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You need to be inspired. Here's an little trailer of an film by Werner Herzog. There was an full length version of it, but it was taken down, but you can order it on Netflix. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_wnpkOVIHQRent the film and get inspired. These folks work hard in deep snow and -70F*. Theyre just ordinary folk.
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not yet available on netflix, but I added it to my "wish list" anyway...
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Jesse, honored to be included on your list of guys you want to hear from -- not sure how merited it is.
I agree with others that a woodstove heated shelter or fire in front of a lean to is a much quicker way to get warm than planning on a snow cave. Plus I find caves claustrophobic.
The first question is how big of a stove you are trying to run. There is a lot to be said for going with the smallest heated shelter you can get away with and a commensurately sized stove because the size of stove you are running and the size of shelter you are trying to heat determines the tool kit. Plus smaller shelters get more of a gain out of body warmth alone.
When I still had a Kifaru medium stove, it pretty much took a 24" bow saw and minimum 20" handled axe to keep it running in the winter. It's not a very efficient stove though. Larger stoves in 8 man or larger shelters, same thing. Right now the only back packable stove I have is my homemade "little pig" which gets the GoLite Utopia very warm and keeps the Seekoutside BCS warm enough. It can be run pretty well with the 6" Gerber slide out saw and little 4"x1/8" blade D2 utility knife I carry. There's an in-between setup that has me carrying an 8"x3/16" bowie OPC gave me and a japanese tree trimming saw. I have also carried the cold steel tomahawk a fair amount as the absolute lightest implement available that allows for a two handed overhand chop.
I must say that I'm in the camp of being biased towards batoning for safety. In my days as a forest fire fighter, I saw first hand what can happen when you mix exhaustion with pulaskis and chainsaws. It takes a lot of very purposeful concentration to stay safe with tools when you are exhausted.
Open fires in front of lean tos are going to be less efficient at heating so you'll want to bias towards the larger tool kits.
Once the snow gets deep enough, the Voile Telepro is always along. It's the real deal for moving a lot of snow quickly and an improved tree well that offers a heck of a lot of shelter can be had in about 5 minutes.
Oh... don't forget about insulation underneath you. Be it closed cell foam in the form of a camp chair or foam pad, or tree limbs or whatever, you need something between you and the snow.
For fire starter, 9 times out of 10 a 2x2" square of bicycle innertube is all I need to get a fire started. Trioxane handles that tenth time. I must admit to using a *lot* of trioxane from time to time in Big W's neck of the woods. A pocket rocket was used as a blowtorch once too. I'm not going to say that a bottle of outright fuel is a bad idea in those conditions. It's not quite that wet where you are though Jesse.
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I tend to take a larger stove and smaller tent in the winter if possible. The insulating value of snow is very good. I know this past weekend there was a couple inches of snow on the tent at 2 am and it had been 4 hours since the last load of wood, and the temp inside the tent must have been near 50 while outside it was in the teens. To bad you can't count on that or that I can't find a reliable way to engineer it. I do have a couple ideas though, but it requires deep snow.
Last edited by Kevin_T; 12/12/12.
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I'm digging this thread... I've camped on snow plenty, but it's usually been spring bear season, or rifle season in November.
This winter, I'm planning on doing it in January and Febuary, on purpose. The logic is, if you can survive dead of winter with your kit, the rest of the year will be a picnic with a backpack on.
I'm Irish...
Of course I know how to patch drywall
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Campfire Oracle
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my daughter comes home from college on Sat and is looking forward to snow camping. She's pretty cool, IMO.
If you take the time it takes, it takes less time. --Pat Parelli
American by birth; Alaskan by choice. --ironbender
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I'm digging this thread... I've camped on ... This winter, I'm planning on doing it in January and Febuary, on purpose. The logic is, if you can survive dead of winter with your kit, the rest of the year will be a picnic with a backpack on. For me in the Sierras, I worry more about transitional seasons where I get rain/snow/thaw/freeze than just cold. Way easier for me to stay dry & warm when it's constantly below freezing and without rain.
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The logic is, if you can survive dead of winter with your kit, the rest of the year will be a picnic with a backpack on.
Sort of. The dirty secret is that, as long as you stay with terrain that allows for pulling a sled, winter camping is way more luxurious. You can take more heavy tasty food, have a bigger cushier bedroll, and you can dig a central footwell into the snow that makes tent life downright civilized. The days are shorter so you sleep more. It's a good time for telling stories around the wood stove.
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Your not doing the winter camping I am doing.
Eat Fish, Wear Grundens, Drink Alaskan.
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Location makes such a big difference in what you need. I am going tomorrow for a quick overnight trip with my BCS and roll-up stove to to some prototype testing. I plan on burning a fire for quite a few hours but doubt I will take a saw, an ax or more than my little neck knife. The area I am going is covered with beetle killed Ponderosa pine and there is plenty of wood in limb wood from small twigs to a couple inches in diameter. All wood that size can be broken by hand or foot.
The biggest safety advantage that I see in batoning with a knife over a hatchet or ax is in making kindling. It is one thing to use a full size ax to make kindling at the cabin where I have stable chopping blocks and another on snow covered ground with cold hands.
Ed T
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Haven't seen anybody mention a small fabric "tarp" type item as part of the kit for a shelter. In Artic survival school, we were taught to keep a piece of parachute fabric in the survival pack, to serve as a base layer over the shelter frame, then covered with insulation material. The fabric gave us a seal to the outside, with a decent layer of snow, we stayed outside at -40 and were reasonably comfortable.
I'd second the comment on the need for an insulation layer from the ground, even a simple polypad will add hours on to your comfort zone.
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I always thought I was just an "axe and knife guy". I did a couple of overnights that went below freezing last month and I had ended up making camp past dark. It was the first time that I realized that I do not like swinging an axe in the dark Too many things could go wrong. I should not have set up that late but there it is. I was really glad to have the little saw on my SAK when I was cutting poles for my tarp. I am defintely adding a compact buck saw to my kit from here on.
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Extended time in the cold means an extended shelter. I use the smallest grand Bruks hatchet, Wyoming saw, and knife with heavy 6 inch blade. Hatchet is a pound, saw is pound, and knive is .75 pounds. With them I can build one hell of a shelter and gather plenty of fire wood. The worst the weather the stronger the shelter will need to be. In general these three cover about any need you have unless building a cabin.
Time spent hunting is not deducted from one's lifetime.
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So Ed- a stout, 3/16" knife able to pry out heartwood from cedar stumps and split via baton whatever rounds were cut with folding saw would be the combo you would run?
You are in similar climate as I am. An afternoon snowmobile run, snowshoeing for grins or trap line or simply "patrolling"- that would be a better pair? Jesse, Yes, for most situations that is my preferred choice of tools. For a saw the Sawvivor is hard to beat. The Leuku style knife I built has an 8.5" blade and is 14" overall. It can do some serious work. The GB Outdoorsman's Ax is a better choice then the GB Mini but still not capable of what the Small Forest Ax will do. Here is an image of the GB Outdoorsman's and the Leuku knife. These three items are about perfect in my opinion. I carry the same saw, a little bigger hatchet and a little smaller knife. Add a "Space" blanket and parachute cord to build a lean-to shelter, the already mentioned fire starting gear, and a small pot to melt snow in and that's what I keep in my pack.
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For saws I stick to Silky Zubat 300 large teeth, or for a folding Silky Bigboy 2000 XL teeth. It will cut anything you realistically need to cut. If I am felling trees then I will step up to an axe.
I work in trees everyday and I make my money with Silky's.
Eat Fish, Wear Grundens, Drink Alaskan.
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What kind of saw is this? edit: Rather, what is the name?
Last edited by snubbie; 12/13/12.
Gloria In Excelsis Deo!As far as gear goes.. The poorer (or cheaper) you are, the tougher you need to be. gpopecustomknives.com
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You guys know about the Dustrude Quick saw? This is the one I plan on getting. They have a 24" and it uses regular hardware store blades. Some of the others do not so buyer beware. http://duluthpack.com/folding-saw.html
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"Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe." - Abraham Lincoln, the Rail Splitter from Illinois.
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OP
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Seems the thread has taken another turn. Hard to be clear or convey full intent.
I was thinking about what would be essential for shelter building in an UNPLANNED EVENT. Meaning, what is essential to be on you during winter day trips for emergency shelter building. That's where I was going with the hatchet vs saw vs knife thing.
Evan-
I am heading back over for "school" in a month or two so I will get some more hands on time. I really, really wish I had taken some of the opportunities that I have squandered. The trip you had up here 2 years ago, or many of the Rondys that come and go without me committing. Much could be learned for free in a weekend. It's tough without a Mentor to assist and stop you from really F'ing up and saving your bacon and also shortening the harder portions of the learning curve....the classic "Too much coal....saw it right off" Jeremiah Johnson mentor.
I own two of EdT's stoves. One being one of his newest designs with roll up Ti. I am sure I could pack this at all times. Have a SuperTarp with Annex also. So its not really that I didn't think out of the box, but my mind just didn't go that direction. Probably the surest bet in the bush though....going with a known system for 5 lbs vs trying to make a warm, heated shelter in the dark with a hatchet and pine boughs.
And maybe it's time to start packing some intermediate tinder as Ed suggests. Something transitional.
Please God, give me some good tags this year....
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