First off, what a rabbit hole my friends got me into here! I wanted to test all this gear, totally new to me, before going out with the group. Toboggan, hot tent, stove, chain saw, DIY hammock, on and on. What happened to a quick backpacking trip? Maybe I'll save that for the other 3 months because this is just too much fun.
I arrived to the trail head just before 10PM. I walked a few yards into the trail and decided to skip the snowshoes since it was 12" packed, so I only sunk in about 3".
On the trail...this is the only good pull I had. 99% of the time I was attempting to stay between the ruts in the road from logging tucks of the past. It was impossible. Every time I tried it would slide to either side, digging itself into the wall of snow on the side with it's sharp edge. What an absolute PITA!! It went from decent trekking to feeling like the guy pulling a semi on the worlds strongest man competition. I knew I was in for a long night after a few minutes of fighting this trail.
I got to camp around 11:30pm and started digging out a site for the hot tent. I was all set up and had the stove going by 12:45am. After getting organized and putting the final touches on everything I was in bed watching my hot tent television at 1:24am. Luckily the door and air inlet is within reach. I can sort of work the damper with a short stick but it requires some finesse.
Eggs and kielbasa for breffus! The no. 5 Wagner (1922-1924) is a perfect match with this stove!
I made a run for firewood the next day, maple I believe. After slicing it up and splitting into about 1/6ths, I had enough for the whole trip.
The little stove did well! It wasn't very cold (25-33° entire trip) and I had no problem maintaining a nice temp. Of course it's highly dependent on where you put the thermometer, but where I was sitting on the opposite side of the tent it was a steady 60° most of the time. Got up to 103° at my clothes line!
Yessir! Cooking a little chowder back there on the stove to go with.
The folding heat reflector I made for the stove was phenomenal!!! It's all one piece that folds and fits flat into a tote. It protects the tent while also reflecting heat from one side, back and bottom. As a bonus, it gets nice and hot underneath for drying wood...and cooking!
Warming up
I knocked it off, but there was a good 3" of heavy sticky snow. "Slight chance of freezing rain or drizzle". As usual, way to hit that NWS.
Hiking out...I seriously haven't worked this hard in a long time. I thought snowshoes would have helped "blaze" a trail ahead of the toboggan, but after running into a guy day-hiking in, I realized his snowshoe path was of little or no help. You can just make out the tire ruts in the snow; what a miserable chore pulling a 15" wide toboggan thru a 12" U-shape channel.
But there was a reward waiting 5 minutes from the trailhead...
That's all for now. I'm thrilled everything worked out as planned except for the trail. My "next time" list contains a modest 3 bullet points, so I won't have much to change. It certainly isn't the furnace I've seen from others with larger steel stoves, but it does the job in this small Smokehouse. When it's colder it may take more work. And anything larger than this tent, forget it, regardless of the weather.
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