Canoeing Disaster

November 1, 2008 was a clear, crisp fall day in Fredericton. The sun was shining, and a light wind broke the few remaining leaves loose from their trees. I thought it was a great day for some canoeing. Rachelle had other plans, but I knew Mom would enjoy getting out for a few hours on the Keswick River. We would dress warmly and bring along some sandwiches. We'd be back within three hours, tops.

We spent a few minutes searching for a good place to put in, and eventually settled on a spot just beneath the bridge on Tripp Settlement Road. This particular stretch of the Keswick looks like a piece of ribbon candy from above, so although the drive from put-in to take-out was only 10 km, we were looking at roughly 3 hours of paddling to cover the 25 km in the water. The water was nice and fast from all the recent rain we'd had.

Mom was in front and I was in the rear, steering. It was a challenge to get the canoe around some of the turns in the fast current. There were numerous switchbacks and even the odd shallow spot which kept us on guard. It seemed that there were ducks in the water around every turn, and they would take flight upon seeing us. After a few hours, we stopped the canoe at a rocky beach and ate our sandwiches.

It seemed like we were so close to the take-out spot. The water was moving quite fast. To make it home on time, we set out once again. After about ten minutes, I was beginning to wonder how many more bends in the river there would be until our take-out spot. Once we were on a straight stretch in the river, I took my GPS out and figured that it would be...roughly....

"Oh dear, look out!" Mom shouted.

I looked up and right in front of me was a branch - too thick to simply push out of the way. Too close to duck down and avoid it. My first instinct was to lean to the side to avoid it clothes-lining me. Before we knew it, the canoe had capsized, and Mom and I were up to our necks in the near-freezing water.

As I scrambled to process what had just happened, Mom calmly said, "O.K. We're wet, but we just have to get the canoe to the shore." Her composure was remarkable.

We struggled to pull the swamped vessel to shore and tip it over to drain it. The whole while I was frantically looking around for my GPS, which had been resting on my lap when we performed the "Eskimo Roll". I was very relieved to find it sitting in the bottom of the canoe under a foot of water. Once we got it drained, we realized that we'd lost one of the paddles. In all the commotion, it calmly floated on. I ran a short way down the shore looking for it. It was gone.

We were freezing, standing in the wind, our clothes soaked through. We got back in the boat, and I paddled and steered us the remaining few kilometres to the car.

With the boat pulled ashore, and the car turned on, we cranked the heat up and tried to get the circulation in our limbs flowing again. It was unpleasant leaving the warmth of the car to tie the canoe to the roof. Since we left the rope that secures the middle of the canoe in the other car, we had to settle for tying it down on only the bow and stern.

Apparently it wasn't tied tight enough. The wind had picked up considerably over the past few hours, and gusts were now blowing perpendicular to the road. Within a kilometre of reaching the other car, a huge blast of wind caught the canoe like a sail, and blew it off the roof. Of course, it was still tied to the car, so it didn't go far; it hit the road with a distinct 'crack', and merely dragged and scraped along beside the car. It was a nightmare.

I stopped the car and we got out, our clothes still wet. We got the canoe off the road to inspect the damage. There was clearly a large crack in the canvas near the front of the canoe. One of the wooden ribs was cracked, and the previously immaculate forest-green canvas was worn white in places where it had scraped along the road. Quite dismayed and beside myself, I couldn't believe how badly this once-perfect day was turning out.

Mom and I laid the battered canoe on the grassy shoulder of the road, near someone's shed. By chance, there sat a nice forest-green cedar and canvas canoe, much like the one I had nearly destroyed, with a sign propped up against it: For Sale.

Mom pointed, saying "Look at that!"
"I know, Mom!" I said, exasperated.

After picking up the other car, we returned to the canoe to tie it, this time more securely, to the roof. The third rope made a big difference. All the way home, I didn't dare drive faster than 60 km/h. Every gust of wind took away a year of my life span.

Now, more than a month later, with the canoe repairs complete, the events of that day have taken on a more humourous air. I'm sorry that Mom had to live through such a harrowing experience, but I'm glad to have learned first-hand some valuable lessons:

1. Wear a lifejacket;

2. Pack valuables in waterproof containers (my cell phone and Mom's camera were ruined);

3. Tie everything to the canoe;

4. Use more ropes than necessary!

Fall Day in the Woods

Thanksgiving on the Beach

On Thanksgiving Monday we took a couple of cars down to Fairfield, NB, to visit the community where my great-grandmother lived. We also checked out St. Martin's, NB, which became the scene of a very memorable Thanksgiving dinner.





Imagine eating a plate of squash, potatoes, dressing, carrots, gravy and TURKEY with your family while sitting around a campfire on a beach! This is what we did this Thanksgiving, and it was a very memorable one!



It got quite cool as the sun went down but our fire was burning strong, and it made for a great picture of a silhouette of a "flower-pot rock" along the shoreline.

TreeGo

For 3 hours this afternoon, we tried out the brand new TreeGo course at Mactaquac Provincial Park.

After a brief introduction to the basic equipment (we each had a waist and leg harness including 2 regular carabiners attached to a foot and a half of rope each + 1 zip-line attachment) and safety procedures, we were set loose on the obstacle course.

There were actually four separate courses which increased in difficulty as we advanced. The variety of obstacles kept it a lot of fun; we experienced swinging logs, rope bridges, crawled through tunnels, swung on "Tarzan ropes", tight-rope walked, and (our favourite) zip-lined, all at up to 70 feet above the forest floor.



The highlight of the course was probably the long zip-line that spanned a section of the boat marina, below.

Shediac, NB

Sunset at Parlee Beach, Shediac, NB


While at our bar admission course in Moncton the past two weeks, we were staying at a cottage in Shediac. There's a beach there and on nice days we would go there with a cooler and play catch, swim, and of course, skimmer board. Here's a video of me on the board.

Restigouche River Canoe Trip

For about a month beforehand, Jason and I had been planning a canoe trip of the Restigouche River for the August long weekend. The trip was to be 90 km long and take us from Friday around supper until Sunday at lunch to complete.

The week before our trip, we were keeping a close eye on the weather forecast. It was not looking good. All that week it rained every day, and the outlook for the weekend was no different. In fact, it was worse: severe rainfall warnings on the horizon. But since this was the only weekend we were free, the trip was going to happen rain or shine.

We put in at Montgomery Bridge around 6 p.m. The water was clear and fast. We could see fish swimming against the current. Shortly after starting out, the rain picked up. We put on our rain gear and paddled for almost three hours before we reached our destination for the night - Hafford's Campground. There were about 20 other canoes pulled up on the shore and tied to tree roots.

Before long we had our camp set up, burgers cooked, and beers flowing. Most of our fellow campers spoke French (one side of the river is NB, the other Quebec), and we were invited by Martin (who goes by "Marvin") and his friend to join them at their "huge bonfire with 300 beers, fruits, and dogs". We thanked them for the invitation. We didn't join them, and were glad to have kept our distance when saw someone dancing around the fire in his underwear.

We were the first to depart Hafford's on Saturday morning. It was a quarter to 8 and raining. And it didn't let up all day. We had rain gear and even wore garbage bags over them. We made good time with the extra water in the river and at times reached speeds of 18 km/h. The sections of rapids were the most fun, and we didn't take in too much water.

The scenery along the river was breathtaking, despite the rain. Many towering trees on the mountainsides, some rock faces, rocky and sandy beaches, and many classic 1920s cedar and pine fishing lodges lined the river. We passed numerous fly fishermen and their guides with their 26-foot cedar canoes anchored in the river. We floated by on the opposite side, sometimes unnoticed due to the noisy rain on the water.

Finally after a long, wet day we arrived at Gilmore's Island. We were the first canoe to arrive, so we got the best site. To cool down and wash off the dirt and sweat after setting up camp we put on bathing suits and jumped in the river. I floated down a short patch of rapids wearing a lifejacket. We spent the rest of the evening drying our soaked clothes by the fire, and enjoying spider dogs, hamburgers, chips, beer, and maybe the odd cigar.

We spotted a group of three canoes coming toward us, and saw one flip in the rapids. Once the group sorted itself out, they too camped on Gilmore's. We also saw a group of 8 in three canoes float by us and set up camp on the shoreline just past our island. With all the rain that fell on Saturday and the rising water, they actually lost 2 of their canoes during the night; Jay and I saw the canoes at various points downriver on Sunday. We were glad not to be in their predicament. We had kept our canoe right beside our tent during the night.

On Sunday the river felt twice as wide, and was murky brown with all the silt washed into it by the rain. We shared the river with innumerable logs and uprooted trees. The silt made an odd scratching noise as it passed beneath the canoe. It sounded like sand coming down a pipe. At one point Jay saw something bobbing and splashing in the water several hundred meters ahead. "It's a moose!" he yelled from the front of the canoe. "I thought moose could swim better than that", I said. "Maybe it's a duck, fishing", Jay said. As we got closer, we realized it was just a log, trapped by something underwater, moving erratically in the current and making splashes. We had a good laugh about it as we went by.

We did see some real wildlife, though, namely two river otters, 5 or 6 bald eagles hovering and gliding above us, and some salmon breaking the water.



By the time we pulled our canoe out of the river at the Rafting Grounds, we were ready to go home, but the damp weather certainly did not dampen the amazing adventure we had on the Restigouche.

Fishing Hole: Rusagonis Stream

This morning I fished a short section of the Rusagonis Stream. There's a good place to park directly beside the covered bridge pictured above in Rusagonis on Route 655. (See more great photos by Greg McCracken at http://photo.net/photodb/user?user_id=397196) When I arrived around 8:15 it was very grey and it started to rain shortly after that. The location has a variety of water depths and conditions; if you wade down below the bridge there are lots of exposed rocks, calm pools, and vegetation along the edges of the stream (see picture). If you hike above the bridge, there is a junction where the South Branch Rusagonis meets the main Rusagonis Stream, and creates a nice little area of shallow rapids. There are more calm, deeper pools in that area, too.



Under the bridge looking downstream.



All in all, it was a very successful morning. I caught 4 trout in an hour and a half. Unfortunately none were big enough to keep. All four were caught on this minnow hardbait, which I have discovered works very well in overcast or rainy conditions. It has two treble hooks (which I have de-barbed) and is mainly dark blue with some brown in there too. There is a bright silver area near the head, and it 'swims' like a fish as it's reeled in. I was able to catch my biggest trout ever on this yesterday, and it was overcast then, too.

Canoeing the Saint John River

Yesterday, Dad, Mom, Anna, Steve, Rachelle and I took a couple of canoes and a kayak and went down about an 8km section of the Saint John River. It was fun, but became difficult near the end of our trip due to the tidal influences on the river - even though we were going down-river, we were battling a current going the opposite way.



There are a lot of 'cow islands' in the part of the river we paddled. At one point we even saw a cow ferry. There are lots of little inlets to explore and even the occasional sandy beach, like the one where we stopped for lunch.



It was a great day and the weather couldn't have been better.

Sauble Falls Provincial Park

On May 2 and 3, we went camping with Jeff, Sari, and the girls at Sauble Falls Provincial Park, Ontario, which is close to Lake Huron west of Owen Sound. Although the weather was rainy most of the weekend, it was still a lot of fun. It was an experience setting up our campsite in the rain; in fact, it started to downpour just before we arrived. Once an initial tarp was set up, we could assemble the tents under it and stay relatively dry. When it wasn't raining, the bugs were out in full force. Luckily, there was a hardware store close by that sold some good bug net hats. And the smoke from the fire kept the bugs away, too.

Alicia and I went fishing (didn't catch anything; you can see the river that ran right behind our campsite) and we did some hiking around the park. But mostly, we sat under our tarps and cooked food and watched the girls running around and getting dirty. We all had a great time.

The falls themselves were pretty spectacular; they stretched on for about a hundred meters, though they didn't have a large vertical drop. We saw lots of fly fishermen near the bottom of the falls, but thankfully none of them seemed to be having better luck than I had.



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Brook Trout

While on vacation in Toronto I decided to head out and do some early spring fishing with my new spinning rod. Rachelle and I went to the Humber River, near the town of Kleinburg. It was about 1:30 in the afternoon, and since it was sunny, I wasn't sure if there would be any fish...

After snagging and finally untangling my lure from an overhanging branch I noticed 3 or 4 small fish chasing my lure as I reeled it back in. Then I noticed a few larger brook trout facing upstream (waiting for food to come their way). I did an underhand cast and reeled my lure right in front of them. One went right for it and, voila.

A Night on Bald Mountain

No, I am not referring to the music of Modest Mussorgsky. I'm talking about the little-known summit in southern New Brunswick near the hamlet of Wirral. Yesterday afternoon Steve and I packed up our gear and drove down Highway 101 to Wirral, where we turned off and drove down a secondary road until our GPS unit indicated that we would be best off parking and snowshoeing into the woods. Our packs must have weighed at least 40 lbs. each. We had about 3L of water, 8 cans of beer, 2 cannisters of diesel fuel for the campstove, pots and utensils, first aid kit, 2 sleeping bags and sleeping pads, a tent, a tarp and ground sheet, twine, multi-tools, hatchet and saw, binoculars, 2 sticks of cedar, matches, food, headlamps, and snowshoes. While hiking in on the snowed-in road, we noticed huge moose tracks, with each step spanning the distance of three or four of our steps. It took about 2.5 hours of snowshoeing, combined with negotiating steep icy slopes, a brook crossing, and some extreme bushwhacking, but we eventually made it to the summit of Bald Mountain at about 6:30 p.m. The view from the top was amazing: nothing but trees in all directions, far below. No car or human could be seen or heard. Campsite was at N 45°28.309’ W 066°30.488’.

We set up our camp about 20 m away from the vertical rock face on one side of the summit. Then we spent some time hacking and sawing away at the numerous dead trees on the rocky land, and within no time we had a good pile of dry wood to burn. While hiking up the mountain earlier we traversed a clear-cut, so we backtracked there with our empty packs and filled them up with dead pine boughs and birch logs. Then, back at camp, our priorities turned to making a huge bonfire and eating supper.



Supper was amazing: I finally got a chance to use my Richmoor freeze-dried food packages I bought off the Mountain Equipment Co-op website 5 or 6 years ago. For supper we had beef, peas and carrots, and hash browns, with blueberry cobbler for dessert. Then we topped it off by roasting some hot dogs. It was amazing how fast the time flew by simply sitting there throwing logs on the fire and occasionally poking at it with a stick. Before we knew it several hours had gone by and the fire was dying, the temperature was dropping, and we were tired. So we called it a night and went to bed.

The temperature during the night was about -10, so it was pretty comfortable in the down sleeping bags. There was no wind, so even in the morning I could cook breakfast (oatmeal) without freezing my hands off. We had to go on another wood scrounging mission for another small bonfire. The coolest thing about the bonfires we had was how far into the snow they sank. We initially built the fire on rocks we laid on top of the snow. By the end of last night, they had sunk to the ground, about 2 feet lower.

The hike out this morning was way easier, with less weight and the knowledge of what to expect. We will definitely be returning here sometime in the summer, maybe next time with fishing rods to catch supper in Three Bridge Brook which you have to cross to get to Bald Mountain.

Tea and Hotdogs

Yesterday afternoon, Rachelle, Steve, Mom, Dad & I snowshoed into the woods to check out the winter camping site from earlier this month. The four of them had the traditional wood and rawhide shoes, while I had to borrow one of the more modern pairs of Atlas snowshoes from a friend.

I like the old ones better. The new ones would collect snow with each step and fling it up when you walk, covering the back of your legs in snow, which would then melt, of course. I wasn't impressed, but it looked pretty funny with all that snow flying everywhere.

I made the mistake of assuming it was warmer out than it actually was. Despite it being sunny, the wind added to the already -10 temperature and made it pretty nippy. To keep warm once we got to the site, Steve and I lighted a fire, and I got a chance to try out my one of my homemade firestarters (more to come on this). It worked great. The wind blowing in off the nearby pond helped the fire and kept it going. Over the fire, we roasted some "spider dogs" and Mom made tea in a pot. Then, we walked back out. Great day in the outdoors!

Why climb Everest?

"On Everest, death is right there. It's sort of like you're underwater and there's this sort of semipermeable membrane, this gel that surrounds you, because you have warm boots and gloves and an oxygen apparatus. But you can kind of push through this thing, and there's death right out there. All your energy becomes focused on living, on surviving. That's the allure."

- Conrad Anker in The Climber Comes Down to Earth, article by Daniel Duane in Outside magazine

Sir Edmond Hillary's Obituary

Obituary: Sir Edmond Hillary, 88 (from the Globe and Mail website)

Sir Edmond Hillary, the unassuming beekeeper who conquered Mount Everest to win renown as one of the 20th century's greatest adventurers, has died, New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark announced Friday. He was 88.

The gangling New Zealander devoted much of his life to aiding the mountain people of Nepal and took his fame in stride, preferring to be called “Ed” and considering himself just an ordinary beekeeper.

“Sir Ed described himself as an average New Zealander with modest abilities. In reality, he was a colossus. He was an heroic figure who not only ‘knocked off' Everest but lived a life of determination, humility, and generosity,” Ms. Clark said in a statement.

“The legendary mountaineer, adventurer, and philanthropist is the best-known New Zealander ever to have lived,” she said.

Sir Edmond's life was marked by grand achievements, high adventure, discovery, excitement — and by his personal humility. Humble to the point that he only admitted being the first man atop Everest long after the death of climbing companion Tenzing Norgay.

He had pride in his feats. Returning to base camp as the man who took the first step onto the top of the world's highest peak, he declared: “We knocked the bastard off.”

The accomplishment as part of a British climbing expedition even added lustre to the coronation of Queen Elizabeth four days later, and she knighted Sir Edmond as one of her first acts.

But he was more proud of his decades-long campaign to set up schools and health clinics in Nepal, the homeland of Tenzing Norgay, the mountain guide with whom he stood arm in arm on the summit of Everest on May 29, 1953.

He wrote of the pair's final steps to the top of the world: “Another few weary steps and there was nothing above us but the sky. There was no false cornice, no final pinnacle. We were standing together on the summit. There was enough space for about six people. We had conquered Everest.

“Awe, wonder, humility, pride, exaltation — these surely ought to be the confused emotions of the first men to stand on the highest peak on Earth, after so many others had failed,” Sir Edmond noted.

“But my dominant reactions were relief and surprise. Relief because the long grind was over and the unattainable had been attained. And surprise, because it had happened to me, old Ed, the beekeeper, once the star pupil of the Tuakau District School, but no great shakes at Auckland Grammar (high school) and a no-hoper at university, first to the top of Everest. I just didn't believe it.

He said: “I removed my oxygen mask to take some pictures. It wasn't enough just to get to the top. We had to get back with the evidence. Fifteen minutes later we began the descent.”

His philosophy of life was simple: “Adventuring can be for the ordinary person with ordinary qualities, such as I regard myself,” he said in a 1975 interview after writing his autobiography, “Nothing Venture, Nothing Win.”

Close friends described him as having unbounded enthusiasm for both life and adventure.

“We all have dreams — but Ed has dreams, then he's got this incredible drive, and goes ahead and does it,” long-time friend Jim Wilson said in 1993.

Sir Edmond summarized it for schoolchildren in 1998, when he said one didn't have to be a genius to do well in life.

“I think it all comes down to motivation. If you really want to do something, you will work hard for it,” he said before planting some endangered Himalayan oaks in the school grounds.

The planting was part of his program to reforest upland areas of Nepal.

Sir Edmond remains the only non-political person outside Britain honoured as a member of the Britain's Order of the Garter, bestowed by Queen Elizabeth on just 24 knights and ladies living worldwide at any time.

Throughout his 88 years, he was always the atypical “typical New Zealander” who spoke his mind.

He recalled his surprise at the huge international interest in their feat. “I was a bit taken aback to tell you the truth. I was absolutely astonished that everyone should be so interested in us just climbing a mountain.”

Sir Edmond never forgot the small mountainous country that propelled him to worldwide fame. He revisited Nepal constantly over the next 54 years.

Without fanfare and without compensation, Sir Edmond spent decades pouring energy and resources from his own fund-raising efforts into Nepal through the Himalayan Trust he founded in 1962.

Known as “burra sahib” — “big man,” for his 6 feet 2 inches — by the Nepalese, Sir Edmond funded and helped build hospitals, health clinics, airfields and schools.

He raised funds for higher education for Sherpa families, and helped set up reforestation programs in the impoverished country. About $250,000 a year was raised by the charity for projects in Nepal.

A strong conservationist, he demanded that international mountaineers clean up thousands of tons of discarded oxygen bottles, food containers and other climbing debris that litter the lower slopes of Everest.

His commitment to Nepal took him back more than 120 times. His adventurer son Peter has described his father's humanitarian work there as “his duty” to those who had helped him.

It was on a visit to Nepal that his first wife, Louise, 43, and 16-year-old daughter Belinda died in a light plane crash March 31, 1975.

Sir Edmond remarried in 1990, to June Mulgrew, former wife of adventurer colleague and close friend Peter Mulgrew, who died in a passenger plane crash in the Antarctic. He is survived by his wife and children Peter and Sarah.

His passport described Sir Edmond as an “author-lecturer,” and by age 40 his schedule of lecturing and writing meant he had to give up beekeeping “because I was too busy.”

By that time he was touring, lecturing and fund-raising for the Himalayan Trust in the United States and Europe for three months at a time, speaking at more than 100 venues during a tour.

He was known as ready to take risks to achieve his goals, but always had control so that nobody ever died on a Sir Edmond-led expedition.

He was at times controversial. He decried what he considered a lack of “honest-to-God morality” in New Zealand politics in the 1960s, and he refused to backtrack when the prime minister demanded he withdraw the comments. Ordinary New Zealanders applauded his integrity.

He got into hot water over what became known as his “dash to the Pole” in the 1957-58 Antarctic summer season aboard modified farm tractors while part of a joint British-New Zealand expedition.

Sir Edmond disregarded instructions from the Briton leading the expedition and guided his tractor team up the then-untraversed Shelton Glacier, pioneering a new route to the polar plateau and the South Pole.

In 2006 he climbed into a row over the death of Everest climber David Sharp, stating it was “horrifying” that climbers could leave a dying man after an expedition left the Briton to die high on the upper slopes.

Sir Edmond said he would have abandoned his own pioneering 1953 climb to save another life.

“It was wrong if there was a man suffering altitude problems and was huddled under a rock, just to lift your hat, say 'good morning' and pass on by,” he said. “Human life is far more important than just getting to the top of a mountain.”

Named New Zealand's ambassador to India in the mid-1980s, Sir Edmond was the celebrity of the New Delhi cocktail circuit. He later said he found the job confining.

He introduced jetboats to many Ganges River dwellers a decade earlier, in 1977, when his “Ocean to the Sky” expedition travelled the Ganges by jetboat to within 200 kilometres of its source.

The last segment was by foot, and two mountain peaks near Badranath, where the Ganges rises, were also climbed.

Sir Edmond didn't place himself among top mountaineers. “I don't regard myself as a cracking good climber. I'm just strong in the back. I have a lot of enthusiasm and I'm good on ice,” he said.

Despite his fame, he spoke of being “really embarrassed” even when introduced at a lecture.

“I really am an ordinary person with a few abilities which I've tried to use in the best way I can,” he said.

Honoured by the United Nations as one of its Global 500 conservationists in 1987, he was also awarded numerous honorary doctorates from universities in several parts of the world.

Throughout his life Sir Edmond remembered his first mountain he climbed, the 2,930-metre Mount Tapuaenuku — “Tappy” as he called it — in Marlborough on New Zealand's South Island. He scaled it solo over three days in 1944, while in training camp with the Royal New Zealand Air Force during the Second World War. “Tapuaenuku” in Maori means “footsteps of the Rainbow God”.

“I'd climbed a decent mountain at last,” he said later.

Like all good mountaineers before him, Sir Edmond had no special insight into that quintessential question: Why climb?

“I can't give you any fresh answers to why a man climbs mountains. The majority still go just to climb them.”

Fire and Wood

Fire Science

Fire is the heat and light that comes from burning substances. In 1777, Antoine Lavoisier discovered that burning is the result of the rapid union of oxygen with other substances.

To produce fire, three conditions must exist. There must be
1. Fuel, which is
2. Heated to ignition temperature, and
3. Plenty of oxygen

The burning of a solid fuel often depends on the form of the fuel. For example, you may not be able to light a large log with a match, but a small twig from the same tree may catch fire easily with the same match. This is because heat flows to the inside of the log, and the log cannot maintain a high enough temperature to keep burning. But when several logs are burned together, heat also flows from each log to the others and keeps the fire going. This explains why it is easy to start a fire with splinters or shavings.


Backcountry Firewood

Species of firewood you are likely to find outdoors are generally either hardwoods or softwoods.

Softwoods or confiers, also known as evergreens, have needles for leaves. Normally this type of tree doesn’t shed its needles in the fall, with some exceptions like the tamarack tree. They tend to burn quickly and very hot, but burn down to fewer coals. They often contain flammable resins that help a lot in getting the fire going. This type of wood is good to use for kindling since it’s often easier to ignite than hardwood.

Hardwoods have broad flat leaves which fall off in autumn. Although they’re harder to ignite than softwoods, they burn steadily and longer, giving more even heat for a given volume of wood. They burn down to a good bed of coals that stay hot for a long time. Some examples are maple, birch, beech, and oak.

Snowmobiling

Today I tried something new: snowmobiling. Rachelle and I went with Steve and Chelsey to the camp that Steve and three of his friends built near Stanley, NB. With almost a meter of fresh snow on the ground in the last week, it was perfect conditions to do some snowmobiling.

We arrived around 9:30 a.m. and started the sleds. Once they were warmed up and we all had our helmets and other gear on, we set out down the road to the trailhead. Steve went ahead on the lighter one-seater Ski-Doo to break trail, then came back. We switched sleds and I went ahead on the Ski-Doo while Steve followed me on the heavier two-seater Polaris, which was prone to getting stuck in the deep powder. We arrived at the camp; it was pretty impressive, complete with wood stove and enough room to sleep about 10 people. There was a wood shed and outhouse out back.

We took turns driving the sleds around some trails just outside the camp. Rachelle loved it; she's a speed demon. Then around lunch time we hauled out the barbecue to cook up some hot dogs and Pogos. After doing a few more runs around the trails, it was time to go home. But not before signing the guest book. I hope to return and do it again sometime this winter.

The World's Tallest Mountains

The Seven Summits (the highest mountains on the seven continents):
Asia: Mount Everest (Nepal) - 8,850 m
South America: Aconcagua (Argentina) - 6,962 m
North America: Mt. McKinley, a.k.a. Denali (United States of America) - 6,195 m
Africa: Mt. Kilimanjaro (Tanzania) - 5,963 m
Europe: Mount Elbrus (Russia) - 5,633 m
Antarctica: Vinson Massif (Ellsworth Range) - 4,897 m

The seventh summit is in dispute, depending on whether Australia is in itself a continent:

Australasia: Carstensz Pyramid (Indonesia) - 4,884 m
Australia: Mount Kosuizko (Australia) - 2,134 m



The 14 8,000ers all are located either in the Karakoram or Himilaya mountain ranges in Asia.

Karakoram* means "black gravel" in Turkic, as many of its glaciers are covered in rubble. The Karakoram range spans the borders between Pakistan, China, and India.

Himalaya means "the abode of snow" in Sanskrit. It contains over 100 separate mountains over 7,200 m. The Himalaya range stretches across six nations: Bhutan, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

1. Everest - 8,848 m
2. K2* a.k.a. Godwin Austen - 8,611 m (for every 3 climbers who summit, 1 dies trying)
3. Kangchenjunga - 8,586 m
4. Lhotse - 8,516 m
5. Makalu - 8,485 m
6. Cho Oyu - 8,188 m
7. Dhaulagiri - 8,167 m
8. Manaslu - 8,163 m
9. Nanga Parbat* - 8,125 m
10. Annapurna I - 8,091 m (mountaineer Ed Viesturs regards it as being seriously underrated, and the most deadly 8000er. For every 2 climbers who summit, 1 dies trying)
11. Gasherbrum I* - 8,080 m
12. Broad Peak* - 8,051 m
13. Gasherbrum II* - 8,034 m
14. Shishapangma - 8,027 m

New Year's Camp-out

What a crazy start to 2008!

On New Year's Day, Rachelle and I snowshoed into the woods to our campsite at about 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun was shining and it was a comfortable temperature, but with 30 cm of snow in the forecast, I decided to build a quinzee to help us through the night.

While I was working on the mound of snow, we were visited by four snowshoers and their three dogs who were in the area on a hike of their own. They chatted with us for a few minutes and seemed impressed with our set-up, including our Coleman stove, a pile of firewood, and our tents. Then, when they noticed our soon-to-be quinzee, they said, "Oh, you're really going to have fun!"

After about an hour of shoveling, I had a pretty good pile of snow. Then Sarah and Cole (my sister & her boyfriend) showed up, and we sat around chatting for a bit. Then Cole and I cut more wood for the fire we would have later, while Rachelle and Sarah dismantled the tents and tarps in anticipation of the coming storm. We didn't want to have to deal with packing them up after being dumped on all night.

After a few hours, it came time to hollow out the quinzee. I began and eventually had a big enough hole to allow myself inside, while Sarah carted off the snow in a sled. Then she took a turn while I discarded the snow. Another hour of this wet and sweaty work gave us what we thought would be an invincible snow shelter. We set up our sleeping quarters, including a brand new double-size air mattress, which surprisingly allowed all four of us on it, with only our feet hanging off the end. Rachelle and I had our down-filled sleeping bags, while Cole and Sarah were bundled under a pile of blankets and summer-weight bags. Our new North Face tent booties were a great touch, and were very warm and comfortable.



Before heading to bed, we spent a few hours around the campfire (of hissing wet wood), which did eventually grow into a decent sized campfire. The key was the bag of birch bark we collected. We had spider dogs, s'mores, and hot chocolate. It was great to catch up with my sister as she spends much of her time away from home, going to school in Newfoundland.

When it came time to go to bed (i.e. we ran out of firewood), we all answered the call of nature and piled into the quinzee, sealing off the entrance with an empty pack. A long-burning candle inside the structure provided the light, and several games of 20 Questions provided the entertainment. Eventually, everyone became silent and dozed into subconsciousness. That was short-lived for me, however, due to Cole's snoring.

It snowed like crazy during the night. As snow gathered on the fur boughs above the quinzee and reached critical mass, they would give way and come crashing down on the quinzee, giving some of us quite a start. There were fears that it would cave in. I was pretty confident that it would be ok, and people went back to sleep for a couple hours. Then, at 3:30 in the morning, Rachelle told me that the roof was melting, and actually had soaked through her sleeping bag at the zipper. It actually looked like the whole roof was sagging due to the melting (see above photo). It was maybe 6 inches from the roof to our sleeping bags! Rather than suffer through more hours of this, we decided to strap into our snowshoes and make the 20 minute hike out, to sleep at my uncle and aunt's house nearby. We would return in the morning to get all our gear.




Only we got lost on the way out, which was infuriating due to the raging snowstorm and pitch blackness. Even with our headlamps, it was very difficult to see where we had previously walked. After an hour and a half, we made it out! It was hellish at the time, but we had a good laugh about it afterwards.



Despite the name of my blog, I am quite content to live inside, at least for tonight.

Television

While reading several books by John Irving, these quotes jumped out at me:

“There is the faint, trapped warble from some televisions tuned in to The Late Show, and the blue-gray glow from the picture tubes throbs from a few of the houses. To Garp this glow looks like cancer, insidious and numbing, putting the world to sleep. Maybe television causes cancer, Garp thinks; but his real irritation is a writer’s irritation: he knows that wherever the TV glows, there sits someone who isn’t reading."
- The World According to Garp

“Upon her arrival at the old age home, Grandmother considered that the remote-control device for switching television channels was a true child of Satan; it was television’s final triumph, she said, that it could render you brain-dead without even allowing you to leave your chair.”
- A Prayer for Owen Meany