everything I could eat, with nothing wasted.
For the next three nights before I arrived at Elk Summit, the temperature dropped below zero for two of them, and I was cold in my sleeping bag. After consuming approximately 3000 calories my first evening with the resupply, in spite of the raging storm that lasted until the middle of the following day, I slept warm and soundly through the night. Besides the continuing storm stopping me the next day, greatly weakened, I was in no condition to travel. I rested and kept eating for one day before continuing the trip. I also slept warm the second night at that camp, although once again the temperature was below zero.
Elk Summit Guard Station during the winter of 2008 in Idaho’s Clearwater National Forest. The second floor bedroom window is below eye level.
Like the Terra Nova Expedition, I had an underwhelming amount of calories for the task. My plan had been to travel the 25 miles to Elk Summit in six days. A few days before the trip began; a storm had dropped about one foot of powder snow on an already deep snowpack. I would endure two storms during the nine-day period, and then one at Elk Summit, and yet a fourth storm 48 hours later. As a result, there was no alternative but to build trail for 5.5 days before hefting my load of 80-95 pounds and carrying it to the end of each built segment. Through those 5 days, I averaged 1.7 miles of forward progress per day although I walked 5.1 miles. I had planned on four miles of forward progress per day. In short, during the first 9 days of the trip, I traveled an extra 18.7 miles getting only half of the calories that I needed. While I survived the mistake, would I learn from it?
On Montana and Idaho’s portion of the Continental Divide, a winter view of Eastern Centennial Mountains viewed from Two Top Mountain in Henrys Lake Mountains.
Near the beginning of this winter’s travel on the Continental Divide, 48 miles is in the Centennial Mountains, 22 miles west of Yellowstone National Park. If the route is all powder snow, which I anticipate will be the case; my supplies dictate that my daily forward progress must be at least 2.09 miles. That is a greater average then when I was building trail during the first leg in Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness in 2008. There are some vital differences though. I am carrying an additional 2625 calories for each day, coupled with a load that is 15-30 pounds lighter.
The proper daily minimum amount is 6000 calories. Based on experience, in heavy powder conditions, I can anticipate my forward progress to be .33 miles per hour. Unfortunately, in a strong ascent, and there will be eight of them in the Centennial Mountains, I can consume 1000 calories per hour. Excluding the ascents, at 600 calories consumed per hour, I have enough food available to travel 7.5 hours per day, assuming I am physically fit. In addition, there are 1500 calories for my 18-hour camps. Since no one has ever traveled this route during the winter, only my upcoming experience will reveal whether I brought enough food.
Reading this, one may question why I failed to place more food on the route. Weight. In extreme winter conditions, there is a balance between how much I can carry and ideal calorie allowances. I suspect Scott decided on an extra man at the last moment because of the weight of the gear and food. Since I am traveling alone, there is no sharing the camp gear’s weight, or getting assistance building a trail through deep powder.
If four persons were traveling this route, consuming the same amount of calories as I, using the leapfrog method, they would be able to travel between 7 and 10 miles per day, all forward progress. Moreover, they would be less tired at the end of the day. That is important since winter is far less forgiving about mistakes or shoddy work. There can be no shortcuts when building a winter camp, which takes at least double the time of any other season.
Other factors will challenge the trip, such as blizzards (days of no travel), extreme cold, busted equipment, and missing resupplies. My biggest question remains to be whether I will have enough food and fuel for each leg of the 270-343 miles of travel.
During the winter of 2016, freshly socked in by a blizzard on an unnamed peak in Eastern Centennial Mountains. The wind had taken my tent a few hours earlier. After a futile search for it, I built a snowcave nearby and nearly died that night.
Note: because a strap broke on one of my snowshoes during the winter of 2008, seeking a replacement I briefly exited the trip 20 miles north of Elk Summit. My wife picked me up and we spent the first night in a nearby motel. In our room when I removed my shirt, she gasped and said I looked like a concentration camp victim. Apparently, for a short-lived period in 2008 I was very skinny.
Note two: after the Selway-Bitterroot trip was successfully completed, I reworked out the calorie numbers. I was shocked to discover that instead of approximately 5000, I only had 3375 calories available per day.
The Scott Antarctic Polar Expedition of 1911-1913 used the teepee type, single pole, and single walled tent. I used a similar four-season tent throughout my solo 150-mile winter trips in Montana and Idaho’s Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness.
During my first subzero cold with the tent, I discovered that the heat congregated above my head just before making a too quick exit through the single wall. Whenever I sat up there was virtually no heat from the floor up to my neck. This was a critical defect, since one normally sits up to sip hot drinks and eat hot meals. The best I could do was to lower the tent, an action that partly solved the problem, but increased another problem, which I will soon describe.
The interior of a pyramid tent with the outside temperature approximately zero Fahrenheit. Note the rivulets of water on the tent wall threatening my gear on the footprint. (Click on photo to enlarge.)
In addition, the floor space 1.5 feet away from the tent’s edge was useless due to melting occurrences on the walls, which happened twice a day with the use of the stove. The built up frost on the tent walls soon became dripping, but mostly pouring rivulets of water streaming onto the tent’s footprint and into my gear. As if that was not enough, the center of the tent was useless because of the single pole occupying that area. Due to the restricted area, practical usage would have prevented it from ever being more than a cramped two-man tent rather than its four-man tent status.
Eventually I lowered the single pole to bring the built up heat in the tent down to my head and torso. Unfortunately, the lesser angle and lowered tent walls removed more of the living space, which set me up for another cardinal “do not”. No part of the bedroom should ever touch a tent wall. In a winter camp, a damp sleeping bag is a step toward freezing to death. In a double walled tent, the normal tent of today, the moisture on the outer wall also pours, but not into the survival area, umm mostly.
A pyramid four-season, single wall, single pole tent. The best tent I have experienced for shedding heavy snowfall.
I should mention that the tent of 100 years ago was not waterproof like all of the modern tents, but then Antarctica is the driest continent on Earth, where it never rains. The point I wish to make is that the porous cotton material greatly reduced much of the frost on the walls of yesterday’s tent. There are other distinct advantages to the pyramid tent. Properly setup, piles of falling snow, and there was plenty of that throughout the La Nina winter of 2007-2008, failed to collapse this tent. In another plus, the Scott Expedition, as with other expeditions of that time, demonstrated the strength of the tent against the wind. It handled 90 mph winds!
What convinced me to continue to use the tent in spite of its deficiencies was the phenomenally low weight, something I have no doubt Scott failed to experience. His tents likely weighed in at approximately 50 pounds while mine weighed less than 5 pounds.
In the end, the remaining three men of the five-man Scott Expedition, after attempting to wait out a blizzard for seven days, froze to death. While a mixture of circumstances brought about their demise, lack of food and fuel, with built up moisture in their sleeping gear, another may have been this type of tent.
Finally, I want to note that the manufacturer description of my tent said it was a four-season tent, which I maintain not so much. However, if one could handle insect infiltration, it would make a fine three-season tent. I do not mention the name of the company or the tent because this is a critique of this particular style of tent, which remains readily available with different companies throughout the world.
For my part, after 39 nights of winter use in 2008, I quit the single wall, one-pole tent.
A four-season, single-pole pyramid tent on a pass in Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness
The ascent of Blodgett Pass in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness of Montana and Idaho.
I am a huge believer in healthy body and spirit by way of my own lifestyle. Now with that said, here comes a small dose of reality. The doctor called me on Sunday, yesterday. He said that one year ago my bad cholesterol level was in good shape, but not so today. In addition, he addressed my irregular heartbeat. These revelations came as the result of seeking medical help for the pain in my left leg one and one half weeks ago, which turned out to be a blood clot.
I am presently taking a wee little pill twice a day to thin my blood. The doctor wants to place a device on me for two days that will monitor my heartbeat, which I have agreed to. He acknowledges and appreciates my abhorrence of pills or anything else that goes into my mouth and identified as medication. He says my proactive actions in the last week and half with my diet and exercise may be all I need for the high cholesterol level.
The diet: no flour, no dairy products, no salt, plenty of sprouted wheat bread with peanut butter, whole-grain rice and beans, fruit, and small amounts of grass fed beef, organic roasted poultry, egg whites fried in olive oil, skin on potatoes, and plenty of olive oil. In addition, I can have no dark green vegetables because they have vitamin K in them, which coagulates blood, the opposite of what those pills are doing.
I have instructions to stay away from all stretches and exercises that could jar the clot loose, but I can continue my daily non-strenuous strolls on Mount Helena. During the minimum 2-mile walks, I am keeping my heart rate below 130 BPM, while ascending/descending 650 feet.
My website and Facebook pages concerns being an adventurer photographer, not a convalescing invalid. If you are following me, you’re getting a little more than what I originally had in mind. I have made some mistakes in my lifestyle, which at 63 years of age has come around to bite me on the butt.
I am in no way finished with backcountry adventure photography. Medical personnel have made it clear that I will be back on my feet in perhaps as little as 30 days. Clearly, I will have to be an integral and active part of the solution for that to happen. Now where in the hell did I put those teeny-tiny little pills?
Two days after a snowstorm, the snowshoes were dropping through the powder snow 1.5 feet. Another storm would arrive later this day and drop another three feet of snow. The location was the western edge of Yellowstone National Park, on Madison Plateau and near the Continental Divide.
In another indication of the rapidly closing date for beginning the 93-day winter expedition, Montana and Idaho’s mountain snowpack has begun to accumulate. Being early winter however, it comes as no surprise that the NOAA SNOTEL site near Darkhorse Lake (8700 feet), located in the southern Bitterroot Range, shows that in the last five days the snowpack has dropped from nine to six inches. More is on the way though. Beginning tomorrow evening, November 1, another 12 inches could fall. Moreover, with our going into November, the average daily temperature is continuing to drop. Most of that snow is going to remain on the ground until next June.
Of far greater interest to me than the increasing snowpack is the weather phenomenon known as El Niño. I am hoping it plays a strong role in next winter’s snowshoe trip. As of this date though, there is some uncertainty of how strong it will be, or for that matter, when the event will begin. The latest extended forecast, released on October 16, 2014 called for a 67% chance of a mild El Niño beginning by mid-November. From Yellowstone National Park to Butte Montana, the area I will be traveling through next winter, the impact of this weather pattern normally means less snowpack and more importantly, warmer temperatures. Those higher than average temperatures could create a crust I can walk on sooner than the latter days of February.
The reason I don’t begin extended winter trips until at least the beginning of February, is due to the condition of the snow. Although I relish the idea of having enough snowpack to cover brush, timber fall, and rock fields, the real reason I wait until later concerns whether a crust has formed on the snowpack. Traveling in deep powder is a nightmare. It can cut my daily average of 6 and 8 miles down to 3 and 4 miles.
The La Niña winter of 2008 brought the opposite effect of El Niño. With the storms lining up behind each other, I traveled through three feet of powder during the latter days of March. That occurred during the double crossing of the Bitterroot Range west of Montana’s Bitterroot Valley. The average day was eight hours of travel with my forward progress between three and four miles. Because I was compelled to build trail without the backpack, I actually traveled between 9 and 12 miles each day. I needed nine days to travel the first 25 miles, which included going over Blodgett Pass. By the last day, even my three-day emergency food supply was at the crumbs level. Fortunately, the resupply bucket was where it was supposed to be.
A crust would have changed the character of the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness trip (although I wonder what I would have written about if the trip had gone smoothly). As it were, the snowshoe portion of the trip was only 115 miles, but still took one month to complete.
Using primarily snowshoes, the distance I will travel on the Continental Divide during the winter of 2015 will be 462 miles. I have to be able to average approximately 5 miles per day for 93 days. That is not possible in deep powder. Granted, I will have 107 days of supplies out there, but I will have to make up the days of downtime from the inevitable storms. More than that, for as much as 12 days I will be traveling on rope and crampons, where the measurement of forward progress is in feet rather than miles.
Another troubling consideration is the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness, which I will enter 375 miles into the trip. During the winter of 2007, I undertook five trips in this wilderness, where the final trip included crossing it and the Continental Divide. As the result of that experience, I consider it vital to get through the wilderness near the end of the winter rather than begin the following winter’s trip with the Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness still in front of me.
So yes, I am watching with a keen interest in what the future holds with the El Niño weather pattern.
Glacier National Park personnel repeatedly stated that during the winter the high mountain cirque, Hole in the Wall was inaccessible. They were almost right.
This is the story and photos of four trips that almost took the author’s life twice.
